diff options
Diffstat (limited to '63775-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 63775-0.txt | 6191 |
1 files changed, 6191 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/63775-0.txt b/63775-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..80f88ff --- /dev/null +++ b/63775-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6191 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Legend, by Clemence Dane + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Legend + + +Author: Clemence Dane + + + +Release Date: November 15, 2020 [eBook #63775] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGEND*** + + +E-text prepared by ellinora, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made +available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustration and + a music recording. + See 28711-h.htm or 28711-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28711/28711-h/28711-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28711/28711-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + https://archive.org/details/legenddane00daneiala + + +Transcriber’s note: + + Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). + + + + + +LEGEND + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS + ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO + + MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED + LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA + MELBOURNE + + THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. + TORONTO + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + +LEGEND + +by + +CLEMENCE DANE + +Author of “Regiment of Women” and “First the Blade” + + + + + + +New York +The Macmillan Company +1920 +All rights reserved + +Copyright, 1920 +by the Macmillan Company + +Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1920. + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +[Music: BEETHOVEN, Op. 57.] + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + LEGEND + + +_Messrs. Mitchell and Bent will shortly issue ‘The Life of Madala Grey’ +by Anita Serle: a critical biography based largely on private +correspondence and intimate personal knowledge._ + +That was in _The Times_ a fortnight ago. And now the reviews are +beginning— + +_The Cult of Madala Grey_.... + +_The Problem of Madala Grey_.... + +_The Secret of Madala Grey_.... + +I wish they wouldn’t. Oh, I _wish_ they wouldn’t. + +_No admirer of the late Madala Grey’s arresting art can fail to be +absorbed by these intimate and unexpected revelations_.... + +_Delicately, unerringly, Miss Serle traces to its source the inspiration +of that remarkable writer.... And—this will please Anita most of all_— + +_We ourselves have never joined in the chorus of praise that, a decade +ago, greeted the appearance of ‘Eden Walls’ and its successors, and in +our opinion Miss Serle, in her biographical enthusiasm, uses the word +genius a little too often and too easily. Madala Grey has yet to be +tried by that subtlest of literary critics, the Man with the Scythe. But +whether or not we agree with Miss Serle’s estimate of her heroine, there +can be no_ _two questions as to the literary value of the ‘Life’ itself. +It definitely places Miss Serle among the Boswells, and as we close its +fascinating pages we find ourselves wondering whether our grandchildren +will remember Miss Serle as the biographer of Madala Grey, or Madala +Grey as the subject matter merely, of a chronicle that has become a +classic._ + +That is to say—_La reine est morte. Vive la reine!_ Anita will certainly +be pleased. Well, I suppose she’s got what she wants, what she’s always +wanted. She isn’t a woman to change. The new portrait in the _Bookman_ +might have been taken when I knew her: the mouth’s a trifle harder, the +hair a trifle greyer; but no real change. But it amuses me that there +should be her portrait in all the papers, and none of Madala Grey; not +even in the _Life_ itself. I can hear Anita’s regretful explanations in +her soft, convincing voice. She will make a useful little paragraph out +of it— + +_Miss Serle, whose ‘Life of Madala Grey’ is causing no small stir in +literary circles, tells us that the brilliant novelist had so great a +dislike of being photographed that there is no record of her features in +existence. An odd foible in one who, in our own recollection, was not +only a popular writer but a strikingly beautiful woman._ + +And yet, from her heavy, solitary frame (we have no other pictures in +our den) that ‘beautiful woman,’ with her flowered scarf and her handful +of cowslips, is looking down at this moment at me—at me, and the press +cuttings, and _The Times_, and Anita’s hateful book. And she says, +unmistakably—‘Does it matter? What does it matter?’ laughing a little as +she says it. + +Then I laugh too, because Anita knows all about the portrait. + +After all, does it matter? Does it matter what Anita says and does and +writes? And why should I of all people grudge Anita her success? +Honestly, I don’t. And I don’t doubt that the book is well written: not +that I shall read it. There’s no need: I know exactly what she will have +written: I know how convincing it will be. But it won’t be true. It +won’t be Madala Grey. + +Of course Anita would say—‘My dear Jenny, what do you know about it? You +never even met her. You heard us, her friends, her intimates, talking +about her for—how long? An hour? Two hours? And on the strength of +that—that eaves-dropping five years ago’ (I can hear the nip in her +voice still) ‘you are so amusing as to challenge my personal knowledge +of my dearest friend. Possibly you contemplate writing the story of +Madala Grey yourself? If so, pray send me a copy.’ And then the swish of +her skirt. She always wore trains in those days, and she always glided +away before one could answer. + +But I could answer. I remember that evening so well. I don’t believe +I’ve forgotten a word or a movement, and if I could only write it down, +those two hours would tell, as Anita’s book never will, the story of +Madala Grey. + +I ought to be able to write; because Anita is my mother’s cousin; though +I never saw her till I was eighteen. + +Mother died when I was eighteen. + +If she had not been ill so long it would have been harder. As it was—but +there’s no use in writing down that black time. Afterwards I didn’t know +what to do. The pension had stopped, of course. I’d managed to teach +myself typing, though Mother couldn’t be left much; but I didn’t know +shorthand, and I couldn’t get work, and my money was dwindling, and I +was getting scared. I was ready to worship Anita when her letter came. +She was sorry about Mother and she wanted a secretary. If I could type I +could come. + +I remember how excited I was. I’d always lived in such a tiny place and +we couldn’t afford Mudie’s. To go to London, and meet interesting +people, and live with a real writer, seemed too good to be true. And it +helped that Anita and her mother were relations. Mother used to stay +with Great-aunt Serle when she was little. Somehow that made things +easier to me when I was missing Mother more than usual. + +In the end, after all those expectations, I was only three weeks with +Anita. They were a queer three weeks. I was afraid of her. She was one +of those people who make you feel guilty. But she was kind to me. I +typed most of the day, for she was a fluent worker and never spared +either of us; but she took me to the theatre once, and I used to pour +out when interesting people came to tea. In the first fortnight I met +nine novelists and a poet; but I never found out who they were, because +they all called each other by their Christian names and you couldn’t ask +Anita questions. She had such a way of asking you why you asked. She +used to glide about the room in a cloud of chiffon and cigarette +smoke—she had half-shut pale eyes just the colour of the smoke—and pour +out a stream of beautiful English in a pure cool voice; but if they +interrupted her she used to stiffen and stop dead and in a minute she +had glided away and begun to talk to someone else. Old Mrs. Serle used +to sit in a corner and knit. She never dropped a stitch; but she always +had her eyes on Anita. She was different from the rest of my people. She +had an accent, not cockney exactly, but odd. She had had a hard life, I +believe. Mother said of her once that her courage made up for +everything. But she never told me what the everything was. Great-aunt’s +memory was shaky. One day she would scarcely know you, and another day +she would be sensible and kind, very kind. She liked parties. People +used to come and talk to her because she made them laugh; but every now +and then, when Anita was being brilliant about something, she would put +up her long gnarled finger and say—‘Hush! Listen to my daughter!’ and +her eyes would twinkle. But I never knew if she were proud of her or +not. + +Everybody said that Anita was brilliant. She could take a book to pieces +so that you saw every good bit and every bad bit separated away into +little compartments. But she spoiled things for you, books and people, +at least she did for me. She sneered. She said of the Baxter girl once, +for instance—‘She’s really too tactful. If you go to tea with her you +are sure to be introduced to your oldest friend.’ And again—‘She always +likes the right people for the wrong reasons.’ + +Of course one knows what she meant, but I liked the Baxter girl all the +same. Beryl Baxter—but everyone called her the Baxter girl. She was kind +to me because I was Anita’s cousin, and she used to talk to me when +Anita wasn’t in the mood for her. She asked me to call her ‘Beryl’ +almost at once. Anita used to be awfully rude to her sometimes, and then +again she would have her to supper and spend an evening going through +her MSS. and I could tell that she was giving her valuable help. The +Baxter girl used to listen and agree so eagerly and take it away to +re-write. I thought she was dreadfully grateful. I hated to hear her. +And when she was gone Anita would lean back in her chair with a dead +look on her face and say— + +“God help her readers! Jenny, open the window. That girl reeks of +patchouli.” And then—“Why do I waste my time?” + +And Great-aunt Serle in her corner would chuckle and poke and mutter, +but not loud— + +“Why does she waste her time? Listen to my daughter!” + +The next time the Baxter girl came Anita would hardly speak to her. + +The Baxter girl seemed to take it as a matter of course. But once she +said to me, with a look on her face as if she were defending herself— + +“Ah—but you don’t write. You’re not keen. You don’t know what it means +to be in the set.” + +“But such heaps of people come to see Anita,” I said, “people she hardly +knows.” + +“They’re only the fringes,” said the Baxter girl complacently. “They’re +not in the Grey set. They don’t come to the Nights. At least, only a +few. Jasper Flood, of course—You’ve met him, haven’t you?—and Lila +Howe—_Masquerade_, you know, and _Sir Fortinbras_.” The Baxter girl +always ticketed everyone she mentioned. “And the Whitneys. She used to +stay with the Whitneys. And Roy Huth. And of course Kent Rehan.” + +“Kent Rehan?” + +“_The_ Kent Rehan,” said the Baxter girl. + +Then I remembered. The vicar’s wife always sent Mother the Academy +catalogue after she had been up to town. I used to cut out the pictures +I liked, and I liked Kent Rehan’s. They had wind blowing through them, +and sunshine, and jolly blobs that I knew must be raw colour, and always +the same woman. But you could never see her face, only a cheek curve or +a shoulder line. They were in the catalogue every year, and so I told +the Baxter girl. She laughed. + +“Yes, he’s always on the line. Anita says that’s the worst she knows of +him. And of course the veiled lady——” she laughed again, knowingly, “But +there is one full face, I believe. _The Spring Song_ he calls it. But +it’s never been shown. Anita’s seen it. She told me. He keeps it locked +away in his studio. They say he’s in love with her.” + +“With whom?” + +“Madala Grey, of course.” + +I said— + +“Who is Madala Grey?” + +The Baxter girl had sunk into the cushions until she was prone. I had +been wondering with the bit of mind that wasn’t listening what the +people at home would have said to her, with her cobweb stockings (it was +November) and her coloured combs and her sprawl. It was a relief to see +her sit up suddenly. + +“‘Who’s Madala Grey!’” Her mouth stayed open after she’d finished the +sentence. + +“Yes,” I said. “Who is she?” + +“You mean to say you’ve never heard of Madala Grey? You’ve never read +_Eden Walls_? Is there anyone in England who hasn’t read _Eden Walls_?” + +“Heaps,” I said. She annoyed me. She—they—they all thought me a fool at +Anita’s. + +The Baxter girl sighed luxuriously. + +“My word, I envy you! I wish I was reading _Eden Walls_ for the first +time—or _Ploughed Fields_. I don’t care so much about _The +Resting-place_.” She laughed. “At least—one’s not supposed to care about +_The Resting-place_, you know. It’s as much as one’s life’s worth—one’s +literary life.” + +“What’s wrong with it?” + +“Sentimental. Anita says so. She says she doesn’t know what happened to +her over _The Resting-place_.” + +“I like the title,” I said. + +“Yes, so do I. And I love the opening where——Oh, but you haven’t read +it. And you’re Anita’s cousin! What a comedy! Just like Anita, though, +not to speak of her.” + +“Why? Doesn’t Anita like her?” + +The Baxter girl was flat on the cushions again. She looked at me with +those furtive eyes that always so strangely qualified her garrulity. + +“Are you shrewd? Or was that chance?” + +“What?” + +“‘Doesn’t Anita like her?’” + +“Doesn’t she then?” + +“Ah, now you’re asking! Officially, very much. Too much, _I_ should say. +And too much is just the same as the other thing, I think. Would you +like Anita for your bosom friend?” + +Naturally I said— + +“Anita’s been very kind to me.” Anita’s my cousin, after all. I didn’t +like the Baxter girl’s tone. + +“Oh, she’s been kind to me.” The Baxter girl caught me up quickly. She +was like a sensitive plant for all her crudity. “Oh, I admire Anita. +She’s the finest judge of style in England. Jasper Flood says so. You +mustn’t think I say a word against Anita. Very kind to me she’s been.” +Then, innocently, but her eyes were flickering again—“She was kind to +Madala too, till——” + +“Well?” I demanded. + +“Till Madala was kind to her. Madala’s one of those big people. She’ll +never forget what she owes Anita—what Anita told her she owed her. After +she made her own name she made Anita’s. Anita, being Anita, doesn’t +forget that.” + +“How d’you mean—made Anita’s name?” + +“Well, look at the people who come here—the people who count. What do +you think the draw was? Anita? Oh yes, _now_. But they came first for +Madala. Oh, those early days when _Eden Walls_ was just out! Of course +Anita had sense for ten. She ran Madala for all she was worth.” + +“Then you do like Madala Grey?” + +“I?” The Baxter girl looked at me oddly. “She read my book. She wrote to +me. That’s why Anita took me up. She let me come to the Nights. She +started them, you know. Somebody reads a story or a poem, and then it’s +talk till the milkman comes. Good times! But now Madala’s married she +doesn’t come often. Anita carries on like grim death, of course. But +it’s not the same. Last month it was dreary.” + +“Is it every month?” + +“Yes. It’s tomorrow again. Tomorrow’s Sunday, isn’t it? It’ll amuse you. +You’ll come, of course, as you’re in the house.” + +“Will she? Herself?” I found myself reproducing the Baxter girl’s +eagerness. + +“Not now.” The common voice had deepened queerly. “She’s very ill.” She +hesitated. “That’s why I came today. I thought Anita might have heard. +Not my business, of course, but——” She made an awkward, violent gesture +with her hands. “Oh, a genius oughtn’t to marry. It’s wicked waste. +Well, so long! See you tomorrow night!” + +She left me abruptly. + +I found myself marking time, as it were, all through that morrow, as if +the evening were of great importance. The Baxter girl was always +unsettling, or it may have been Anita’s restlessness that affected me. +Anita was on edge. She was writing, writing, all the morning. She was at +her desk when I came down. There was a mass of packets and papers in +front of her and an empty coffee cup. I believe she had been writing all +night. She had that white look round her eyes. But she didn’t need any +typing done. Early in the afternoon she went out and at once Great-aunt, +in her corner, put down her knitting with a little catch of her breath. +But she didn’t talk: she sat watching the door. I had been half the day +at the window, fascinated by the fog. I’d never seen a London fog +before. I found myself writing a letter in my head to Mother about it, +about the way it would change from black to yellow and then clear off to +let in daylight and sparrow-talk and the tramp-tramp of feet, and then +back again to silence, and the sun like a ball that you could reach up +to with your hand and hold. I was deep in my description—and then, of a +sudden, I remembered that she wasn’t there to write to any more. It was +so hard to remember always that she was dead. I got up quickly and went +to Anita’s shelves for a book. Great-aunt hadn’t noticed anything. She +was still watching the door. + +The little back room that opened on to the staircase was lined to the +ceiling with books, all so tidy and alphabetical. Anita lived for books, +but I used to wonder why. She didn’t love them. Her books never opened +friendlily at special places, and they hadn’t the proper smell. I ran my +finger along the ‘G’s’ and pulled out _Eden Walls_. + +I began in the middle of course. One always falls into the middle of a +real person’s life, and a book is a person. There’s always time to find +out their beginning afterwards when you’ve decided to be friends. It +isn’t always worth while. But it was with _Eden Walls_. I liked the +voice in which the story was being told. Soon I began to feel happier. +Then I began to feel excited. It said things I’d always thought, you +know. It was extraordinary that it knew how I felt about things. There’s +a bit where the heroine comes to town and the streets scare her, because +they go on, and on, and on, always in straight lines, like a corridor in +a dream. Now how did she know of that dream? I turned back to the first +page and began to read steadily. + +When Anita’s voice jerked me back to real life it was nearly dark. She +was speaking to Great-aunt as she took off her wraps— + +“The fog’s confusing. I had to take a taxi to the tube. A trunk call is +an endless business.” + +“Well?” said Great-aunt. + +“Nothing fresh.” + +“Did _he_ answer?” + +Anita nodded. + +“Was he——? Is she——? Did you ask——? What did he tell you, Anita?” + +Anita stabbed at her hat with her long pins. She was flushing. + +“The usual details. He spares you nothing. Have you had tea, Mother?” +She rang the bell. + +Great-aunt beat her hand on the arm of her chair in a feeble, restless +way. When I brought her tea she said to me in her confidential whisper— + +“Give it to my daughter. She’s tired. She’ll tell us when she’s not so +tired.” + +She settled herself again to watch; but she watched Anita, not the door. + +And in a few minutes Anita did say, as the Baxter girl had said— + +“She’s very ill.” And then—“I always told you we ought to have a +telephone. I can’t be running out all the evening.” + +“Do they come tonight?” said Great-aunt Serle. + +Anita answered her coldly— + +“They do. Why not?” + +Great-aunt tittered. + +“Why not? Why not? Listen, little Jenny!” + +Anita, as usual, was quite patient. + +“Mother, you mustn’t excite yourself. Jenny, give Mother some more tea. +What good would it do Madala to upset my arrangements? Besides, Kent +will have the latest news. I think you may trust him.” She gave that +little laugh that was Great-aunt’s titter grown musical. Then she turned +to me. + +“By the way, Jenny, I expect friends tonight. You needn’t change, as +you’re in mourning. You’ll see to the coffee, please. We’ll have the +door open and the coffee in the little room. You might do it now while I +dress.” + +The big drawing-room was divided from the little outer room by a +curtained door. It was closed in the day-time for cosiness’ sake, but +when it was flung back the room was a splendid one. The small room held +the books and a chair or two, and a chesterfield facing the door that +opened on to the passage and the narrow twisting stairs. They were so +dark that Anita kept a candle and matches in the hall; but one seldom +troubled to light it. It was quicker to fumble one’s way. Anita used to +long for electric light; but she would not install it. Anita had good +taste. The house was old, and old-fashioned it should stay. + +I fastened back the door and re-arranged the furniture, and was sitting +down to _Eden Walls_ again when Great-aunt beckoned me. + +“Go and dress, my dear!” + +“But Anita said——” I began. + +She held me by the wrist, all nods and smiles and hoarse whispers. + +“The pretty dress—to show a pretty throat—isn’t there a pretty dress +somewhere? I know! Put it on. Put it on. What a white throat! I’ve a +necklace somewhere—but then Anita would know. Mustn’t tell Anita!” + +She pulled me down to her with fumbling, shaky hands. + +“Tell me, Jenny, where’s my daughter?” + +“Upstairs, Auntie.” + +“Tell me, Jenny—any news? Any news, Jenny?” + +I didn’t know what to say to her. I was afraid of hurting her. She was +so shaking and pitiful. + +“Is it about Miss Grey, Auntie?” + +“Carey, Jenny—Carey. Mrs. John Carey. Good name. Good man. But Anita +don’t like him. Anita won’t tell me. You tell me, Jenny!” + +“Auntie, it’s all right. It’s all right. She’ll tell you, of course, +when she hears again.” And I soothed her as well as I could, till she +let me loosen her hand from my wrist, and kiss her, and start her at her +knitting again, so that I could finish making ready the room. But as I +went to wash my hands she called to me once more. + +“Yes, Auntie?” + +“Put it on, Jenny. Don’t ask my daughter. Put it on.” + +She was a queer old woman. She made me want to cry sometimes. She was so +frightened always, and yet so game. + +But I went upstairs after supper and put on the frock she liked. Black, +of course, but with Mother’s lace fichu I liked myself in it too. I did +my hair high. I don’t know why I took so much trouble except that I +wanted to cheer myself up. It had been a depressing day in spite of +_Eden Walls_. I looked forward to the stir of visitors. And then I was +curious to see Kent Rehan. + +When I came down the Baxter girl was already there, standing all by +herself at the fire. She was strikingly dressed; but she looked +stranded. I wondered if Anita had been snubbing her. + +Anita was shaking hands with Mr. Flood and with a lady whom I had not +seen before. She was blonde, with greenish-golden hair and round eyes, +very black eyes that had no lights in them, not even when she smiled. +She often smiled. She had a drawling voice and hardly spoke at all, +except to Mr. Flood. If he talked to anyone else or walked away from +her, she would watch him for a minute, and then say—‘Jasper’ with a sort +of purr, not troubling to raise her voice. But he always heard and came. +She wore a wonderful Chinese shawl, white, with gold dragons worked on +it, and whenever she moved it set the dragons crawling. She was powdered +and red-lipped like a clown, and I didn’t really like her, but +nevertheless there was something about her that was queerly attractive. +When she smiled at me because I gave her coffee, I felt quite elated. +But I didn’t like her. Mr. Flood called her ‘Blanche.’ I never heard her +other name. + +Anita seemed very pleased to see them. I caught scraps. + +“Am so glad—one’s friends about one—such a strain waiting for news. I +phoned this afternoon. No, the usual phrases. Anxious, of course, but I +should certainly have heard if——Good of you to come! No chance of the +Whitneys, I’m afraid—too much fog. And what are you reading to us?” + +The Baxter girl, as I greeted her, stripped and re-dressed me with one +swift look. + +“My dear, it suits you! I wish I could look Victorian. But I’m vile in +black. Have you seen Lila? I met her on the step. They’ve turned down +_Sir Fortinbras_ in America. Isn’t it rotten luck? Anita said they +would. Anita’s always right. Any more news of Madala?” + +Anita overheard her. She was suddenly gracious to the Baxter girl. + +“You may be sure I should always let you know at once. And what is this +I hear about Lila? Poor Lila! It’s the last chapter, I’m afraid. I +advised her from the beginning that the American public will not +tolerate—but dear Lila is a law unto herself.” And then, as Miss Howe +came in—“Lila, my dear! How good of you to venture! A night like this +makes me wonder why I continue in London. Madala has urged me to move +out ever since——No. No news. But Jasper’s been energetic——” She circled +mazily about them while I brought the coffee. + +“Kent coming?” said Mr. Flood, fumbling with his papers. + +Anita shrugged her shoulders. + +“Who can account for Kent? It may dawn on him that he’s due here—and +again, it may not. It depends as usual, I suppose, on the new picture.” + +“Oh yes, there’s a new one,” recollected the Baxter girl carefully. + +“There must be! He was literally flocculent yesterday.” Miss Howe +chuckled. “That can only mean one of two things. Art or——” + +“—the lady! Who can doubt? Well, if Carey doesn’t object to his +brotherly love continuing, I’m sure I don’t. But I wish it need not +involve his missing his appointments.” Mr. Flood eyed his typescript +impatiently. + +Anita was instantly all tact. + +“Oh, we won’t wait. Certainly not. Pull in to the fire. Now, Jasper!” + +But Miss Howe, as she swirled into Anita’s special chair, her skirts +overflowing either arm, abolished Mr. Flood and his typescript with a +movement of her soft dimply hands. + +“Oh, I’m not in the mood even for Jasper’s efforts. I want to let myself +go. I want to damn publishers—and husbands! Damn them! Damn them! There! +Am I shocking you, Miss Summer?” + +She smiled at me over their heads. She was always polite to me. I liked +her. She was like a fat, pink pæony. + +“Well, if you take my advice——” began Anita. + +“My darling, I love you, but I don’t want your advice. I only want one +person’s advice—ever—and she has got married and is doing her duty in +that state of life——Hence I say—Damn husbands! I tell you I want Madala +to soothe me, and storm at the injustice of publishers for me, and +then—no, not give me a brilliant idea for the last chapter, but make me +tell her one, and then applaud me for it. _You_ know, Anita!” She dug at +her openly. + +I caught a movement in Great-aunt’s corner. + +“Coffee, Auntie?” + +She gave me a goblin glance. + +“My daughter!” She had an air of introducing her triumphantly. “Listen! +She don’t like fat women.” + +We listened. Anita’s voice was mellow with cordiality. + +“Yes indeed. Madala has often said to me that she thought you well worth +encouraging.” + +Miss Howe laughed jollily. + +“I admire your articles, Nita. I wilt when you review me. But you’ll +never write novels, darling. You’ve not the ear. Madala may have said +that, but she didn’t say it in that way.” + +“She certainly said it.” + +“Some day I’ll ask her.” + +“Some day! Oh, some day!” The Baxter girl was staring at the fire. +“Shall we ever get her back?” + +“In a year! Let us give her a year!” Mr. Flood looked up at the lady +beside him with a thin smile. I couldn’t bear him. He sat on the floor, +and he called you ‘dear lady,’ and sometimes he would take hold of your +watch-chain and finger it as he talked to you. But he was awfully +clever, I believe. He wrote reviews and very difficult poetry that +didn’t rhyme. Anita was generally mellifluous to him and she quoted him +a good deal. She turned to him with just the same smile— + +“Ah, of course! You’ve met John Carey too.” + +“For my sins, dear lady—for my sins.” + +“Not the same sins, surely,” breathed the blonde lady. + +“As the virtuous Carey’s? Don’t be rude to me! It’s a fact—the man’s a +churchwarden. He carries a little tin plate on Sundays! Didn’t you tell +me so, Anita? No—we give her a year. Don’t we, Anita?” + +“But what did she marry him for?” wailed the Baxter girl. + +They all laughed. + +“Copy, dear lady, copy!” Mr. Flood was enjoying himself. “Why will you +have ideals? Carey was a new type.” + +“But she needn’t have married him!” insisted the Baxter girl. The +argument was evidently an old one. + +“She, if I read her aright, could have dispensed with the ceremony, but +the churchwarden had his views. Obviously! Can’t you imagine him—all +whiskers and wedding-ring?” + +“But I thought he was clean-shaven! I thought he was good-looking!” I +sympathized with the Baxter girl’s dismay. + +“Ah—I speak in parables——” + +“You do hate him, don’t you?” said Miss Howe with her wide, benevolent +smile. “Now, I wonder——” + +Mr. Flood flushed into disclaimers, while the woman beside him looked at +Miss Howe with half-closed eyes. + +“I? How could I? Our orbits don’t touch. _I_ approved, I assure you. An +invaluable experience for our Madala! A year of wedded love, another of +wedded boredom, and then—a master-piece, dear people! Madala Grey back +to us, a giantess refreshed. Gods! what a book it will be!” + +“I wonder,” said Miss Howe vaguely. + +Anita answered her with that queer movement of the head that always +reminded me of a pouncing lizard. + +“No need! I’ve watched Madala Grey’s career from the beginning.” + +“For this I maintain—” Mr. Flood ignored her—“_Eden Walls_ and _Ploughed +Fields_ may be amazing (_The Resting-place_ I cut out. It’s an +indiscretion. Madala caught napping) but they’re preliminaries, dear +people! mere preliminaries, believe me.” + +“I sometimes wonder——” Miss Howe made me think of Saladin’s cushion in +_The Talisman_. She always went on so softly and imperviously with her +own thoughts—“Suppose now, that she’s written herself out, and knows +it?” + +The Baxter girl gave a little gasp of horrified appreciation. + +“So the marriage——” + +“An emergency exit.” + +But Anita pitied them aloud— + +“It shows how little you know Madala, either of you.” + +“Does anyone? Do you?” + +Anita smiled securely. + +“The type’s clear, at least.” Mr. Flood looked round the circle. His +eyes shone. “_Une grande amoureuse_—that I’ve always maintained. Carey +may be the first—but he won’t be the last.” + +“Is he the first? How did she come to write _The Resting-place_ then? +Tell me that!” Anita thrust at him with her forefinger and behind her, +in the corner, I saw the gesture duplicated. + +“So I will when I’ve read the new book, dear lady.” + +“If ever it writes itself,” Miss Howe underlined him. + +“As to that—I give her a year, as I say. Once this business is over—” +his voice mellowed into kindliness—“and good luck to her, dear woman——” + +“Ah, good luck!” said Miss Howe and smiled at him. + +“Once it’s over, I say——” + +“But she _will_ be all right, won’t she?” said the Baxter girl. + +“I should certainly have been told——” began Anita. + +Miss Howe harangued them— + +“Have you ever known Madala Grey fail yet? She’ll be all right. She’ll +pull it off—triumphantly. You see! But as for the book—if it comes——” + +“When it comes,” corrected Mr. Flood. + +“What’s that?” said Anita sharply. + +There was a sound in the passage, a heavy sound of feet. It caught at my +heart. It was a sound that I knew. They had come tramping up the stairs +like that when they fetched away Mother. Thud—stumble—thud! I shivered. +But as the steps came nearer they belonged to but one man. The door +opened and the fog and the man entered together. Everyone turned to him +with a queer, long flash of faces. + +“Kent!” cried Anita, welcoming him. Then her voice changed. “Kent! +What’s wrong? What is it?” + +He shut the door behind him and stood, his back against it, staring at +us, like a man stupefied. + +The Baxter girl broke in shrilly— + +“He’s wired. He’s had a wire!” She pointed at his clenched hand. + +Then he, too, looked down at his own hand. His fingers relaxed slowly +and a crush of red and grey paper slid to the floor. + +“A son,” he said dully. + +“Ah!” A cry from the corner by the fire eased the tension. Great-aunt +Serle was clapping her hands together. Her face was wrinkled all over +with delight. “The good girl! The pretty——And a son too! A little son! +Oh, the good girl!” + +Anita turned on her, her voice like a scourge— + +“Be quiet, Mother!” Then—“Well, Kent? Well?” + +“Well?” he repeated after her. + +“Madala? How’s Madala? What about Madala Grey?” + +“Dead!” he said. + +_Dead._ The word fell amongst the group of us in the circle of +lamp-light, like a plummet into a pool. _Dead._ For an instant one could +hear the blank drop of it. Then we broke up into gestures and little +cries, into a babel of dismay and concern and rather horrible +excitement. + +Instinctively I separated myself from them. It was neither bad news nor +good news to me, but it recalled to me certain hours, and they—it was as +if they enjoyed the importance of bereavement. Anita talked. Miss Howe +was gulping, and dabbing at her eyes. The Baxter girl kept on +saying—‘Dead?’ ‘Dead?’ under her breath, and with that wide nervous +smile that you sometimes see on people’s faces when they are far enough +away from laughter. Great-aunt had shrunk into her corner. I could +barely see her. The blonde lady had her hand on her heart and was +panting a little, as if she had been running, and yet, as always, she +watched Mr. Flood. He had pulled out a note-book and a fountain-pen and +was shaking at it furiously, while his little eyes flickered from one to +another—even to me. I felt his observance pursue me to the very edge of +the ring of light, and drop again, baulked by the dazzle, as I slipped +past him into the swinging shadows beyond. It’s odd how lamp-light cuts +a room in two: I could see every corner of the light and shadow alike, +and even the outer room was not too dim for me to move about it easily; +but to those directly under the lamp I knew I had become all but +invisible, a blur among the other blurs that were curtains and pictures +and chairs. They remembered me as little as, absorbed and clamorous, +they remembered the man who had brought them their news, and then had +brushed his way through question and comment to the deep alcove of the +window in the outer room and there stood, rigid and withdrawn, staring +out through the uncurtained pane at the solid night beyond. I could not +see his face, only the outline of a big and clumsy body, and a hand that +twitched and fumbled at the tassel of the blind. + +And all the while Anita, white as paper, was talking, talking, talking, +saying how great the shock was, and how much Miss Grey had been to her—a +stream of sorrow and self-assertion. It was just as if she said—‘Don’t +forget that this is far worse for me than for any of you. Don’t +forget——’ + +But the others went on with their own thoughts. + +“Dead? Gone? It’s not possible.” Miss Howe was all blubbered and +deplorable. “What shall we do without her?” + +“Yes—that’s it!” The Baxter girl edged-in her chair to her like a young +dog asking for comfort. + +“For that matter, from the point of view of literature,” Anita’s voice +grated, “she died a year ago.” + +“It’s not possible! That’s what I say—it’s not possible!” It was strange +how even the Baxter girl ignored Anita. “Dead! I can’t grasp it. +It’s—it’s too awful. She was so vivid.” + +“Awful?” Mr. Flood was biting his fingers. “Awful? Nothing of the kind. +You know that Holbein cut—no, it’s earlier stuff—‘Death and the Lady,’ +crude, preposterous. And _that’s_ what it is. Old Bones and Madala Grey? +That’s not tragedy, that’s farce! Farce, dear people, farce!” Then his +high tripping voice broke suddenly. “Dead? Why, she wasn’t thirty!” + +“She was twenty-six last June,” said Anita finally. “Midsummer Day. I +know.” + +“June!” He caught it up. “Just so—June! Isn’t that characteristic? Isn’t +that Madala all over? Of course she was born in June. She would be. She +_was_ June. June—— + + “Her lips and her roses yet maiden + A summer of storm in her eyes——” + +Miss Howe winced. + +“For God’s sake don’t Swinburnize, Jasper! She’s not your meat. Oh, I +want to cry—I want to cry! Dead—at twenty-six——” + +“In child-bed,” finished Anita bitterly, and her voice made it an +unclean and shameful end. + +Mr. Flood’s glance felt its way over her, hatefully. It never lifted to +her face. + +“Of course from your point of view, dear lady——” he began, and smiled as +he made his little bow of attention. + +I thought him insolent, and so, I believe, did Miss Howe. She lifted her +head sharply and I thought she would have spoken; but Anita gave her no +time. There was always a sort of thick-skinned valiance about Anita. + +“Oh, but you all know my point of view. She knew it herself. I never +concealed it. You know how I devoted myself——” + +“A bye-word, a bye-word!” said Miss Howe under her breath. + +“—but not so much to her as to her gift. I should never allow a personal +sentiment to overpower me. I haven’t the time for it. But she had the +call, she had the gift, and because she had it I say, as I have always +said, that for Madala Grey, marriage——” + +“And all it implies——” Mr. Flood was still smiling. + +She accepted it. + +“Marriage and all that it implies was apostasy. I stand for Literature.” + +“And Literature,” with a glance at the others, “is honoured.” + +They wearied me. It seemed to me that they sparked and fizzled and +whirred with the sham life of machinery: and like machinery they +affected me. For at first I could not hear anything but them, and then +they confused and tired me, and last of all they faded into a mere +wall-paper of sound, and I forgot that they were there, save that I +wondered now and then, as stray sentences shrilled out of the buzz, that +they were not yet oppressed into silence. + +For there was grief abroad—a grief without shape, without sound, without +expression—a quality, a pulsing essence, a distillation of pure pain. +From some centre it rayed out, it spread, it settled upon the room, +imperceptibly, like the fall of dust. It reached me. I felt it. It +soaked into me. I ached with it. I could not sit quiet. I was not drawn, +I was impelled. _Dead_—the dull, bewildered voice was still in my ears. +_That_ I heard. But it was statement, not appeal. It was not his +suffering that demanded relief, but some responding capacity for pain in +me that awoke and cried out restlessly that such anguish was unlawful, +beyond endurance, that still it I must, I must! + +I rose. I looked round me. Then I went very softly into the outer room. + +He was still standing at the window. The street lamp, level with the +sill, was quenched to a yellow gloom. It lit up the wet striped branches +and dead bobbins of the plane-tree beside it, and the sickly undersides +of its shrivelled last leaves. I never thought a tree could look so +ghastly. Against that unnatural glitter and the luminous thick air the +man and the half-drawn curtain stood out in solid, unfamiliar bulk of +black. + +I came and stood just behind him. He was so big that I only reached his +shoulder. He may have heard me: I think he did; but he did not turn. I +was not frightened of him. That was so queer, because as a rule I can’t +talk to strangers. I get nervous and red, and foolish-tongued, +especially with men. Of course I knew all the usual men, the doctor at +home, and the church people, and husbands that came back by the +five-thirty, and now all Anita’s friends, and Mr. Flood; but I never had +anything to say to them or they to me. But with Kent Rehan, somehow, it +was different. He was different. I never thought—‘This is a strange +man.’ I never thought—‘He doesn’t know me: it’s impertinent to break in +upon him: what will he think?’ I never thought of all that. I never +thought about myself at all. I was just passionately desiring to help +him and I didn’t know how to do it. + +I think I stood there for four or five minutes, trying to find words, +opening my lips, and then catching back the phrase before a sound came, +because it seemed so poor and meaningless. And all the while the Baxter +girl’s words were running in my head—‘They say he was in love with her.’ + +With her—with Madala Grey. She was the key. I had the strangest pang of +interest in this unknown woman. Who was she? What was she? What had she +been? What had she done so to centre herself in so many, in such alien +lives? What had she in common for them all? Books, books, books—_I’d_ +never heard of her books! And she was married. Yet the loss of her, +unpossessed, could bring such a look (as he turned restlessly from the +window at last) such a look to Kent Rehan’s face. I was filled with a +sort of anger against that dead woman, and I envied her. I never saw a +man look so—as if his very soul had been bruised. It was not, it was +never, a weak face, and it was not a young one; yet in that instant I +saw in it, and clearly, its own forgotten childhood, bewildered by its +first encounter with pain. It was that fleeting look that touched me so +and gave me courage, so that I found myself saying to him, very low and +quickly, and with a queer authority— + +“It won’t always hurt so much. It will get easier. I promise you it +will. It does. Truly it does. In six months—I _do_ know.” + +He looked down at me strangely. + +I went on because I had to, but it was difficult. It was desperately +difficult. I could hear myself blundering and stammering, and using +hateful slangy phrases that I never used as a rule. + +“I had to tell you. It isn’t cheek. I know—it hurts like fun. It’ll be +worst out of doors. You see them coming, you see them just ahead of you, +and then it isn’t them. But it won’t always hurt so horribly. I promise +you. One manages. One gets used to living with it. I know.” + +He looked at my black dress. + +“Your husband?” + +“No. Mother.” + +He said no more. But he did not go away from me. We stood side by side +at the window. + +The voices in the other room insisted themselves into my mind again, +against my will, like the ticking of a clock in the night. I was +thinking about him, not them. But Anita called to me to put coal on the +fire and, once among them, I did not like to go back to him again. + +They had re-grouped themselves at the hearth. Miss Howe was in the chair +with the chintz cover that was as pink and white and blue-ribboned as +she herself. The Baxter girl crouched on the pouf and the fire-light +danced over her by fits and starts till, what with her violet dress and +her black boy’s head with the green band in it and that orange glow upon +her, she looked like one of the posters in the Tube. The blonde lady had +pushed back her chair to the edge of the lamp-light, so that her face +was a blur and her white dress yellow-grey. Her knees made a back for +Mr. Flood sitting cross-legged at her feet, and watching the Baxter girl +as if he admired her. Once the blonde lady put her hand on his shoulder, +and he caught it and played with the rings on it while he listened to +her, and yet still watched the Baxter girl. She went on whispering, her +hand in his, till at last he put back his head and caught her eye and +laughed. Then she leaned back again as if she were satisfied. But I +thought—‘How I should hate to have that dank hair rubbing against my +skirt.’ Beside Mr. Flood lay the MS. he had brought, but I think Anita +had forgotten it. She, sitting at the table in her high-backed chair +(she never lolled), was still talking, indeed they were all talking +about this Madala Grey. Anita’s voice was as pinched as her face. + +“Oh, I knew from the first what it would be! She could never do anything +by halves. She had no moderation. The writing, the work, all that made +her what she was, tossed aside, for a whim, for a madness, for a man. I +can’t help it—it makes me bitter.” + +“Do you grudge it her so?” The Baxter girl looked at her wonderingly. “I +kicked at it too, of course. We all did, didn’t we? But now, I like to +think how happy she looked the last time she came here. Do you remember? +I liked that blue frock. And the scarf with the roses—I gave her that. +Liberty. She was thin though. She always worked too hard. Poor Madala! +Heigh-ho, the gods are jealous gods.” + +Anita stared in front of her. + +“Just gods. She served two masters. She was bound to pay.” + +“You are hard,” said the Baxter girl in a low voice. + +Miss Howe rocked herself. + +“But don’t you know how she feels? I do. It’s the helplessness——” + +Anita’s pale eye met and held her glance as if she resented that +sympathy. Then, as if indeed she were suddenly grown weak, she +acquiesced. + +“I suppose so. Yes, it’s the helplessness. ‘If this didn’t happen’—‘If +that weren’t so’—Little things, little things—and they govern one. A +broken doll—a cowslip ball—stronger than all my strength. And she +needn’t have met Carey. It was just a chance. If I’d known—that day! I +used to ask her questions, just to make her talk. I remember asking her +about her old home—more to set her off than anything. I said I’d like to +see it some day. It was true. I was interested. But it was only to make +her talk. But she—oh, you know how she foamed up about a thing. ‘My old +home! Would you, Anita? Would you like to come? Wouldn’t it bore you, +Anita? It’s all spoiled, you know. But I go down now and then. Nobody +remembers me. It’s like being a ghost. Oh, I _feel_ for ghosts. Would +you really like to come? Shall we go soon? Shall we go today?’ And then, +of course, down we go. And then we meet Carey. And then the play +begins.” + +Miss Howe shook her head. + +“Ends.” + +Anita accepted it. + +“Ends. Then the play ends.” And then, frowning—“If I’d known that day—if +I’d known! I was warned, too. That’s strange. I’ve never thought of it +from that day to this. If I were an old wife now——” She shivered. + +“What happened?” said the Baxter girl curiously. + +“Oh, well, off we went! We had a carriage to ourselves. I was glad. I +thought she might talk.” + +“And you always tried to make her talk,” said Miss Howe softly. + +Anita went on without answering her. + +“She grew quite excited as we travelled down, talking about her ‘youth.’ +She always spoke as if she were a hundred.” + +“She put something into that youth of hers, I shouldn’t wonder,” said +Miss Howe. + +“She did. The things she told me that day. I knew she had been in +America, but I never dreamed——She landed there, if you please, without a +penny in her pocket, without a friend in the world.” + +“I never understood why she went to America,” said Miss Howe. “I asked +her once.” + +“What did she say?” said Anita curiously. + +“To make her fortune. But I never got any details out of her.” + +“Didn’t you know?” said Anita. “Her people emigrated. The father failed. +It happened when Madala was eighteen, and she and her mother persuaded +him, expecting him, literally, to make their fortunes. The mother seems +to have been an erratic person. Irish, I believe. Beautiful. +Extravagant. I have always imagined that it was her extravagance—but +Madala and the husband seem to have adored her. I remember Madala saying +once that her father had been born unlucky, ‘except when he married +Mother!’ I suspect, myself, that that was the beginning of his ill-luck. +Anyhow, when the crash came, they gathered together what they had and +started off on some romantic notion of the mother’s to make their +fortune farming. America. Steerage. The _Sylvania_.” + +“_Sylvania?_ That’s familiar. What was it? A collision, wasn’t it?” + +“No, that was the _Empress of Peru_. The _Sylvania_ caught fire in +mid-ocean—a ghastly business. There were only about fifty survivors. +Both her people were drowned.” + +“Oh, that’s what she meant,” began Miss Howe, “that time at the Academy. +We were looking at a storm-scape, and she said—‘People don’t know. It’s +not like that. They wouldn’t try to paint it if they knew.’ She was +quite white. Of course I never dreamed——Poor old Madala! Well, what +happened?” + +“Oh, she reached America in what she stood up in. There was a survivors’ +fund, of course, but money melts in a city when you’re strange to it.” + +“Couldn’t she have come back to England?” + +“I believe she had relations over here, but her mother had quarrelled +with them all in turn. They didn’t appreciate her mother and that was +the unforgivable sin for Madala. She’d have starved sooner than ask them +to help her. I shouldn’t wonder if she did, too!—half starve anyway. I +shouldn’t wonder if those first bare months haven’t revenged themselves +at last.” + +“Oh, if one had known!” began the Baxter girl. “How is it that no one +ever knows—or cares?” + +“You? You were a schoolgirl. Who had heard of her in those days? But she +made friends. There was a girl, a journalist, who had been sent to +interview the survivors. She seems to have helped her in the beginning. +She found her a lodging—oh, can’t you see how she uses that lodging in +_Eden Walls_?—and gave her occasional hack jobs, typing, and now and +then proof-reading. Then she got some work taken, advertisement work, +little articles on soaps and scents and face-creams that she used to +illustrate herself. She was comically proud of them. She kept them all.” + +“I suppose in her spare time she was already working at _Eden Walls_?” + +“No. I asked her. And she said—‘Oh, no, I was too miserable. Oh, Anita, +I _was_ miserable.’ And then she began again telling funny stories about +her experiences. No, she was back in England before she began _Eden +Walls_. However, she seems to have made quite a little income at last, +even to have saved. And then, just when she began to see her way before +her to a sort of security, then she threw it all up and came home.” + +“Just like Madala! But why?” + +“Heaven knows! Homesick, she said.” + +“But she hadn’t got a home!” + +“It was England—the English country—the south country—the Westering Hill +country. She used to talk about it like—like a lover.” + +“Isn’t that more probable?” said Mr. Flood. + +“What?” + +“A lover.” + +“Carey?” + +“Not necessarily Carey.” + +Anita looked at him with a certain approval. + +“Ah—so you’ve thought of that, too? Now what exactly do you base it on?” + +He shrugged and smiled. + +“Delightfullest—my thoughts are thistle-down.” + +“But you have your theory?” She pinned him down. “I see that you too +have your theory.” + +“Our theory.” He bowed. + +“You’ve got wits, Jasper.” + +“What are you two driving at?” Miss Howe fidgeted. + +“We’re evolving a theory—a theory of Madala Grey. Who lived in the south +country, Anita?” + +“Carey, for that matter.” + +“Matters not. She didn’t come home for Carey. You can’t make books +without copy. Not her sort of book. Any more than you can make bricks +without straw. But she didn’t make her bricks from his straw, that I’ll +swear.” + +“No, she didn’t come home for Carey,” said Anita. “I tell you, that was +the day she met him. It’s barely a year ago. She had made her name twice +over by then. She was already casting about for her third plot. I think +it was that that made her so restless. She’d grown very restless. But +she certainly didn’t come home for Carey.” + +“Then why?” + +“Homesick.” + +“That’s absurd.” + +“I’m telling you what she said. She insisted on it. She used a queer +phrase. She said—‘I longed for home till my lips ached.’” + +The lady with Mr. Flood stirred in her shadows. + +“She didn’t imagine that. That happens. That is how one longs——” She +broke off. + +“For home?” he said, with that smile of his that ended at his mouth and +left his eyes like chips of quartz. + +She answered him slowly, him only— + +“I suppose, with some women, it could be for home. If she says so——That +is what confounds one in her. She knows—she proves that she knows, in a +phrase like that, things that (when one thinks of her personality) she +_can’t_ know—couldn’t know. It’s inexplicable. ‘Till one’s lips +ache’——Oh, Lord!” She laughed harshly. + +Anita looked at them uncertainly. + +“Well, that’s what she said. And to judge from her description Westering +was something to be homesick for. I expected a paradise.” + +“Westering? That’s quite a town.” + +“Yes, I know. There’s a summer colony. Madala mourned over it. She was +absurd. She raced me out of the station and up the hill, and would +scarcely let me look about me till we were at the top, because the lower +end of the village had been built over. It might have been the sack of +Rome to hear her—‘Asphalt paths! Disgraceful! The grocer used to have +_blue_ blinds. They’ve spoiled the village green.’ And so it went on +until we reached Upper Westering.” + +“Oh, where they live now?” + +“Yes. And then she turned to me and beamed—‘_This is_ my _country_.’ +It certainly is a pretty place. There’s a fine view over the downs; +but too hilly for me. We climbed up and down lanes and picked +ridiculous bits of twig and green stuff till I protested. Then she +took me into the churchyard. We wandered about: very pleasant it was: +such a hot spring day, and pretty pinkish flowers—what did she call +the stuff?—cuckoo-pint, springing from the graves—and daffodils. Then +we sat down in the shadow of the church to eat our lunch. We began to +discuss architecture and I was growing interested, really beginning to +enjoy myself—some of it was pre-Norman—when a man climbed over the +stile from the field behind the church, and came down the path towards +us. As he passed, Madala looked up and he looked down, and up she +jumped in a moment. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘I do believe—I _do_ believe—’ +You know that little chuckly rise in her voice when she’s pleased—‘I +do believe it’s you!’ ‘Oh, Madala,’ I said, ‘the sandwiches!’ They +were in a paper on her lap, you know. She had scattered them right and +left. But I might have talked to the wind. I must say he had perfectly +respectable manners. He turned back at once, and smiled at her, and +hesitated, and began to pick up the sandwiches, though he evidently +didn’t know her. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘don’t you remember? Aren’t you Dr. +Carey? You mended my camel when I was little. I’m Madala!’ She was +literally brimming over with pleasure. But, you know, such a silly way +to put it! If she had said ‘Madala Grey’ he would have known in a +moment. There were a couple of _Eden Walls_ on the bookstall as we +went through. I saw them. However, he remembered her then. He +certainly seemed pleased to see her, in his awkward way. He stood +looking down at her, amused and interested. People always got so +interested in Madala. Haven’t you noticed it? Even people in trams. +Though I thought to myself at the time—‘How absurd Madala is! What can +they have in common?’ Yes, I thought it even then.” + +“Well, what had they in common?” + +“Heaven knew! She was ten and he was twenty-five when they last met. He +knew her grand-people: he had mended her dolls for her: he lived in her +old home: that, according to her, was all that mattered. She said to me +afterwards, I remember, ‘Just imagine seeing him! I _was_ pleased to see +him. He belongs in, you know.’ ‘No, Madala,’ I said, ‘I don’t know. Such +a fuss about a man you haven’t seen since you were a child! I call it +affectation. It’s a slight on your real friends.’ ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘but +he belongs in.’ She looked quite chastened. She said—‘Nita, it wasn’t +affectation. I believe he was pleased too—honestly!’ He was. Who +wouldn’t be? You know the effect she used to make.” + +“What did he say?” asked the Baxter girl. + +“Oh, he looked down at her as if he were shy. Then he said—‘You’ve a +long memory, Madala!’ Yes, he called her Madala from the first. It +annoyed me. She said—‘Oh, do you remember when Mother was so ill once? +You were very kind to me then.’ Then she said something which amazed me. +I’d known her for two years before she told me anything about that +_Sylvania_ tragedy, but to him she spoke at once. ‘They’re dead,’ she +said, ‘Mother and Father. They’re drowned. There isn’t anyone.’ But her +voice! It made me quite nervous. I thought she was going to break down. +He said, with a stiff sort of effort—‘Yes. I heard.’ That was all. +Nothing sympathetic. He just stood and looked at her.” + +“Well?” said Miss Howe impatiently. + +“Oh—nothing else. I finished picking up the sandwiches. She introduced +me, but I don’t think he realized who I was. It annoyed me very much +that she insisted on his eating lunch with us. As I said to her +afterwards, it wasn’t suitable. Buns in a bag! But there he sat on a +damp stone (he gave Madala his overcoat to sit upon) perfectly +contented. I confess I wasn’t cordial. But he noticed nothing. Obtuse! +That was how I summed him up from the first—obtuse! And no conversation +whatever. Madala did the talking. I believe she asked after every cat +and dog for twenty miles round. And her lack of reticence to a +comparative stranger was amazing. She told him more about herself in +half an hour than she had told me in four years. But she was an +unaccountable creature.” + +“Yes, that’s just it. One never knew what Madala would do next, and yet +when she’d done it, one said—‘Of course! Just what Madala _would_ do!’ +But it wasn’t like her to neglect you, Nita!” + +“Oh, she noticed after a time. She began to be uncomfortable. I—withdrew +myself, as it were. You know my way. She didn’t like that. She tried—I +will say that for her—she did try to direct the conversation towards my +subjects. Useless, of course. He was, not illiterate—no, you can’t say +illiterate—but curiously unintellectual. Socialism now—somehow we got on +to socialism. That roused him. I must say, though he expressed himself +clumsily, that he had ideas. But so limited. He had never heard of Marx. +Bernard Shaw was barely a name to him. Socialism—his socialism—when we +disentangled it, was only another word for the proper feeding of the +local infants—drains—measles—the village schools. Beyond that he was +mute. But Madala chimed in with details of American slum life, and +roused him at once. They grew quite eloquent. But not one word, if you +please, of her own work. Anything and everything but her work. He did +ask her what she was doing. ‘Oh,’ said she in an offhand way, ‘I +scribble. Stories.’ And then—‘It earns money, and it kills time.’ Yes, +that’s exactly how she put it. ‘Madala!’ I said, ‘that’s not the +spirit—’ I’d never heard her use such a tone before. She had such high +ideals of art. It jarred me. I thought that she ought to have known +better. But she looked at me in such a curious way—defiant almost. She +said—‘It’s my own spirit, Nita. Oh, let me have a holiday!’ And at that +up she jumped and left us sitting there, and wandered off to the stile +and was over it in a second. We sat still. The hedge hid her. Then we +heard her call—‘Cowslips! Oh, cowslips!’ I thought he would go when she +called, but he sat where he was, listening. It was one of those hot, +still days, you know. There was a sort of spell on things. There were +bees about. We heard a cart roll up the road. I wanted to get up and +talk, make some kind of diversion, and yet I couldn’t. We heard her call +again—‘Hundreds of cowslips! I’m going to make a cowslip ball.’ Her +voice sounded far away, but very clear. And there was a scent of may in +the air, and dust—an intoxicating smell. It made me quite sleepy. It was +just as if time stood still. Three o’clock’s a drowsy time, I suppose. +And he never stirred—just sat there stupidly. But I was too sleepy to be +bored with him. Presently back she came. She had picked up her skirt and +her petticoat showed—it was that lavender silk you gave her, Lila. So +unsuitable, you know, on those dirty roads. And her skirt was full of +cowslips. She was just a dark figure against the sky until she was close +to us; but then, I thought that she looked pretty, extremely pretty. +Bright cheeks, you know, and her eyes so blue——” + +“Grey—” said Mr. Flood, “the grey eyes of a goddess.” + +“They looked blue, and she didn’t look like a goddess. She looked like a +little girl. Well, there she stood, with her grey skirt and her lavender +silk, and her cowslips—you know they have a sweet smell, cowslips, a +very sweet smell—and tumbled them all down on the tombstone. Then she +wanted string. Carey seemed to wake up at that. He’d been looking at her +as if he had dreamed her. He produced string. He was that sort of man. +Then she made her cowslip ball. I held one end of the string and he held +the other, and she nipped the stalks off the flowers and strung them +athwart it. That is the way to make a cowslip ball.” + +“Nita, I love you!” cried Miss Howe for the second time, and the others +laughed. + +She stopped. She stiffened. + +“I don’t know what you mean.” + +“Ne’ mind! Go on!” + +She said offendedly— + +“There’s nothing more to tell. We got up and came away.” + +But as we sat silently by, still waiting, the storyteller crept back +into her face. + +“Oh, yes—” up went her forefinger. “It was then that it happened. We +went stumbling over the graves, round to the east end, to see the +lepers’ window, a particularly interesting one. Ruskin mentions it. Yes, +Carey came with us. There’s a little bit of bare lawn under the window +before the stones begin again, and as we crossed it Madala gave a kind +of shuddering start. He said—‘Cold?’ smiling at her. She shivered again, +in spite of herself as it were, for she’d been joking and laughing, and +said—‘Someone must be walking over my grave.’ And at that he gave her +such a look, and said loudly in a great rough voice—‘Rubbish! don’t talk +such rubbish!’ Really, you know, the tone! And I thought to myself then +as I’ve thought many times since—‘At heart the man’s a bully—that’s what +the man is.’ But Madala laughed. We didn’t stay long after that. The +window was a disappointment—restored. There was nothing further to see +and Madala was quite right—it was chilly. The sky had clouded over and +there was a wind. I thought it time to go. Madala made no objection. She +had grown curiously quiet. She tired easily, you know. And he didn’t say +another word. Quite time to go. I thought we might try for the earlier +train, so we went off at last in a hurry. No, he didn’t come with us: we +shook hands at the gate. And when I looked back a minute later he had +turned away. We caught our train.” + +There was a little pause that Miss Howe ended. + +“Queer!” she said. + +Anita stared at them. Her hands twitched. + +“Oh, I’m a practical person, but—‘You’re walking on my grave,’ she said. +And there or thereabouts, I suppose, she’ll lie.” + +“Coincidence,” said Mr. Flood quickly. + +“Of course. I never thought of it again. Nor did Madala for that matter, +though she was quiet enough in the train. There she sat, looking out of +the window and smiling to herself. But then she was always like that +after any little excitement, very quiet for an hour, re-living +it—literally. I think, you know,” she hesitated, “that that was the +secret of her genius. Her genius was her memory. _She liked whate’er she +looked on_——” + +“And her looks were certainly everywhere,” said the blonde lady in her +drawling voice. + +“Just so. But it didn’t end there. She remembered. She remembered +uncannily. She was like a child picking up pebbles from the beach every +holiday, and spending all the rest of its year polishing. She turned +them into jewels. The process used to fascinate me—professionally, you +know. You could see her mind at work on some trifling incident, +fidgeting with it, twisting it, dropping it, picking it up again, till +one wearied. And then a year later, or two years, or three years, or ten +years maybe, you’ll pick up a novel or a story, and there you’ll find +it, cut, graved, polished, set in diamonds, but—the same pebble, if one +has the wit to see.” + +“Well, what did she say?” Miss Howe cut through the theory impatiently. + +Anita frowned. She disliked being hurried. + +“Oh, that day? Very little. I was surprised. She usually enjoyed pouring +herself out to me. But no, she just sat and smiled. It irritated me. +‘What is it, Madala?’ I said at last. She stared at me as if she had +never seen me before. ‘I don’t know,’ she said in her vague way. And +then—‘Wasn’t it a lovely day?’ I waited. I knew she would go on sooner +or later. Presently she said—‘That stone we sat on _was_ damp. He was +quite right.’ Then she said, thinking aloud as it were—‘You know, if a +man has a really pleasant voice, I like it better than women’s voices. +It’s so steady.’ And then—‘What did you think of him, Anita?’” + +Miss Howe chuckled. + +“And you said?” + +“Oh, I said what I could. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. It was so +obvious that the place and everyone in it was beglamoured for her. I +said that he seemed a worthy, harmless person, or something to that +effect. I forget exactly how I phrased it—I was tactful, of course. Oh, +I remember, I said that she ought to put him into a book—that the old +country doctors were disappearing, like the farmers and the parsons. I’m +sure I appeared interested. But all she said was—‘Old? He’s not old. +Would you call him old?’ ‘That was a figure of speech,’ I said. ‘I was +thinking of the type. But all the same you can’t describe him as young, +Madala.’ ‘Oh, he’s not a boy,’ she said. ‘No one ever said he was a +_boy_.’ She didn’t say any more. But just as we were getting out at +Victoria she cried—‘My cowslips! Anita, my cowslips! I’ve forgotten my +cowslip ball.’ I told her that it wouldn’t have lasted anyway, with the +stalks nipped off so short. But she looked as if she had lost a +kingdom.” + +“I believe I know that cowslip ball.” Miss Howe looked amused. “_A_ +cowslip ball, anyway. She had one sent to her once when I was there. I +thought it was from her slum children.” + +“Yes, he sent it on.” My cousin went on quickly with her own story. “How +he knew the address puzzled me. Her publishers wouldn’t have given it +and I know she didn’t.” + +“Telephone book,” said the Baxter girl, as one experienced. + +“Ah, possibly. I went round to her that morning, and—yes, you were +there, Lila,” she conceded, “for I remember I wondered how Madala could +compose herself to work with anyone else in the room. I always left her +to herself when she stayed with me.” + +“She didn’t mind me,” said Miss Howe firmly. + +“She always said that she didn’t, I know. And of course I know that it +is possible to withdraw oneself as it were, but I confess I disapproved. +Her room was a regular clearing-house in those days. Oh, not you +particularly, Lila, but——” + +“You came in yourself that morning, didn’t you?” said Miss Howe very +softly and sweetly. + +“I was telling you so. And what did I find? Her desk littered over with +string and paper and moss and damp cardboard, and that story Hooper +published (it had been freshly typed only the day before) watering into +purple under my eyes, while she sat and gloated over those wretched +flowers. ‘Madala!’ I said, ‘your manuscript! Really, Madala!’” + +“And Madala—” Miss Howe began to laugh—“Oh, I remember now.” + +“What did Madala say?” demanded the Baxter girl. + +“It wasn’t like her.” Anita fidgeted. “She knew how I disliked the +modern manner.” + +“But she said,” Miss Howe caught it up— + +“I don’t know what possessed her,” said my cousin with a rush. “She +actually stamped her foot at me. Yes, she did, and then held out her +wretched posy and said—‘Oh, damn the manuscript, Nita! Smell!’” + +“What did Nita do?” enquired the blonde lady softly of Miss Howe. + +“Sniffed,” Mr. Flood struck in. “Obviously! Satisfied Madala and +relieved her own feelings. That is called tact.” + +“And just then, you know,” Miss Howe glanced over her shoulder and +lowered her voice, “_he_ came in.” + +“Kent?” The lady with Mr. Flood did not lower her voice. I believe she +wanted him to hear. She was like a curious child poking at a hurt +beastie. Her smile was infantine as she looked across at him. But the +man at the window never stirred. + +“Sh!” Miss Howe frowned at her. And then, still whispering—“Yes, don’t +you remember? he had his studio in the same block all that year. He +always came across to Madala when he wanted a sardine tin opened, or +change for his gas, or someone to sit to him.” + +“Someone was saying that he couldn’t keep a model.” Mr. Flood glanced at +them in turn. + +Miss Howe flushed surprisingly. + +“It’s not that. You ought to know better, Jasper. It’s only that he’s +exigeant—never knows how the time goes, and” (she lowered her voice +still more), “and Madala spoilt him. She could sit by the hour looking +like a Madonna, and getting all her own head-work done, and never +stirring a hair. Of course he doesn’t like the shilling an hour type +after her.” + +“I know, I know! The explanation is quite unnecessary.” He smiled and +waved his hand. + +“Then why——?” She was still flushed and annoyed. + +“One gets at other people’s views. I merely wondered how +the—er—partnership appeared to your—er—intelligence. Now I know.” + +“She did spoil him.” Anita disregarded them. “The time she wasted on +him! In he came, you know, that day, and she went to meet him with the +cowslips still in her hand, and shielding her eyes from the sun. That +room of hers got all the morning sun.” + +“What did she wear—the blue dress?” The Baxter girl was like a child +being told a story. + +“I forget. Anyway he stood looking her up and down till she reddened and +began to laugh at him. And then he said—‘And cowslips too! What luck! +Come along! Come _along_!’ ‘Oh, my good man!’ I said, ‘she’s in the +middle of her writing!’ But it was useless to expostulate. He wanted her +and so she went. I heard him as he dragged her off. ‘Madala, I’ve got +such a notion!’ No, it was the great fault of her character, I consider, +that she could never deny anyone, not even for her work’s sake. Still, I +suppose one had to forgive it in that case, for that was the beginning, +you know, of _The Spring Song_. She is painted just as she stood there +that morning, literally gilded over with sunshine, and the flowers in +her hands.” + +“It’s the best thing he’s ever done, isn’t it?” said the Baxter girl. + +“Best thing? It’s a master-piece. It’s Madala Grey.” + +“When is he going to show it?” asked Mr. Flood. + +Anita shrugged. + +“Heaven knows! He insists that it isn’t finished. I believe he sits and +prays over it. He was annoyed that Madala took me there one day. You +know how touchy he is.” + +“He won’t show it now,” said the blonde lady. + +“Why not? Why not?” Anita hovered, on the pounce, like a cat over a bowl +of goldfish, and like a fish the blonde lady glided out of reach. + +“And _she_ asks!” she appealed to the others. + +Anita frowned. + +“You’re cryptic.” + +“Well, wasn’t there a certain—rivalry? You should have a +fellow-feeling.” + +“Oh—” she resented quickly, “Kent always wanted to keep her to himself, +if you mean that.” + +The blonde lady smiled. + +“And now he keeps her to himself. I mean just that. I go by your +account, of course. _I_ haven’t glimpsed _The Spring Song_.” + +“So that started it.” The Baxter girl mused aloud. “I think that’s +romantic now—to make a famous picture and to pick up one’s husband, all +in twenty-four hours.” + +“‘Pick up!’” + +“You know what I mean—fall in love.” + +“‘Fall in love!’” + +“Nita, don’t trample.” Miss Howe threw the Baxter girl a cigarette. + +“I only mean—it was romantic, meeting like that so long ago and nobody +knowing a word until just before they were married, except you, Miss +Serle. And I don’t believe you guessed?” She questioned her with defiant +eyebrows. + +“How could I guess what never happened? ‘In love!’ I suppose it deceived +some good folks.” + +“It wasn’t so long ago,” Miss Howe soothered them. She had a funny +little way of slipping people into another subject if she thought that +they sounded quarrelsome. ‘Let’s be comfortable!’ was written all over +her. And yet she could scratch. I think that a great many women are like +Miss Howe. + +“Long ago? Of course not!” Anita picked it up at once. “How long is it? +A year? Eighteen months? April, wasn’t it? She wrote _The Resting-place_ +in the next three months. Scamped. I shall always say so. She was three +years over _Ploughed Fields_. Yes, April began it. _The Resting-place_ +was out for the Christmas sales. She married him at Easter. And now it’s +November. The year’s not gone. But Madala Grey is gone.” + +“Where?” said the Baxter girl intensely. + +“Don’t!” said Miss Howe. + +But the Baxter girl looked as if she couldn’t stop herself. + +“We—we put her into the past tense—d’you notice how easily we’re doing +it already?—but—is she less alive to you, less lovable, less Madala Grey +to you, because of a telegram and a funeral service? is she?” + +“No,” said Miss Howe. “If you put it like that—no.” + +“Yes,” said Mr. Flood. “When you put it like that—yes.” + +“She must be somewhere,” argued the Baxter girl. “She can’t just stop.” + +“Why not?” said Mr. Flood, with his bored smile. + +“She can’t. I feel it,” she said with her hand at her heart and her +large eyes on him. + +“I don’t,” he said to her, and he lost his smile. “‘Dust to dust——’” + +The woman behind him moved restlessly. + +“Jasper, _dear_! How trite!” + +“But the spirit?” said the Baxter girl, “the spirit?” + +Nobody answered. The little blue flames on the hearth capered and said +‘Chik-chik!’ Anita shivered. + +“The room’s getting cold,” she said sharply. And then—“Jenny, is that +door open? There’s such a draught.” + +I got up and went to see. But the door was shut. When I came back they +were talking again. Anita was answering the Baxter girl. + +“Yes, I stayed there once. A pretty place. The sort of place she would +choose. All roses. No conveniences. And what with the surgery and the +socialism, the poor seemed to be always with us. Only one servant——” + +“She _ought_ to have made money,” said Miss Howe. + +“Oh, the first two books were a _succès d’estime_, I wept over her +contract. She did make a considerable amount of money on _The +Resting-place_. But it was all put by for the child. She told me so. He, +you know, a poor man’s doctor! She told me that too—flung it at me. She +had an extravagant way of talking, manner more than anything, of course, +but to hear her you would almost think she was proud of the life they +led. She was always unpractical.” + +“I’d like to have gone down there once,” said Miss Howe. “If I’d +known—heigh-ho!” + +“I—I wished I hadn’t gone,” said Anita slowly. “It wasn’t a success.” + +“The husband, I suppose,” the Baxter girl hinted delicately. + +“No, I hardly saw him. It was Madala herself. Changed. Affectionate—she +was always that to me but——I remember sitting with her once. We had been +talking, about Aphra Behn I believe, and she had grown flushed and had +begun to stammer a little. You know her way?” + +“I know.” The Baxter girl leaned forward eagerly. + +“And she was tracing a parallel between the development of the novel and +the growth of the woman’s movement—her old vein. Brilliant, she was. And +all at once she stopped and began staring in front of her. You know that +trick she had of frowning out her thoughts. I was careful not to +interrupt. I knew something big was coming. She could be—prophetic, +sometimes. At last she said in a worried sort of way—‘I’ve a dreadful +feeling that we’re out of coffee and it’s early closing.’ No, I’m not +exaggerating—her very words. And then some long rigmarole about Carey’s +appetite, and that if she made the coffee black strong she could +persuade him to take more milk with it. Oh—pitiful! And in a moment +she’d dashed off on a three mile walk to the next village where there +was a grocer that did open on Wednesdays. Oh, it was most pathetic. It +made me realize the effect that he was having on her—stultifying! I +always did dislike him.” + +“Well, I don’t know,” said Miss Howe. + +“Just so—you don’t know. Naturally, you were not so intimate with +Madala. Well, that very afternoon, I remember, he came in at tea-time. +That was unusual: he was generally late for seven-thirty dinner, and +then he didn’t change. I used to wonder how Madala allowed it. Well, as +I was telling you, he came in, stamping through the hall, calling to +her, and when he opened the drawing-room door and found that she was +out, you should have seen his look! Sour! No other word! And off he went +at once to meet her, on his bicycle, though I was prepared to give him +tea. They didn’t come back for hours. In fact I had gone up to change. I +saw them from the window, coming up the drive. And there was Madala +Grey, perched on _his_ bicycle, with a great bunch of that white parsley +that grows in the hedges, and a string bag dangling down, while he +steadied her, and both of them _talking_! and as he helped her off, she +kissed him—in front of the kitchen windows. And, if you please, not a +word of apology to me. All she said was—why hadn’t I seen that he had +some tea before he went after her? I think it’s the only time I’ve ever +seen Madala annoyed. No, you can’t say the marriage improved her.” She +paused. “It was so unlike her,” she meditated, “as if I could help it! +You know, I’d always thought her so considerate. Carey’s influence, of +course. Oh,” she cried out suddenly and angrily, “I’ve got nothing +against Carey. I’m not prejudiced. But if he’d been the sort of man one +could approve—someone——” Her eye wandered from Kent Rehan to Mr. +Flood—“but he was dragging her down——” + +Miss Howe shook her head. + +“Anita, you’re wrong. I’ve only met him a couple of times but I liked +what I saw of him. An honest, straightforward sort of person. Oh, not +clever, of course. He’d have bored me in a week——” + +“Ah?” said the woman behind Mr. Flood. + +“Oh, yes, dull—distinctly. But I had the impression that if I’d been one +of his patients I should have done everything he told me to do.” + +Anita shrugged. + +“Oh, I’ve no doubt he had every virtue, but it’s idle to pretend that he +made any attempt to appreciate Madala Grey.” + +“You don’t suggest that the man didn’t love his wife, do you?” said Miss +Howe in her downright way. + +“I suggest nothing. But the fact remains—I give it for what it is +worth—but the fact does remain that John Carey has never read one of her +books—not one!” + +“What?” The Baxter girl’s mouth opened and stayed so. + +“You don’t intend to say——” began Mr. Flood. + +“I don’t believe it,” said Miss Howe contemptuously. + +“Why not? I’ve known a man jealous of his wife before now. I suppose he +knew enough to know that she had the brains.” The blonde lady was +smiling. + +Anita shook her head reluctantly. + +“Jealousy? H’m—it might have been, of course. But I didn’t get that +impression. I believe that it was a perfectly genuine lack of interest.” + +“Yes, but I don’t believe it. How d’you know he didn’t? It’s not a thing +he’d own to. Who told you?” + +“Madala. Madala herself. She used to make a joke of it.” + +“She never showed when she was hurt,” said the Baxter girl emotionally. + +“Yes, but it almost seemed as if she were not hurt, as if her—her +sensitiveness, her better feelings, had been blunted. I’ve known her use +it as a _weapon_ almost,” said Anita conscientiously recollecting. +“He—that annoyed me so—he was very peremptory with her sometimes, most +rude in his manner. Of course, you know, she _was_ dreamy. Not that that +excused him for a moment. I remember a regular scene——” + +“Before you?” Miss Howe cast instant doubt upon it. + +“My room was next to theirs. I could hear them through the wall. I can +assure you that he stormed at her in a most ungentlemanly way——” + +“What about?” said the Baxter girl breathlessly. + +“Something about his razors. A parcel had come by the early post, and +just because she had cut the string—but I couldn’t follow it all. He was +a man who was easily irritated by trifles. Well, as I say, after he had +raged at her for five minutes or more, till I could have gone in and +spoken to him myself, all that that patient woman said, was—‘Darling, +have you begun _Eden Walls_ yet?’ I tell you the man never said another +word.” + +“He didn’t prevent her writing, did he?” said Miss Howe. + +“There’s no doubt that he discouraged her. He was selfish. It was his +wretched doctoring all day long—and you know how sensitive Madala was. I +did persuade her to do some work while I was staying with them, but I +soon saw that it was labour thrown away. Her heart wasn’t in it. When it +wasn’t Carey it was the baby clothes. For the sake of her reputation,” +her voice hardened, “it’s as well that she has died when she has.” + +“Anita!” + +“I mean it.” She was quick and fierce. “Do you think it was a little +thing for me to see that pearl of great price—oh, not Madala Grey! I +grew to hate her almost, that new Madala Grey—but the gift within her, +her great, blazing genius—flung away, trampled on——” + +Miss Howe turned her head in slow denial. + +“No, Anita! Not genius. Charm, if you like. Talent, as much as you +please. But Madala Grey wasn’t a genius, and she knew it.” + +Anita flung up her head. + +“She will be when I’ve done with her. She will be when I’ve written the +_Life_.” + +“Ah, the poor child!” said Great-aunt startlingly. + +Anita never heeded. She was wrapt away in some cold passion of her own, +a passion that amazed me. I had always thought of her as what she +looked, an ordered, steely woman, all brain and will; yet now of a +sudden she revealed herself, a creature convulsed, writhing in flames. +But they were cold flames. Cold fire, is there such a thing? Ice burns. +There is phosphorus. There is the light of stars. I know what I mean if +only I had the words. Star-fire—that’s it. She was like a dead star. She +warmed no one, she only burned herself up. + +It was the impression of a moment. When I looked again it was as if I +had been withdrawn from a telescope. She was herself once more. The +volcano had shrunk to a diamond twinkle, to a tiny, gesticulating +creature with a needle tongue. It was bewildering: while I listened to +her I was still thinking—‘Yes, but which is Anita? Diamond or star? What +makes the glitter? Frost or flame?’ + +But that blonde woman in the shadows went off into noiseless laughter +that woke the dragons and stirred Mr. Flood to an upward glance. Then he +hunched himself closer against her knees, his chin low on his chest, so +that his tiny beard and mouth and eyes were like triangles standing on +their points. The pose gave him a glinting air of mockery and yet, +somehow, you did not feel that he was amused. You only felt—‘Oh, he’s +practised that at a looking-glass.’ + +He drawled out— + +“The _Life_, dear lady? Enlighten our darkness.” + +“That,” came the murmur behind him, “is precisely what she is going to +do. How dense you are, Jasper!” + +And at the same moment from Miss Howe— + +“Be quiet, you two! Tell us, Anita! A life of her? Is that it? Ah, well, +I always suspected your note-book. Did she know you Boswellized?” + +“She?” There was the strangest mixture of scorn and admiration in the +voice. “As if one could let her know! That was the difficulty with +Madala Grey: she wouldn’t take herself seriously. She had—” a pause and +a search for the correct word—“what I can only call a _perverted_ sense +of humour. If she’d known that I—noted things, she’d have been quite +capable of falsifying all her opinions, misrepresenting herself +completely, just to—throw me out, as it were. Not maliciously, I don’t +mean that. But she teases,” finished Anita petulantly. “She will do it. +She laughs at the wrong things. Of course she’s young still.” + +“Yes, she’s young—now. She stays young now. She gains that at least,” +said the woman in the shadows. + +Anita made a quick little sound, half titter and half gasp. + +“Oh!” she cried—and her voice was as grey as her face—“I forgot. Do you +know—I forgot! It’s going to be ghastly. I believe I shall always be +forgetting.” + +I glanced up at Kent Rehan. It made me realize that I had been listening +with anxiety, that I was afraid of their expressive sentences. They had +words, those writing people. They knew what they thought: they could say +what they thought: and what they thought could hurt. I didn’t want him +to be hurt. I said, under my breath— + +“Oh, why do you stay here? They aren’t your sort.” + +But he had heard nothing. He was poring over the long tassel of the +blind, weaving it into a six-strand plait. I couldn’t help watching his +fingers. He had the most beautiful hands that I’ve ever seen on a man. +They looked like two alive and independent creatures. They looked as if +they could do anything they chose, whether he were there to superintend +or not. And he was miles away. I was glad. Anita’s voice was rising like +a dreary wind. + +“Just that is so strange. All the time I’ve known her I’ve thought of +her in the past tense. Her moods, her ways, her actions, were finished +things to me—chapters of the _Life_. I _wrote_ her all the time. But +now, when she _is_ mine, as it were, now that she exists only in my +notes and papers and remembrance of her, now it comes that I’m shaken. I +can’t think of her as a subject any more. I shall be wanting +her—herself. I can’t think clearly. It’s frightening me, the work there +is ahead of me. Because I’ve got to do it without her. She’s lying dead +down there in Surrey—now—at this minute. And there’s that man—and a +child. One’s overwhelmed. It’s so cruel. The only creature who ever +cared for me. Think of Madala, quite still, not answering, not lighting +up when you speak to her, staring at the ceiling, staring at her own +coffin-lid. In two days she’ll be under the ground. Do you ever think +what that means—burial—the corruption—the——” + +“Stop it, Nita!” Miss Howe’s movement blotted out my cousin’s face. “Do +you hear? I can’t stand it. Here—drink some coffee. Jasper! Say +something!” I heard the coffee-cup dance in its saucer. + +There came Aunt Serle’s anxious quaver— + +“Anita! Nita! What’s the matter, my dear? What’s the matter with my +daughter?” + +Nobody answered. She was like a tortoise as she poked her head from the +hood of her chair. + +“Jenny!” she called cautiously. “Jenny!” + +I slipped across the room to her. + +“What’s it about, Jenny? Eh? Speak up, my dear! Not crying, is she? +Temper, that’s it. Don’t say I said so.” + +“It’s all right, Auntie. She—they—it’s the bad news. It’s upset them +all.” + +“Bad news? Fiddlesticks! Temper, I call it. Why shouldn’t the girl get +married? Not much money, but a pleasant fellow. Time for her to settle. +I said to her—‘My dear, you follow your heart.’ But Nita tried to stop +it. Nita couldn’t get over it. Cried. Temper. That’s it. Look at her +now. ’Sh! Don’t let her see you.” + +But Anita wasn’t looking at me and she wasn’t crying. I suppose +Great-aunt must have known what she was talking about; but it wasn’t +easy to imagine my cousin soft and red-eyed like that great, +good-natured Miss Howe. Her little sharp face looked as controlled as if +it were carved. Yet, as she said herself, she was shaken. That showed in +the jerkiness of her movements, the sharpening of her voice, in the +break-up of her accustomed flow of words into staccato, like a river +that has come to some rocks: and her hands had a clock-work, incessant +movement, clutch-clutch, fingers on palm, that her eyes repeated. They +were everywhere at once, resting, flitting, settling again, yet seeing +nothing, I think, while she listened to Mr. Flood and grew more +irritated with every word. + +“Why bad news?” said Great-aunt in my ear. “It’s a son, isn’t it?” + +I hesitated. + +“Oh, Auntie, didn’t you hear?” (She had heard, you know. I had seen her +shrinking back when Anita screamed at her, with that dreadful shrinking +that you see in an animal threatened by a head-blow. She had been +leaning forward, and eager. She must have heard.) + +“Hear? They all talk,” she quavered. “‘Be quiet,’ says Anita. Ah, I’ve +spoilt her. Now Madala——What’s the time, my dear? Why don’t she come?” + +“Auntie—Auntie——” + +“Eh?” she said. “Why don’t Madala come?” + +“Auntie—you’ve forgotten. She’s been ill.” + +“Ah—and she’ll be worse before she’s better,” said Great-aunt briskly. +“’Sh! Listen to my daughter.” + +We listened: at least, I listened. Great-aunt cocked her head on one +side, still as a bird, for a minute; then, like a bird, she was +re-assured and fell to her knitting again. + +Anita and Mr. Flood were quarrelling. + +“Why shouldn’t I? Tell me that! Is anyone better fitted? Who knows as +much about her as I do? Didn’t I discover her, hacking on two pounds a +week? Didn’t I recognize what she was? Who sent her to Mitchell and +Bent? Who introduced her everywhere? Who bullied her into writing +_Ploughed Fields_? Who was the best friend she ever had—even if I didn’t +make the parade of being fond of her that——Oh, I’ve no patience! What +would the world know of Madala Grey if it weren’t for me?” + +“But—oh, of course we all know how good you were to her, Miss Serle, +indeed I can guess by what you’ve done for me——” began the Baxter girl. + +Mr. Flood’s tongue tip showed between his red lips. I think he would +have made some comment but for the hand pressing on his shoulder. + +“But——?” said the woman behind the hand. + +“I only mean—‘genius will out,’ won’t it?” + +“Genius? Big word!” said Miss Howe. + +“Not too big.” The Baxter girl reddened enthusiastically. + +“‘Genius will out?’ Not Madala Grey’s. She didn’t know she had any. I +don’t believe she ever fully realized——Why, it was the merest chance +that _Eden Walls_ didn’t go into the fire. If it hadn’t been for me—if +it hadn’t been for me——” + +“Ah—_you_!” Miss Howe squared up to her. “Now just what (among friends) +have you stood to gain? Fond of her? Oh yes, you were, Anita! Don’t tell +me! But in spite of yourself, eh? But that wasn’t what you were after. +You didn’t get the pleasure out of her that—I did, for instance. You +used to exhaust Madala. I’ve seen you do it. You—you drained her.” + +“Yes, I did. I meant to,” said Anita with her laugh. “Pleasure!” + +“And she thought you were fond of her. She used to flare if anyone +attacked you. Poor Madala!” + +“Poor? Why? I shall give it all back.” Anita gave her a long cool look. +“I—I hate debts,” said Anita. + +Miss Howe flushed brightly. + +“If you were cursed with the artistic temperament——” She broke off and +began again. “If I were a poor devil of a Bohemian in a hole, it’s not +to you I’d go——” + +“—twice!” said Anita. + +Again they eyed each other. Miss Howe, still flushing, chose her words. + +“Madala never lent. That wasn’t in her. She gave. Time, money, love—she +gave. You took, it was understood, rather than hurt her feelings by +refusing. But it was always free gift.” + +“Not to me.” Anita held her head high. “I shall pay. And interest too.” + +“Oh, the _Life_! Are you really going to attempt a _Life_?” Miss Howe +recovered herself with a laugh, while Mr. Flood repeated curiously— + +“Yes, but then what were you after, Anita? What do you stand to gain?” + +“Reflected glory,” came from behind him. + +She turned as if she had been stung. + +“Reflected? Let her keep it! Reflected? Am I never to have anything of +my own? Oh, wait!” + +“You can’t get much of yourself into a life of Madala Grey though. +You’ve too much sense of style for that,” Mr. Flood insisted. “We both +hate a biographer who ‘I says, says I.’” + +“Oh, it shall be all Madala Grey. I promise you that,” she said with her +thin smile. + +“Humph! It’s a notion.” Miss Howe was really interested, I could see—yet +with a flush on her cheek still. “It’s your sort of work too, Anita! +You’re—happier—in critical work.” + +“Oh, don’t hedge. Don’t be delicate with me. I can’t create, that’s what +you mean. Do you think that’s news to me? Is there a critic who has +failed to make it clear to me? I can record—but I can’t create. Good! I +can’t create. I can’t do what she did—what you do, Jasper—what even +Beryl here does. But——” she paused an instant, “you should be afraid of +me for all that. I can pry. Little, nasty, mean word, isn’t it? It’s +me!” + +The Baxter girl laughed uncertainly and then stopped because Anita’s +eyes were on her. + +“I’ve eyes. I”—she opened and shut her tiny hands before them—“I’ve +claws. I can pry you open, any of you—if I choose. I haven’t chosen. +You’ve not been worth while. But—Madala!” and here she released the +uneasy Baxter girl—“Madala’s my chance—my chance—my chance! Madala +Grey—look at her—coming into her kingdom at twenty—that babe! And me! +Look at me! Do you know what my life has been, any of you? Oh, you come +to my house to meet my lionets, and we’re very good friends, and you’re +afraid of my reviews, and so I have my position, I suppose. But what do +you know about me? When I was fifteen—and it’s thirty years ago—I said +to myself, ‘Now what shall I do with my life?’ Mother—” she shot her a +glance: she didn’t even trouble to lower her voice, “she’d have drudged +me and dressed me and married me, I suppose, to three hundred a year and +the city—oh, with the best of motives. I fought. I fought. That’s why +I’m an ungrateful daughter. I’m supposed to be, I think. My people were +so sorry for my mother. My people thought me a fool. I saw through them. +Yes, and I saw through myself. That’s the kind of a fool I was. Didn’t I +reckon it out? I hadn’t a charm. I hadn’t a talent. I had my _will_. +That’s all I had. I taught myself. Work? You don’t know what work means, +you ten and five-talented. There’s not a book worth reading that I +haven’t read. There’s not the style of a master that I haven’t studied, +that I couldn’t reproduce at a pinch. There’s not a man or a woman in +London today, worth knowing—from my point of view—that I haven’t +contrived to know. The people who’ve arrived—how I’ve studied them, the +ways of them, the methods of them. And what’s the end of it all? That” +—she jerked her head to the row of her own books on the shelf behind +her—“and my column in the _Matins_, and some comforting hundreds a year, +and—my knowledge of myself. Oh, I’ve turned out good work. I know that. +I have judgment. That’s why I judge myself. I’ve always been rigid with +myself. And so I know when I look at my books—though I can say that they +are sounder, better work, in better English, that they have more +knowledge behind them, than the books of a dozen of you people who +arrive—yet I know that they have failed. People don’t read me. People +don’t want me. Why? I have my name. I’ve the name of a well-known +critic, but—I’m only a name. I’m not alive. The public doesn’t touch +hands with me. Now why? Oh, how I’ve tormented myself. Nearly thirty +years I’ve given, of unremitting labour, to my art, to my career. +There’s not a thought or a wish that I haven’t sacrificed to it. And +then that child of twenty comes along, without knowledge, without +training, without experience, and gets at one leap, mark you all, at one +leap, more than I’ve achieved in thirty years. Some people, I suppose, +would submit. Well, I won’t. I wouldn’t. Does my will go for nothing? I +_will_ have my share. ‘Reflected glory,’ yes, I’ve stooped to that. I’ve +exploited her, if you like to call it that. When I think of the day I +discovered her——” She paused an instant, dragging her hand wearily over +her eyes—“I was at my zero that day. The _Famous Women_ had been out a +week. The reviews—oh, the reviews! Respectful, courteous, lukewarm. If +they’d attacked me, if they’d slated, I’d have rejoiced. But they +respect me and they’re bored. They know it’s sound work and they’re +bored. I bore people. I bore you—all of you. Do you think I’m blind? +That night I read the manuscript of _Eden Walls_. (Wasn’t it kind of +me—it wasn’t even typed!) And then I saw my chance. I saw how far she’d +got at twenty, and I thought—‘I’ll take my chance. I’ll take this +genius. I’ll make her fond of me. I’ll help her. I’ll worm myself into +her. I’ll abase myself. I’ll toady. I’ll do anything. But I will find +out how she does it. I will find out the secret. I’ll find it and I’ll +make it my own. I’ll serve for her as Jacob served for Rachel; but she +shall serve me in the end.’ I have watched. I have studied. I have +puzzled. I believe I’ve grasped it at last. I know myself and I know +her. If genius is life—the power to give life—is it that?—then I’m +barren. I can’t make life as Madala can. But—listen to me! Listen to me, +all of you! I can take a living thing—I can cut it open alive. That’s +what I shall do with this life-maker—this easy genius. I’ve taken her to +pieces, flesh and blood, bone and ligament and muscle, every secret of +her mind and her heart and her soul. The life, the _real_ life of Madala +Grey, the rise and fall of a genius, that’s what I’m going to make +plain. She’s been a puzzle to you all, with her gifts and her ways and +her crazy marriage—she’s not a mystery to me. I tell you I’ve got her, +naked, pinned down, and now I shall make her again. Isn’t it fair? She +ought to thank me. ‘Dead,’ he says. Who’s to blame? She chose to kill +herself. What right had she to take risks? I—I’ve refrained. She +couldn’t. She threw away her lamp. But I—I take it. I light it again. +Finding’s keeping. It’s mine.” + +Her voice ripped on the high note like a rag on a nail, and she checked, +panting. Her hand went up to her throat as the fumy air rasped it. + +“Mine!” she cried again, coughing. There was wild-fire in her eyes as +she challenged them. + +The little space between her solitariness and their grouped attention +was filled with fog and silence and lamp-light, woven as it were into a +fifth element. It was like a pool to be crossed. And across it, in +answer, a laugh rippled out. + +I don’t know who it was that laughed. I did not recognize the voice. +Sometimes, looking back, I think it was the laugh of their collective +soul. + +“Oh!” cried Anita, and stopped as if she had been awakened suddenly by a +blow—as if the little wondering, wincing cry had been struck out of her +by a blow on the face. She stood thus a moment, uncertain. Then she, +too, laughed, nervously, apologetically. + +“One talks,” she said, “among friends.” + +Miss Howe made a wry face. + +“Lord, we’re a queer set of friends! How we love one another!” + +“You’ve all of you been awfully good to me,” said the Baxter girl. But +her gratitude was too general to be acceptable. Even I could have told +her that. + +“Oh, we do our best for you,” said Mr. Flood. + +She looked at him from under her lashes. + +“Yes, and she’s thinking this minute what a nice little scene this would +make for her new book—touched up, of course,” said the woman behind him. + +“Art—selection—Jimmy Whistler——” Mr. Flood was one indistinct murmur. + +“With herself her own heroine again, eh?” Miss Howe baited her. + +“I didn’t. I wasn’t.” + +“Better folk than you do it, child! Anita says so. Don’t they, Anita?” + +“Oh,” said Anita heavily, “I wish Madala Grey were here. I wish she +hadn’t died. If she were here she wouldn’t—you’d never—she wouldn’t let +you laugh at me.” + +Miss Howe looked at her intently. There was a quick little run of +expression across her large handsome face, like a hand playing a scale. +It showed, that easily moved, easily read face, surprise, interest, +concern, and, in the end, the sentimental impulse of your kind fur-clad +woman to the beggar on the curb. ‘Why! I believe she’s cold! I don’t +like it! Give her tuppence, quick!’ She was out of her chair, +overwhelming Anita, in one impetuous heave of drapery. + +“You’re right, Nita! We’re pigs! Something’s wrong with us. ’Pologize. +You know we don’t mean it.” + +Anita endured her right-and-left kisses. + +“You do mean it,” was all she said. + +She was shrunk to such a small grey creature again. I thought to +myself—‘Fire? It’s not even diamond-sparkle. She’s as dull as stone.’ + +Miss Howe was eagerly remorseful. + +“We don’t. I don’t know what’s got into us tonight. It’s the fog. +There’s something evil about a fog. Distorting. It yellows over one’s +soul.” + +“It isn’t only tonight,” said the Baxter girl, with her sidelong, +‘can-I-risk-it?’ look at them. “The fog’s been coming on for months.” + +“And you mean——?” The blonde lady never snubbed the Baxter girl. It +struck me suddenly, as their eyes met, that there was the beginning of a +likeness between them. The Baxter girl at fifty—with dyed hair——? But it +was only an idea of mine. I’m always seeing imaginary likenesses. I +remember that those Academy pictures of Kent Rehan’s always set me to +work wondering—‘That woman with the face turned away—I’ve seen her +somewhere—of whom does she remind me?—where have I seen her?’ And yet, +of course, in those days I knew nothing of Madala Grey. + +But the Baxter girl was answering— + +“It—it’s cheek, I know, but it’s true. When I first came—” then, with a +swift propitiatory glance at Anita—“when you first let me come—the +Nights weren’t like this. You weren’t like this, any of you——” + +“Upon—my—word!” said Miss Howe with her benevolent chuckle. “Nita! +Listen to the infant!” + +“Like what?” Mr. Flood moved uneasily. + +The Baxter girl turned to him enthusiastically. + +“Oh, I used to think you such wonderful people——” + +“Did you now?” Miss Howe teased her. + +“Let be! let be!” said Mr. Flood impatiently. “Well, dear lady?” + +“Oh, I did! I’d read all your stuff. I believe I could write out _The +Orchid House_ from memory still.” + +His eyes lit up as he challenged her— + + “‘Sour!’ said the fox at her feet, + ‘How can she ripen windy-high? + Sour!’ said the fox with his nose to the sky—” + +He was as pleased as a child with a toy when she capped it— + + “Then a grape dropped off. It was rotten sweet. + +There!” she flushed at him triumphantly. And then—“Now did you mean——? +Who was in your mind? Were they anyone we know? I’ve always wanted to +ask you.” + +But before he could answer her the blonde lady leaned forward and +whispered in his ear. He turned to her with a glance of interest and +amusement, but with his lips still moving and his mind still running on +an answer to the Baxter girl. The blonde lady whispered again, and then +he turned right round to answer her, shelving his arms on her knees. I +couldn’t hear what they said, but it was just as if she had beckoned him +into another room. He was withdrawn from the conversation and from the +Baxter girl for as long as that blonde lady chose. + +Miss Howe looked at them with her broad smile. + +“Tell us, Beryl! We’re listening, anyhow!” she said invitingly. + +But the Baxter girl’s chin went up. The touch of annoyance in her voice +made it twang, made her commonness suddenly noticeable. She was bearable +when she was in awe of them, but now she was asserting herself, and that +meant that she was inclined to be noisy. + +“Oh, my opinion doesn’t count, of course! But”—she swung like a +pendulum between her two manners—“oh, I _did_ enjoy myself at first. It +was the way you all talked. You knew everyone. You’d read everything. +You frothed adventures. Like champagne it was, meeting all the people. I +used to write my head off, the week after. And you were all kind to me +from the first. I suppose it was Madala. She never let one feel out of +it. But I thought it was all of you. I had the feeling—‘the gods +_aren’t_ jealous gods.’ But now it’s” —she looked at them pertly—“it’s +fog on Olympus.” + +“You needn’t—honour us, you know, Beryl,” said Anita sharply. + +She answered with her furtive look. + +“I know. And I don’t think—I don’t want to come as much as I did.” + +“In that case——” Anita ruffled up. + +“Fog! Fog!” cried Miss Howe clapping her hands. And then—“All the same, +Nita, people are dropping off. The Whitneys haven’t been for weeks. When +did Roy Huth come last? And the Golding crowd? I marvel that _he_ turns +up still.” She nodded towards Kent Rehan. “Oh, you know, we’re like a +row of beads when the string’s been pulled out. We lie in a line for a +time, but a touch will send us rolling in all directions.” + +“Yes,” said the Baxter girl vehemently, “the heart’s out of it somehow. +I’m not ungrateful. It’s just because I used to love coming so.” + +Miss Howe looked down at Anita, not unkindly. + +“Give it up, Nita! The Nights have served their turn. It sounds +ungracious, but things have to end sometime or other. Hasn’t the time +come? Hasn’t it come tonight?” + +“But you’ve been coming all this year just the same,” said Anita +stubbornly. + +Miss Howe shrugged her shoulders. It was the Baxter girl who answered— + +“Ah, but there was always just a chance of seeing Madala.” + +At that Anita, who had been sitting as steely stiff as a needle in a +pin-cushion, got up, shaking off Miss Howe’s persuasive, detaining hand +and the overflow of her skirts. The cushions tumbled after her on to the +floor. + +“As to that,” she said, “and don’t imagine that I haven’t known what you +came for, all of you——” + +“Eh?” + +Her voice was sharp enough to have recalled anyone and it recalled Mr. +Flood. He returned to the conversation with the air of dragging the +blonde lady after him. She had the manner of one hanging back and +protesting, and laughing still over some secret understanding. “Eh?” +said he. “What’s that about Madala?” + +Anita looked from one to another. + +“I’m telling you,” she said. “I’ve told you already, I can give you +Madala Grey. Come here and I’ll give you Madala Grey still. That’s what +you want, isn’t it, to be amused? She amused you.” + +“She did, bless her!” said Miss Howe. + +“It was her brains,” said the Baxter girl. + +“A beautiful creature,” said Mr. Flood slowly. + +“Not she!” The lady behind him was smiling. “She made you think so. She +made men think so. But how? That intrigued me. Oh, she was prettyish: +but that was all. I used to watch her——” + +“Envy?” said he. + +“No, not envy,” said that woman slowly. “She was too—innocent—how could +one envy? She didn’t know her own strength. She said—‘Don’t hurt me,’ +with a sword at her side.” + +“Excalibur.” It came from Mr. Flood. “Magic.” + +“No, Madala—just Madala.” Miss Howe sighed. “It’s no good, Anita, you +can’t give us back Madala.” + +But my cousin, looking at them, laughed in her turn. + +“Madala? You fools! You’ve never had her. But you shall! Oh, wait! My +books are dull, aren’t they? Yet you’ll be here, you know, every month, +thick as bees, to listen to me. A chapter a month, that’s all I’ll give +to you. _I_ don’t write three novels a year. But you’ll come, you’ll +come. Proof? There’s plenty of proof. See here.” + +She went swiftly across to the outer room. There was a large carved desk +standing on the little table by the window. She picked it up. It was too +big for her. It filled her arms so that she staggered under the weight. + +“Oh, Kent!” she called. + +He came back to the foggy room with a visible wrench. + +“Here, that’s too heavy for you. Let me.” He took it from her. + +“The table—here. Thank you, oh, thank you, Kent.” She veiled her voice +as she spoke to him. “It’s heavy—it’s so full—books—papers——” + +He put it down for her and nodded, and was straying away again when she +stopped him. + +“Kent! Don’t sit by yourself. We”—her voice was for him alone—“we’re +talking about—her. I was going to show them—Kent, stay here with us.” + +He waited while she talked to him. And she talked very sweetly and +kindly. She was the quiet, chiffony little creature again with the +pretty, pure voice. _I_ couldn’t make her out. She looked up at him and +said something too low for me to catch, and then— + +“There’s your chair. Isn’t that always your chair?” And so left him and +turned to the table and the box and the others. + +But he did not take the saddle-bag near Anita’s own seat. He looked +irresolutely from one to another of the group that watched Anita +fumbling with her keys. He looked, and his face softened, at Great-aunt, +muttering over her needles. He looked at the empty chair beside me. He +looked at me and found me watching him. Then, as I smiled at him just a +little, he came to me and sat down. But he said nothing to me, and so I +was quiet too. + +But Anita was busy, hands and eyes and tongue all busy. + +“When she married, you know, in that hole-and-corner fashion——” Then, as +if in answer, though nobody had spoken—“Well, what else was it, when +nobody knew?—when even I didn’t know——” + +There was a movement in the chair beside me, and turning, I caught the +ending of a glance towards my cousin. A new look, I found it, on that +passive face, a roused and wondering and scornful look that transformed +it. But, even as I caught it, it faded again to that other look of bleak +indifference, a look to know and dread on any creature’s face, a look +that must not stay on any fellow-creature’s face. I knew that well +enough. So I said the first words that came, in my lowest voice, lest +they should hear. + +But they were talking. They did not hear. + +“I’m sure that Great-aunt knew.” Indeed I thought so. I think that +Great-aunt would always be kind and guessing with a girl. Then I +wondered at myself for daring it and thought nervously—‘He’ll snub me. +He’ll be right to snub me——’ + +But he looked across at Great-aunt kindly and said, in just such a +withdrawn voice as mine— + +“Yes, of course, if ever there was a time when——” Then he half smiled. +“Poor old lady! But she’s changed. She used to be so brisk and managing, +more like fifty than seventy. But this year’s aged her. She wanted, you +know, to give some pearls—her own pearls. But pearls spell sorrow. And +Anita would have objected. She told me all about it.” + +“She was speaking of them tonight.” We both turned again and looked at +her. She had dropped her knitting, or it had slipped from her knee, and +she sat in her chair staring down at it with a terrible, comical air of +helplessness. Then she caught his eye and forgot the knitting and nodded +at him. + +“I think—” I said, “I don’t think she understands. She asked me—she +forgets I’m a stranger. She asked me——” I broke off. I couldn’t say to +him—‘She asked me about Miss Grey and she doesn’t realize that she’s +dead.’ One’s afraid of the brutality of words. But he understood. There +was a simplicity about him that re-assured one. And he never said—‘It’s +Anita’s business. It’s not your business,’ as anyone else might have +done. He just said, once again— + +“Poor old lady!” and hesitated a minute. Then he got up and went across +to her and picked up her wools. I don’t think the others noticed him go. +Anita didn’t. She was talking too fast. + +“—left a trunk-full of papers and so on. I’d often stored boxes for her. +Somehow it never got sent down. I came across it only yesterday. I +thought to myself that there was no harm in putting things straight. You +know I’m literary executor? Oh yes. She said to me soon after her +marriage, half in joke, that she supposed she had got to make a will—and +what about her MSS.? ‘I can’t have _him_ worried.’ I offered at once. +You see I know so exactly her attitude in literature. There’s a good +deal of unpublished stuff—early stuff. But all in hopeless confusion. +Tumbled up with bills and programmes and one or two drafts of letters—or +so I imagine. She had that annoying habit—that ugly modern habit—of +beginning without any invocation, and never a date. But there’s one +letter—there’s the draft of a letter that’s important from my point of +view.” She broke off with a half laugh. “It sounds a ridiculous +statement to make about Madala Grey of all people, but do you know that +she couldn’t express herself at all easily on paper?” + +Miss Howe nodded. + +“Do I know? I’ve known her re-write a letter half a dozen times before +she got it to her liking—no, not business letters, letters to her +intimates. A most comical trick. Scribble, scribble, scribble—slash! and +then crunch goes the sheet into a ball, into the grate, or near it, till +it looked as if she were playing snow-balls, and then Madala begins +again—and again—and again. Yet she talked well. She talked easily.” + +“Isn’t that in keeping?” Mr. Flood struck in. “She didn’t express so +much herself in her speech as the mood of the moment.” + +“As the mood of the companion of the moment more likely,” the blonde +lady corrected. + +He nodded agreement. + +“But for herself—go to her books.” + +“Or her letters—her careful, conscientious letters. But she was careless +about her drafts,” said Anita significantly. + +Mr. Flood looked at her curiously. + +“What’s up that sleeve of yours, Anita?” + +She was quick. + +“You shall read it, in its place. But the trouble is——” She hesitated. +She gave the little nervous cough that always ushered in her public +lectures. “We’ve all written books,” she said, “all except you, +Blanche——” + +The blonde lady blinked her sleepy eyes. + +“You’re all so strenuous,” she purred. “I love to watch you being +strenuous. So soothing.” + +“Well, I was going to say, it’s easy enough to end a book, but have you +ever got to the beginning? I never have. One steps backward, and +backward again——” + +“I know,” cried the Baxter girl. “Till you get tired of it at last and +begin writing from where you are, but you never really get your foot on +the starting-point, on the spring-board, as you might say.” + +“That’s it. Yes, Jasper, I’ve got material up my sleeve, but frankly, I +don’t know how to place it. I don’t know where to begin. The facts of +her life, her conversation, her literary work, her letters—I go on +adding to my material till I am overwhelmed with all that I have got to +say about her. But I don’t want to begin with facts. Facts are well +enough, but think how one can twist them! I want the woman behind the +facts. I want the answer to the question that is the cause of a +biography such as mine is to be—the question—‘What was Madala Grey?’ Not +who, mark you, but further back, deeper into herself—‘_What_ was Madala +Grey?’” + +“Why, a genius,” said the Baxter girl glibly. + +Anita neither assented nor dissented. + +“Ah—” she said, frowning, “but that’s not the beginning either. At once +we take our step backward again—‘What is genius?’” + +“Isn’t talent good enough?” said Mr. Flood acidly. + +“But does one mean talent?” She was still frowning. “Everyone’s got +talent. I’m sick of talent. But she—she mayn’t be a great one—how she’d +have laughed at being called a great one!—but she makes her dolls live. +And isn’t that the blood-link between the greatest gods and the littlest +gods? Life-givers? Life-makers? Oh, I only speak for myself; but she +made her book-world real to me, therefore for me she had genius. Whether +or not I convince you is the test of whether my life-work, my _Life_ of +her—fails or succeeds.” + +“I suppose you wouldn’t trust it to Madala?” said Miss Howe softly. + +“Trust what?” + +“To convince us.” + +She answered, suspicious rather than comprehending, for indeed Miss +Howe’s tone was very smooth— + +“What do you mean? _I_’m writing her life.” + +Miss Howe was inscrutable. + +“Of course you are. Fire ahead. Genius, wasn’t it?” + +Anita shrugged her shoulders. + +“What’s in a name? It’s the quality itself that fascinates me. I want to +account for it. I want to trace it to its source. Worth doing, isn’t it? +But do you realize the difficulties? Sometimes I feel hopeless. I’ve +known her five years, and her books I know by heart, and I’m only just +beginning to decide whether to call her a romantic or a realist.” + +“A realist. Look at _Eden Walls_,” said the Baxter girl. + +“A romantic. Look at _The Resting-place_,” said Miss Howe. + +Mr. Flood over-rode them. + +“Dear ladies, you confuse the terms. It amazes me how people always +confuse the terms. Your so-called realist, your writer who depicts what +we call reality, the outward life, that is, of flesh and dirt and +misery—don’t you see that he is in truth a romantic—a man (or woman) who +lives in a fair world of his own, a paradise of the imagination? Out of +that secure world of his he peers curiously at ours, and writes of it as +we dare not write, writes down every sordid, garish, tragic-comic +detail. Your so-called realist can afford the humour of Rabelais, the +horror of Dostoevsky, the cheerful flesh and blood of Fielding. Why +shouldn’t he be truthful? It’s not his world. Don’t you see? But your +so-called romantic, he lives in this real world. He knows it so well +that he has to shut his eyes or he would die of its reality. So he +escapes into the world of romance, the world of beauty within his own +mind—nowhere but in his own mind. Who is our dreamer of dreams? Shelley, +the realist! Blake jogged elbows with poverty and squalor all his life, +and he was the prophet and the king of all spirits. Don’t you see? And +Goethe—the biographers will tell you that Goethe began as a realist and +ended as a romantic. I say it was the other way round. What did he know +of reality in the twenties? Its discovery was the romantic adventure of +his young genius. But when he was old and worldly and wise—then he wrote +his romances, to escape from his own knowledge. Oh, I tell you, you +should turn the words round. Now take Shakespeare——” + +“It’s not fair to take Shakespeare,” said Miss Howe. “It’s the Elephant +and the Crawfishes over again. Let’s keep to the crawfishes! Let’s keep +to our own generation!” + +“Well, if I were Anita I should begin by showing Madala as a romantic—as +the young romantic producing the most startlingly realistic book we’ve +had for a decade. Indeed to me, you know, her development is marked by +her books in the sharpest way. It’s the young, the curious, the +observant Madala in _Eden Walls_. The whole book is a shout of +discovery, of young, horrified discovery, of the ugliness of life. It’s +as if she said—‘Listen! Listen! These things actually happen to some +people. Isn’t it awful?’ She dwells on it. She insists on every detail. +She can’t get away from it. And yet she can hardly believe it, that +young Madala. But in _Ploughed Fields_ already the tone’s changing. It’s +a pleasanter book, a more sophisticated book. It interests profoundly, +but it’s careful not to upset one—an advance, of course. Yet I, you +know, hear our Madala’s voice in it still, an uneasy voice—‘Hush! Hush! +These things happen to most people. Pretend not to notice.’ And in the +last book, in the pretty, impossible romance, there you have your +realist full-fledged—‘Shut your eyes! Come away quickly! These things +are happening to _me_!’” He leant back again, folding his arms and +dropping his chin. And then, because Miss Howe was looking at him as if +she were amused—“I tell you I know. I recognize the symptoms. I’m a +realist myself. That’s why I write romantic poetry. Have to. It’s that +or drugs. How else shall one get through life?” + +“Jasper!” said the blonde lady. But for once he didn’t turn to her. He +shrugged his shoulders. + +“Don’t worry. Who’ll believe me?” + +The Baxter girl was breathless. + +“Oh, but I do. It’s a new Madala, of course. But I believe it explains +her.” + +“But the facts of her life don’t agree,” began Miss Howe. + +“Ah, Anita’s got to make ’em,” said Mr. Flood languidly. “Isn’t that the +art of biography?” + +But Anita was deadly serious. + +“You don’t begin far enough back. My spring-board is not—what is Madala? +but—what is genius? How does it happen? Is it immaculate birth? or is it +begotten of accident upon environment? That is to say—is it inspiration +or is it experience? I speak of the divine fire, you understand, not of +the capacity for resolving it into words or paint or stone. That’s +craft, a very different thing. You say that Madala was not a genius in +the big sense—yes, I’ll admit that even, for the argument’s sake—but +even you will concede her the beginnings of it. So my difficulty is just +the same. I’ve never believed in instinctive genius. Yet how can she, at +twenty, have had the experience (that she had the craft is amazing +enough) to cope with _Eden Walls_? Romantic curiosity isn’t enough +explanation, Jasper! Look at her certainty of touch. Look at her detail. +Look how she gets inside that woman’s mind. That’s the fascination of +it. It’s such a document. Now how does she know it? That’s what +intrigues me. Madala and a street woman! Where’s the connection? How +does she get inside her? Because she does get inside her.” + +“Oh, it’s real enough,” said the blonde lady. + +“It must be. You should have seen the letters she received! Amazing, +some of them.” + +“Anita, they amazed _her_. I remember her getting one while she was +staying with us. She looked thoroughly frightened. She said—‘But, Lila, +I didn’t realize—it was just a story. But this poor thing, she says it’s +true! She says it’s happened to her! What are we to do?’ You know, she +was nearly crying. It was some hysterical woman who had read the book. +But Madala always believed in people. I know she wrote to her. I believe +she helped her. But she never told you much about her doings.” + +“Oh, her sentimental side doesn’t interest me. What I ask myself is—how +does she know, as she obviously does know, all that her wretched drab of +a heroine thought and felt and suffered?” + +“Instinct! Imagination!” said the Baxter girl. “It must be the +explanation.” + +“It isn’t. It isn’t. Oh, I’ve puzzled it out. I’m convinced that from +the beginning it’s experience. Don’t flare, Lila, I don’t mean literal +experience. Not in _Eden Walls_, anyhow. Later, of course—but we’re +discussing _Eden Walls_. Imagination, do you say, Beryl? But the +imagination must have a fact for its root. I’ll grant you that +imagination is so essentially a quality of youth that the merest rootlet +of a reality is enough to set a young artist beanstalk climbing. But the +older he grows, the wiser, the more versed in reality, the less he +trusts his imagination, the more, in consequence, his imagination flags +and withers; till he ends—one sees it happen again and again—as the +recorder merely of his own actual experiences and emotions. It’s only +the greatest who escape that decay of the imagination. Do you think that +Madala did? Look at _Eden Walls_. Remember what we know about her. Can’t +you see that the skeleton of _Eden Walls_ is Madala’s own life? Consider +her history. She leaves what seems to have been a happy childhood behind +her and sets out on adventure—very young. So does the woman in _Eden +Walls_. The parallel’s exact. Madala’s Westering Hill and the +_Breckonridge_ of the novel are the same place. The house, the lane, the +country-side, she doesn’t trouble to disguise them. Again—Madala’s +adventure is ushered in by calamity: and tragedy—(you can see the artist +transmuting the mere physical calamity into tragedy) tragedy happens to +the woman in _Eden Walls_. Remember how much more Madala dwelt on the +sense of loneliness and lovelessness, on the anguish of the loss of +something to love her, than on what one might call the—er—official +emotions of a betrayed woman. Didn’t it strike you? Doesn’t that show +that she was depending on her experience rather than on her imagination, +fitting her own private grief to an imaginary case? Then, in America, +she has the struggle for meat and drink, for mere existence. So does the +woman in _Eden Walls_. Madala does not go under. The woman in _Eden +Walls_ does. It’s the first real difference. But I maintain that in +reality the parallel still continues, that, in imagination, Madala did +go under over and over again: that she had ever in front of her the +‘suppose, suppose,’ that, in drawing the woman in _Eden Walls_, she is +saying to herself—‘Here, but for the grace of God, go I.’ And then, you +know, when you think of her, hating that big city, saving up her +pennies, and coming home at last in a passion of homesickness (if it was +homesickness—sickness anyhow), can’t you see how it makes her write of +that other woman? It’s the gift, the genius, stirring in her: born, not +immaculately, but of her own literal experience. Jasper’s right—you can +always make facts fit if you think them out: and because I possess that +underlying shadow-work (I admit it’s no more) of fact to guide me in +deciphering her method in the first book, therefore, in the second book +and the third book, I find it safe to _deduce_ facts to cover the +stories, even when I don’t possess them. I consider that I’m justified, +that _Eden Walls_ justifies me. Don’t you?” + +“It’s plausible,” said Mr. Flood thoughtfully. + +“Oh, it’s convincing,” said the Baxter girl reverently. “I feel I’ve +never known Madala Grey before. What it will be when you get it into +shape, Miss Serle——” + +“In fact,” said Miss Howe, “there’s only one drawback——” + +“And that?” said Anita swiftly. + +“Only Madala’s own account.” + +“She never discussed her methods,” said Anita sharply. + +“Just so! You’re not the only person who’s—pumped. I remember seeing her +once surrounded, in her lion days. I remember her ingenuous +explanations. She did her best to oblige them—‘Honestly, I don’t know. +One just sits down and imagines.’ And then—‘That’s quite easy. But it’s +awfully difficult writing it down.’ That’s the explanation, Nita. A +deliberate, even unconscious self-exploitation is all nonsense. Madala’s +not clever enough.” + +“Not clever enough!” + +“No. You’re much cleverer than she was. You have twice her brains. You +can’t think, Anita, what brains you’ve got. You’ve got far too many to +understand a simple person. I don’t agree, you know, with ‘genius.’ I +can’t throw a word like that about so lightly. But as far as it went +with Madala, it was the same sort of genius that makes a crocus push in +the spring. Your theory—oh, it’s plausible, as Jasper says, but don’t +you see that it destroys all the charm of her work? It’s the innocence +of her knowledge, the simplicity of her attitude to her own insight that +to me is moving. She touches pitch, yet her fingers are clean. It’s her +view of her story that arrests one, not her story, not her facts, not +her mere plot.” + +“No, the plot is conventional, I’ll grant you that. She was always +content with old bottles.” + +“Yes, and when the new wine burst them and made a mess on the carpet, +Madala was always so surprised and indignant.” + +Mr. Flood giggled. + +“Pained is the word, dear lady—surprised and pained. Do you remember +when _Eden Walls_ was banned?” + +“I don’t suppose she talked to you about it, Jasper,” said Miss Howe +sharply. + +“I? I was never of her counsels. But I got my amusement out of the +affair. Dear, delightful woman? She behaved like a schoolgirl sent to +Coventry. I remember congratulating her on the advertisement, and she +would hardly speak to me. But it suited her, the blush.” + +“_Wasn’t_ it an advertisement!” said the Baxter girl longingly. + +“If one could have got her to see it,” said Anita. “But no, she insisted +on being ashamed of herself. She said to me once that the critics had +‘read in’ things that she had never dreamed of—that it made her doubt +her own motives—that she felt dirtied and miserable. And yet she +wouldn’t alter one of those scenes. Obstinate! She could be very +obstinate.” + +“Oh, which scenes?” The Baxter girl stuck her elbows on the table and +her chin in her fists. Her eyes sparkled. “Oh, then, Miss Serle, did +you—? did she come to you in the early days? Did you help her too?” + +“My daughter—very kind to young people!” + +It was a mere mutter, but I recognized the swing of the phrase. Anita +didn’t. She was busy with the Baxter girl. + +“I don’t say that there would be no Madala Grey today if I——” + +“_But_——” said Mr. Flood. + +“_But_—” said Miss Howe, “she’s Anita’s discovery. We’re never to forget +that, are we, darling?” + +“Oh, I knew that,” said the Baxter girl, trying to be tactful. “But +_Eden Walls_ was written before you knew her, wasn’t it? I understood—I +didn’t know, I mean,” she explained to them, “that Miss Serle +had—blue-pencilled——” + +“I did and I didn’t.” Anita laughed, as if in spite of herself. “I +confess I thought at the time that it needed revision. Mind you, I never +questioned the quality, but I knew what the public would stand and what +it wouldn’t. Of course, I didn’t want the essentials altered. But there +were certain cuts——However, nothing would move her.” + +“That’s funny. She never gave me the impression that she believed in +herself so strongly.” + +“Oh, her _pose_ was diffidence,” said the blonde lady. + +“But she didn’t believe in herself. It was obvious. When I went through +her MS. and blue-pencilled, she was most grateful. She agreed to +everything and took the MS. away to remodel.” + +“And then?” + +“I heard nothing more of her—for weeks. Finally I wrote and asked her to +come and see me. She came. She was delightful. I had told her, you know, +about the _Anthology_ the first time I met her. I remember that I was +annoyed with myself afterwards. I’m not often indiscreet. But she had +a—a knack—a way with her. I hardly know how to describe it.” + +“One told her things,” said the Baxter girl. + +“Just so. One told her things. And she had brought me a mass of +material—some charming American verse (you remember? in the last section +but one) that I had never come across. She had been reading for me at +the British Museum in her spare time. I confess I was touched. We +talked, I remember——” She sighed reminiscently. “It was not until she +made a move to go that I recollected myself. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘and how +about _Eden Walls_?’ She fidgeted. She looked thoroughly guilty. At last +it came out. She hadn’t altered a line. She had tried her utmost. She +had drafted and re-drafted. She had finally given it up in despair and +just got work in some obscure newspaper office—‘a most absorbing +office!’ But there—you know Madala when she’s interested—was +interested——” + +“Don’t,” said Miss Howe softly. + +But Anita went on— + +“‘Well but—’ I said to her—‘that’s all very well. But you’re not going +to abandon _Eden Walls_, are you?’ Then it all came out. Yes, she was. +She knew I was right. She wasn’t conceited. She quite saw that the book +was useless. It just meant that she couldn’t write novels and that she +mustn’t waste any more time. ‘But, my dear Miss Grey,’ I said, ‘you mean +to say that you’d rather leave the book unpublished than alter a couple +of chapters, remodel a couple of characters?’ ‘But I can’t,’ she said, +‘I can’t. They happened that way.’ ‘Then make them happen differently,’ +I said. But no, she couldn’t. ‘Oh well,’ I said at last—‘if you’re so +absolutely sure of yourself, if you’re prepared to set up your +judgment——’ That distressed her. I can hear her now. ‘But I don’t set up +my judgment. I’ll burn the wretched stuff tomorrow if you say it’s +trash. I knew it would be, in my heart. But—I can’t alter it, +because—because it happened that way.’ Then I had an idea. ‘To you?’ I +said. She looked at me. She laughed. She said—‘Miss Serle, you’ve +written ten books to my one. Don’t pretend you don’t know how a story +happens.’” Anita nodded at us. “You see? Evasive. I think it was from +that moment that I began to have my theory of her.” + +“Well—and what next?” demanded Miss Howe. + +“She would have said good-bye if I had let her. I stopped her. +‘Reconsider it,’ I said. She beamed at me, chastened but quite cheerful. +‘Oh, I’ll try another some day,’ she said. ‘I suppose I’m not old +enough. I was a fool to think I could.’ At that, of course, I gave in. I +wasn’t going to lose sight of _Eden Walls_. I told her to bring it as it +was and I’d see what I could do. As you know, Mitchell and Bent jumped +at it.” + +“But it was banned,” said the Baxter girl. + +“Yes, but everybody read it. You can get it anywhere now. And I can say +now—‘Thank the gods she didn’t touch it.’” + +“Then she was right?” + +“Of course she was right. I knew it all the time.” + +“And she didn’t?” + +“Of course she didn’t. Mine was critical knowledge. Hers the mere +instinct of—whatever you choose to call it. I was afraid of the critics. +She didn’t know enough to be afraid.” + +“There’s something big about you, Anita!” said Miss Howe suddenly. + +Mr. Flood gave the oblique flicker of eyes and mouth that was his smile. + +“Yes,” he said slowly, “it fits her quite well.” + +“What?” said Anita sharply. + +“The mantle, dear lady.” + +She shrugged her shoulders. + +“Ah—_Gentle dullness ever loves a joke_. What, Beryl?” + +“I don’t see,” the Baxter girl had harked back, “how you can call a book +that has been banned conventional.” + +“Only the plot——” + +“Ah, that plot!” Nobody could snub Mr. Flood. “Think, dear lady! Village +maiden—faithless lover—lights o’ London—unfortunate female—what more do +you want?” + +“Of course.” Anita resumed the reins. “It’s as old as _The Vicar of +Wakefield_.” + +“Oh, _that_!” The Baxter girl looked interested. “Do you know, I’ve +never seen it. One of Irving’s shows, wasn’t it?” + +I laughed. I couldn’t help it. But they were all quite solemn, even +Anita. But then she never did listen to the Baxter girl. She had talked +straight through her sentences. + +“But it’s not the material. It’s the way it’s handled. It’s never been +done quite so thoroughly, from the woman’s point of view—so unadornedly. +People are afraid of their ‘_poor girls_.’ There’s a formula that even +the Immortals follow. They are all young and beautiful, and they all +die. They must. They wouldn’t be tragic in continuation. But Madala’s +woman doesn’t. That’s the point. There’s no pretence at making her a +heroine. She’s just the ordinary stupidish sheep of a creature, ‘gone +wrong.’ There’s no romantic halo, no love-glamour, no pity and terror, +just the chronicle of a sordid life. And yet you can’t put the book +down. At least I couldn’t put it down.” + +“Do _you_ like it?” I said to Kent Rehan, as he paused beside me in his +eternal pacing from room to room. + +He looked at me oddly. + +“I respect it,” he said. “I don’t like it. People misjudged——” + +“If it had been the recognized love story”—Mr. Flood’s high voice +silenced him—“the regularized irregularity, so to speak, it wouldn’t +have been banned. It was the absence of a love story that the British +public couldn’t forgive. It was cheated. It was shocked.” + +“But there is a love story at the beginning, isn’t there?” I said. “I +haven’t read far.” + +Instantly the Baxter girl exhibited me— + +“Yes, imagine! She hasn’t read it!” + +“I’ve read _The Vicar of Wakefield_,” I said. And then I was annoyed +that I had shown I was annoyed. But at once Miss Howe helped me. Miss +Howe was always nice to me. + +“How far have you got? Where the man tires of her? Ah, yes! Well, after +that it’s just her struggle. She—she earns her living—in the inevitable +way. She grows into a miser. She hoards.” + +Mr. Flood looked acute. + +“That’s what upset them. They don’t mind a Magdalen; but Magdalen +unaware, unrepentant, Magdalen preserving her ill-gotten gains—no, +that’s not quite nice.” + +“Well, I don’t know,” said Miss Howe. “If anyone can’t feel the spirit +it’s written in, the passion of pity—I think it’s the most pitiful thing +I’ve ever read. It made me shiver. That wretched creature, saving and +sparing——” And then to me, for I suppose I showed I was interested—“She +wants to get away, you know, to get back into the country. It’s her +dream. The homesickness——” + +“I suppose such a woman could——?” said the Baxter girl. + +“I used to argue it with Madala. Madala always said that, with some +people, that animal craving for some special place was like love—a +passion that could waste you. She said that every woman must have some +devouring passion, for a man, or a child, or a place—_every_ woman. And +that for a beaten creature like that, it would be _place_—the homing +instinct of a cat or a bird. And mixed up with it, religion—the vague +shadowy ideal of peace and cleanly beauty—all that the wretched creature +tries to express in her phrase—‘getting out and living quiet’—that +Madala typifies in the word ‘Eden.’ It meant much to Madala. Don’t you +remember that passage towards the end of the book where she meets the +man, the first man, and brings him home with her—and he doesn’t even +recognize her, and she doesn’t even care.” She picked up a bundle of +tattered proofs and turned them over. “Where is it? What an appalling +hand she had!” She stood a moment, reading a page and pursing her lips. +“Oh, well, what’s the use of reading it? We all know it.” She flung it +down. + +“Let me see,” I said to the Baxter girl. She drew it towards me. It was +the first proof I’d ever seen. It was corrected till it was difficult to +read. But I made it out at last. + + With the closing of the door she dismissed him with one phrase + for ever from her mind— + + “And that’s that!” + + She had long been accustomed thus to summarize her clients, + dispassionately, as one classes beasts at a show; and she judged + them, not by their clothing or their speech, not by the dark + endured hours of their love or by the ticklish after-moment of + the reckoning, but rather, as she hovered at the door with her + provocative night smile dulled to a business friendliness, by + their manner of leaving her. + + Always there was the fever to be gone; but some went furtively, + with cautious, tiptoe feet that set the stairs a-squeak with + mockery. Her smile did not change for the swaggerer who stayed + long and took his luck-kiss twice, but her eyes would harden. + Mean, cheating mean, to kiss again and never pay again! And some + she watched and smiled upon who left her in a brutal silence. + For them she had no resentment, rather the sullenness beneath + her smile reached out to the revulsion of their bearing as to + something welcomed and akin. And some gave back her smile with + kindly words—and those she hated. + + But when, after his manner, the man had gone, she had, as + always, her ritual. + + She locked her easy door and pulling out the key, put it before + her on the table at the bedside. Left and right of it she laid + her money down, adding to the night’s gains the meagre leavings + of her purse. Left and right the little piles grew, one heaped + high for the needs of her day and her night, for food and roof + and livery, and one a thin scatter of coppers and small silver + that took long weeks to change into the dear, the exquisite, the + Eden-opening gold. It was the bigger pile that she thrust so + carelessly back into her bag, and the scattered ha’pence that + she warmed in the cup of her two hands, holding them, + jingle-jingle, at her ears, dropping them to her lap again to + count anew, piling them before her to a little, narrowing tower, + before she opened the child’s jewel-case beside her, and, + lifting the sheaf of letters that she never read but kept still + and would always keep, for the savage pain they gave her when + her eyes saw them and her fingers touched them, she poured out + the new treasure upon the sacred hoard beneath. + + Tenpence saved—and yesterday a shilling! Five shillings last + week. Fifty pounds! She would soon have fifty pounds! + + She put away the box of money, and so, surrendering at last to + the awful bodily fatigue, lay down again upon the tousled bed, + not to sleep—her sleeping time was later in the day—but to shut + her eyes. + + For, by the amazing pity of God, a secret that is not every + man’s, was hers—the secret of the refuge appointed, behind + shut eyes, of the return into eternity that is the shutting + down of lids upon the eyes. The window glare, the screaming + street below, the blank soiled ceiling with the flies, the + walls, the unending pattern of the hateful walls, the clock, + the finery, the beastly scents, the loathed familiars of stuff + and wood and brass that blinked and creaked at her like voices + crying—“Misery! misery! misery!”—these were her world. Yet + not her only world. She, who was so dim and blunted a + woman-thing, could pass, with the warm dark velvet touch of + dropping lids, not into the nullity of sleep, but into the + grey place, limitless, timeless, where consciousness knows + nothing of the flesh. + + She shut her eyes with the sigh of a tired dog, and instantly + her soul lay back and floated, resting. + + There was no time, no thought, no feeling. There was + peace—quiet—greyness. At unmeasured intervals realization washed + over her like waves, waves of peace—quiet—greyness. Greyness—she + worshipped the blessed greyness. She wanted to give it a beloved + name and knew none. ‘When I am dead!’—‘For ever and ever, + Amen!’—So she came nearest to ‘Eternity.’ + + Peace—quiet—greyness: greyness enduring for ever, that could yet + be rent asunder like a temple veil and let in misery—the window + glare, the reeking room, the clodding footsteps, the fingers + tapping at her door—a frail eternity whose walls were slips of + flesh. + + She called harshly— + + “Get out! Get away! Put it down outside then, can’t you?” + + There was a mutter and the clank of a scuttle-lid, and a thud. + The footsteps shuffled out of hearing. + + She shut her eyes again. + + Peace—quiet—greyness. The waves were rocking her. + + She did not dream. There are, by that same pity of God, no + dreams permitted in the place of refuge. But, as she lay in + peace, she watched her own memorial thoughts rising about her, + one by one, like bubbles in a glass, like cocks crowing in the + dark of the dawn. + + A white road ... the hill-top wind panting down it like a runner + ... dust ... bright blue sky ... sky-blue succory in the gutter + ... succory is so difficult to pick ... tough ... it leaves a + green cut on one’s finger ... succory in a pink vase on the + mantel-piece ... the fire’s too hot for flowers ... hot buttered + toast ... the armchair wants mending ... the horsehair tickles + one’s ears as one lies back in it and warms one’s toes and + watches the rain drowning the fields outside ... empty winter + fields, all tousled and tussocky from cow dung ... grey skies + ... snow ... not a soul in sight ... and succory in a pink vase + on the mantel-piece ... because one’s back in Eden ... summer + and winter are all one in Eden ... picking buttercups in Eden as + one used to do ... all the fields grown full of buttercups ... + fifty buttercups make a bunch ... fifty golden buttercups with + the King’s head on them ... hurry up with the buttercups ... one + more bunch of buttercups will buy back Eden—Eden—ah! + + So, with a long gasping sigh would come the end. “Eden—” and the + longing would be upon her, tearing like a wild beast at her eyes + and her throat and her heart—“I want to go home. Oh, God, let me + go home! Let me out! I want to go home——” + +The chapter ended. + +“And does she?” I looked up at the Baxter girl. “I’m always afraid of a +bad ending. Does she get back in the end?” + +The Baxter girl fluttered through the pages. + +“The money’s stolen first—a man takes it—while she’s asleep——Oh, it’s +beastly, that scene. She has to save it all up again. It takes her +years. But—oh, yes, she does go back.” + +“The railway journey,” said Miss Howe. “Do you remember?” + +“If you want happy endings”—the Baxter girl flattened out the last page +with a jerk—“there you are!” + +I read over her shoulder. The strong scent that hung about her seemed to +float between me and the page. + +“Here we are—where she gets to the station. ‘Eden,’ Madala calls it, but +the woman calls it ‘Breckonridge.’ + + At last and at last the station-board with the familiar name + flashed past her window. She thrilled. The station lamps + repeated it as the train slowed down. She thought—how long the + platform’s grown! ... a bookstall! ... a bookstall on each side! + ... there used not to be ... wasn’t the station smaller?... + + She spoke to the ticket collector shyly, blushing, like a girl + going to an assignation and thinking that all the world must + know it. + + He answered, already catching at the ticket of the traveller + behind her— + + “How far to Breckonridge? A mile, maybe—but you get the tram at + the corner.” + + She stared. She would have questioned him again, but the throng + of people pressed her forward. + + A tram through the village? ... queer! ... not that it mattered + to her ... she would take the old short cut through the fields + outside the station yard.... There was a stile ... and a wild + cherry tree.... + + She left the yard, the unfamiliar yard with asphalt and motors + and a great iron bridge, crossed the road, and stopped + bewildered. + + There were no fields. + + ‘Station Road.’ The labelled yellow villas were like a row of + faces. Eyes, nose, mouth—windows, porch, steps—steps like teeth. + They grinned. + + In a sort of panic she ran past them down the road, a lumbering, + clumsy woman. She trod on her skirt, and recovered herself with + difficulty. She heard a small boy laugh and call after her. She + clambered on to the tram. + + “I want to go to the village—to Breckonridge——” + + “It’s all Breckonridge. ’Ow far?” + + She stared. + + “I don’t remember. He said a mile.” + + “Town ’All, I expect.” He took his toll and passed on. + + She turned vaguely to a neighbour. + + “Town Hall? I don’t remember. The road’s all different Where are + the fields?” + + The neighbour nodded. + + “Built over. When were you here last? Thirty years? My word, + you’ll find changes! I notice it, even in five. Very full it’s + getting. Good train service. My husband can get to his office + under the hour.” + + She said dazedly— + + “It was—it is—a little village.” + + The woman laughed. + + “I daresay. But how long ago?” + + “There were fields,” she said under her breath. “There were + flowers——” + + “Here’s the Town Hall. Didn’t you want the Town Hall?” + + Unsteadily she rose and got out. The tram clanged forward. + + She stood on an island where four roads met and looked about + her. The sun stared down at her, a brazen city sun. The asphalt + was hot and soft under her feet. Road-menders were at work in + the fair-way. They struck alternately at the chisel between them + and it was as if the rain of blows fell upon her. She felt + stupid and dizzy. She did not know where to turn. There was + nothing left of her village, and yet the place was familiar. + There were drab houses and rows of shops and a stream of + traffic, and the figures of women and men—menacing, impersonal + figures of men—that hurried towards her down the endless + streets. + +“Well?” said the Baxter girl. + +“But that’s not the _end_?” I said. + +The Baxter girl looked at me oddly. + +“Why not?” And then—“How else could it end? How would you make it end?” + +“Oh, I don’t mean——” I began. I hesitated. “I don’t think I quite +understand,” I said. + +That was the truth. At the time I couldn’t follow it. It moved me. It +swept me along. But whether it was good or bad I didn’t know. I hadn’t +the faintest idea of what it was driving at. I felt in a vague way that +the people at home wouldn’t have liked it. + +“What does it mean?” I said to the Baxter girl. + +“That you can’t eat your cake and have it, I suppose. You can get out of +Eden, but you can’t get back.” + +Anita answered her contemptuously— + +“Is that all it means to you?” + +And yet we had spoken very softly. But Anita had eyes that ate up every +movement in a room, and her small pretty ears never seemed to miss a +significant word though ten people were talking. I had seen her glance +uneasily at us and again at the two in the other room. I knew +Great-aunt’s mutter was too low even for her, and Kent Rehan only nodded +now and then, but even that annoyed her. She lifted her own voice to be +sure that they should hear all that she said, as if afraid lest, even +for a moment, she should be left out of their thoughts. + +“Oh!” she said loudly and contemptuously, “I tell you what _I_ see.” + +She succeeded, if that pleased her. Kent Rehan raised his head and +stared across at her with that impersonal expression of attention that, +I was beginning to realize, could always anger her on any face. She had +said a little while ago that she only cared for Miss Grey as an artist, +and I believe that she believed it. But I don’t think—I shall never +think it true. I think Anita depended—depends, on other people more than +she dreams. Poor Anita! I can see her now, her whole personality +challenging those dark abstracted eyes. But she spoke to the Baxter +girl— + +“When Madala Grey chose _Eden Walls_ for her title—when she flung it in +the public face——” + +I saw him give a shrug of fatigue or distaste—I couldn’t tell which. +Great-aunt, who had been sitting, her head on one side, with her sharp +poll-parrot expression, crooked her finger at me. I went across to her +and behind me I heard the Baxter girl— + +“You talk as if she were in a passion——” + +And Anita— + +“So she was. I’m telling you. It’s the wrongs, not of one woman, but of +all women, of all ages of women, that burn behind it.” + +“Votes for Women!” It was Mr. Flood’s voice. + +There was a laugh and I lost an answer. I caught only a vehement blur of +words, because Great-aunt had me by the wrist. + +“Chatter, chatter! I can’t hear ’em. What’s my daughter talking about?” + +I hesitated. + +“About books, Auntie.” + +“Whose books?” she pounced. + +“Some writer, Auntie.” + +“What’s she saying about her, eh?” She held me bent down to her. I +glanced at Kent Rehan. He was listening to us. I felt harried. + +“About—oh—whether a genius—whether she was a genius——” + +“Madala, eh?” + +“Yes, Auntie.” + +I thought I heard him sigh. And at that—why, I don’t know—I turned on +him. I was rude, I believe. I sounded silly and cruel, I know. Yet, +heaven knows, that that was the last thing I wanted to be. + +I said angrily to him— + +“Oh, why do you stand there and listen? Don’t you see that I can’t help +myself? Why don’t you go away? What good can it do you to stay here, to +stay and listen to it all?” + +Then I stopped because he looked at me for a moment, and flushed, and +then did turn away, back again to his old dreary post at the street +window. + +Great-aunt chuckled. + +“That’s right, little Jenny. Take your own way with them, Jenny!” + +I said— + +“Let me go, Auntie dear,” and I loosed her hand from my wrist and went +after him; for of course the instant the words were out of my mouth I +was ashamed of myself. I couldn’t think what had possessed me. I was +badly ashamed of myself. + +I came to him and said— + +“Mr. Rehan—I don’t mean to be rude. Great-aunt—she doesn’t understand. +She made me talk. It wasn’t rudeness; but you stood there, and I knew—I +thought I knew, what you must think, must be thinking—” (but ‘feeling’ +was the word I meant) “and I was sorry. I was angry because I was sorry. +I didn’t mean to be rude.” + +He said— + +“It’s all right. I didn’t think you rude.” + +Then I said— + +“But I meant it. Why do you stay? What good can it do you? Why don’t you +go away from it all?” + +And he— + +“Where is there to go? I’ve been tramping all day.” + +“Where?” + +“I don’t know. Up and down streets. It’s—it’s blinding, it’s stifling——” + +“The fog is,” I said quickly. But we didn’t mean the fog. + +He let himself down into the low wicker chair. I stood leaning against +the sill, watching him. + +“You’re just dead tired,” I said. + +He nodded. Then, as if something in my words had stung him— + +“Where else? I’ve always come here. Every month. It was natural to +come.” + +“But now” I said (and I was so urgent with him because of all their talk +that drummed still in my mind like a wasps’ nest)—“I’d go away if I were +you. What good does it do you? They talk. It’s—it’s rather hateful. I’ve +been listening. I’d go.” + +“Where?” he said again. And I— + +“Haven’t you anyone—at home?” + +But as I asked I knew that he hadn’t. He had the look. Oh, he wore good +clothes and I knew he wasn’t poor. But it was written all over him that +he looked after himself and did it expensively and badly. He had, too, +that other look that goes with it—of a man who has never found anyone +more interesting to him than himself. And the queer part was that it +didn’t seem selfish in him—and I’m sure it wasn’t. It was just like the +way a child takes you for granted, and tells you about its own big +affairs, and never guesses that you have your own little affairs too. I +suppose it was a fault in him; but it made me like him. And he talked to +me simply and almost as if he needed helping out; as if he’d been just +anybody. I never had to help out anyone before: it had always been the +other way round. I’d thought, too, that celebrated people were always +superior and brilliant and overwhelming, like Anita and Mr. Flood. But +he wasn’t. He was as simple as A, B, C. I liked him. I did like him. I +felt happier, more at peace, standing there with him than I had felt +since I had been in Anita’s house. I think he would have gone on talking +to me too, if it hadn’t been for the Baxter girl. She spoilt it. She +tilted back her chair, yawning, and so caught sight of us, and laughed, +and leaning over to Miss Howe, whispered in her ear. She was a crazy +girl. At once I got up and came across to them, panic-stricken, hating +her. I had to. I didn’t want him worried, and you never knew what +hateful thing the Baxter girl wouldn’t say, and think that she was +pleasing you. + +But without knowing it, Anita helped me. Her voice, rising excitedly in +answer to some word of Mr. Flood’s, recalled the Baxter girl. + +“Mystery? Of course there’s a mystery! She was at the height of her +promise in _Ploughed Fields_. It’s as good as _Eden Walls_ in matter +and, technically, better still. The third book ought to have settled her +place in modern literature for good and all. It ought to have been her +master-piece. But what does she do? We expect a chaplet of pearls, and +she gives us a daisy-chain. Isn’t that a mystery worth solving? Won’t +people read the _Life_ for that if for nothing else? Am I the only +person who has asked what happened to her between her second and her +third books?” + +“I tell you, but you won’t listen,” Mr. Flood insisted. “Your romantic +has become a realist and is flying from it to the resting-place of +romance.” + +“I do listen. Just so. You use your words and I use mine, but we mean +the same thing. She’s been bruising herself against facts. She has been +walled up by facts. Her vision is gone. Now what was, in her case, the +all-obscuring fact?” + +“She was a woman,” said the blonde lady. “It could only be one thing. +Don’t I know the signs? She even lost her sense of humour.” + +“Yes, she did, didn’t she?” cried the Baxter girl in a voice of relief. +“Oh, I remember one day, just before the engagement was announced——” + +“As if that had anything to do with it,” said Anita scornfully. + +“—and she’d been so absent-minded I couldn’t get anything out of her. I +thought I knew her well enough to tease her. I had told her all _my_ +affairs. So—‘I believe you’re in love,’ I said. ‘Oh, well, you’ll get +over it. It’s a phase.’ Was there any harm in that? It was only +repeating what you had said to me about her, you know,” she reminded the +blonde lady. “But she froze instantly. She made no comment. She just +changed the subject. But I felt as if I had been introduced to a new +Madala. I wished I hadn’t said it.” + +“You are a little fool, Beryl,” said the blonde lady tolerantly. + +“But she _was_ altered,” insisted the Baxter girl. “The old Madala would +have laughed.” + +“Yes, she was altered,” said Anita. “Her whole attitude to herself and +her work changed that spring. How she horrified me one day. It was soon +after _Ploughed Fields_ came out, and we were talking about her new +book, at least I was, pumping a little, I confess, and suddenly she +said—‘Anita, I don’t think I’ll write any more. This stuff—’ she had her +hands on _Eden Walls_, ‘it’s harsh, it’s ugly; and so’s _Ploughed +Fields_. Isn’t it?’ ‘It’s true to life,’ I said, ‘that’s the triumph of +it.’ ‘Is it?’ she said. She looked at me in an uneasy sort of way. And +then—‘I’d like to write a kind book, a beautiful book.’ I told her that +she couldn’t, that she was a realist. ‘That’s why,’ she said, ‘I don’t +think I’ll write any more.’ I laughed, of course. Anybody would have +laughed. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I mean it. I haven’t an idea in my head. I’m +tired and empty. I think I shall go away for a wander. There’s always +the country, anyhow.’ ‘Well, Madala,’ I said, ‘I think you’re +ungrateful. You’re a made woman. You’ve got your name: you’ve got your +line: you’ve got your own gift——’ ‘Oh, that!’ she said, as if she were +flicking off a fly. I was irritated. It was so arrogant. ‘What more do +you want?’ I asked her. ‘What more _can_ you want?’ She said—‘I don’t +know,’ looking at me, you know, as if she expected me to tell her. I +disliked that mood of hers. One did expect, with a woman of her +capacity, to be entertained as it were, to have ideas presented, not to +be asked to provide them. Then she began, à propos of nothing at all—‘If +I ever marry——’ That startled me. We’d never touched on the subject +before. ‘Oh, my dear Madala,’ I said, ‘you must never think of anything +so—so unnecessary. For you, of all people, it would be fatal. It would +waste your time, it would distract your thoughts, it would narrow your +outlook, it would end by spoiling your work altogether. I’ve seen it +happen so often. It’s terrible to me even to think of a woman with a +future like yours, throwing it away just for the——’ She interrupted me. +‘I wouldn’t marry for the sake of getting married, if you mean that. Not +even for children.’” + +“You didn’t mean that, did you, Anita?” said Miss Howe smiling a little. + +“Certainly not. But I had always been afraid that she might be tempted +to marry for the adventure’s sake, for the mere experience, for the——” + +“Copy,” said Mr. Flood. “I always said so. Yes?” + +“‘Oh well, Madala,’ I said to her, ‘you know what I think. I’m not one +to quote Kipling, but—_He travels fastest who travels alone_.’ She +looked at me so strangely. ‘Alone?’ she said. ‘Alone. Its the cruellest +word in the language. There’s drowning in it.’ ‘Well, without conceit, +Madala,’ I said, ‘I can affirm that I have been alone, spiritually, all +my life.’ ‘Ah, yes,’ she said, ‘but you’re different.’ And that,” Anita +broke off, “was what I liked in Madala. She did recognize differences. +She could appreciate. She wasn’t absorbed in herself. She said to me +quite humbly—‘I’m not strong, I suppose; but I don’t suffice myself. I +can’t bear myself sometimes. I can’t bear the burden of myself. Can’t +you understand?’ ‘Frankly,’ I said, ‘I can’t. I’m a modern woman, and +the modern woman is a pioneer. She’s the Columbus of her own +individuality. She must be. It’s her career. It’s her destiny.’ She +answered me pettishly, like a naughty child—‘I don’t want to be a +pioneer.’ ‘You’re that,’ I said, ‘already, whether you want to be or +not.’ Then she said to me, with that dancing, impish look that her eyes +and her lips and her white teeth used to manage between them—‘All right! +If I’ve got to be, I will. But I’ll be a pioneer in my own way. I swear +I’ll shock the lot of you.’” + +“_Oho!_” said Mr. Flood with exaggerated unction. + +“Exactly!” Anita gave his agreement such eager welcome. “That put me on +the qui-vive. Knowing her as I did, it was a very strong hint. I awaited +developments. Frankly, I was prepared for a scandal, a romance, anything +you please in the way of extravagance. That’s why the Carey marriage, +that tameness, upset me so. It was not what I was expecting. Really, I +don’t know which was more of a shock to me, _The Resting-place_ or the +marriage. Hardly had I recovered from the one when——” + +“Oh, _The Resting-place_ was the shock of my life too.” He giggled. “I +mourned, I assure you that I mourned over it. That opening, you +know—‘There was once’—And the end again—‘So they were married and had +children and lived happily ever after.’ Pastiche! And then to be invited +to wade through a conscientious account of how they achieved it! Too bad +of Madala! As if the poor but virtuous artist’s model weren’t a drug on +the market already! And the impecunious artist himself—_stooping_, you +know! Oh, I sat in ashes.” + +Miss Howe clapped her hands. + +“Jasper, I love you. I _do_ love you. Did she pull your leg too? Both +legs? She did! She did! Oh, there’s only one Madala!” + +Mr. Flood’s vanity was in his cheeks while she rattled on. + +“Darling Jasper, I thought better of you! Can’t you see the whole +thing’s a skit? Giving the jampot public what they wanted! Why, it’s +been out a year and they’re sucking the spoon still. It’s the +resting-place! Ask the libraries! Oh, can’t you see?” + +“If it is parody,” said Mr. Flood slowly, “then, I admit, it’s unique.” + +“What else? You’ll not deny humour to her?” + +“I do!” the blonde lady nodded her head. “Once a woman is in love she’s +quite hopeless.” + +“I don’t see how parody could be in question,” Anita broke in. “Anybody +reading the book carefully must see that she’s in earnest. That’s the +tragedy of it.” + +“The literary tragedy?” + +“Not only literary. The psychological value is enormous. It’s not art, +it’s record. It’s photography. That happened. That happened, tragically, +to Madala. Oh, not the trimmings, of course, not the happy-ever-after. +But to me it’s perfectly clear that that lapse into _Family Herald_ +romance has had its equivalent in Madala’s own life. I’ve always felt a +certain weakness in her character, you know—a certain sentimentalism.” + +“In the author of _Eden Walls_?” said Miss Howe contemptuously. + +“No, dear lady! But in the author of _The Resting-place_.” Mr. Flood had +recovered himself. + +“Skit, I tell you, skit!” she insisted. And they continued to bicker in +undertones while Anita summed up the situation. + +“No, my theory is this—Madala Grey met some man——” + +“Carey?” asked Mr. Flood, dividing his allegiance. + +“No, Carey comes later. There was—an episode——” + +“Episodes?” he amended. + +“Possibly. But an episode anyhow, that I place myself at the end of the +_Ploughed Fields_ period. It may have been later, it may have been the +following summer while she was working at _The Resting-place_. I’m open +to conviction there. But an episode there must have been. In _The +Resting-place_ she wrote it down as it ought to have happened.” + +“Why ought?” + +“Well, obviously it didn’t happen or she wouldn’t have become Mrs. +Carey.” + +“The gentleman loved and rode away, you mean?” + +“Something of the sort. Something went wrong.” + +“I see.” Miss Howe was interested. “It’s a theory, anyhow. And then in +sheer savage irony at her own weakness——” + +“Not a bit. In sheer weak longing——” + +“I see. If your theory is correct—I don’t know what you base it on——” + +“Internal evidence,” said Anita airily. + +“Then I can imagine that _The Resting-place_ was a relief to write. Poor +Madala!” + +“And then,” concluded Anita triumphantly, “then appears Carey, and she’s +too worn out, too exhausted with her own frustrated emotions to care +what happens. The book’s in her head still, and she her own heroine. He +appears to her—I admit that it’s possible that even Carey might appear +to her—as a refuge, a resting-place.” + +“Yes, but you don’t like Mr. Carey,” said the Baxter girl. “But if +Madala did? Isn’t it possible that in Madala’s eyes——? Why shouldn’t the +hero be Mr. Carey himself?” + +Anita’s eyes were bright with the cold anger that she always showed at +the name. + +“My good girl, you know nothing about John Carey, or you’d rule that +out. Have you ever seen him? I thought not. And yet you _have_ seen him. +All day. Every day. When you talk of the man in the street, whom do you +mean? What utterly common-place face is in your mind? Shall I tell you +what is in mine? John Carey. Ordinary! Ordinary! The apotheosis of the +uninspired! Oh, I haven’t any words. Look for yourself.” She rummaged +furiously in the half-opened desk and flung out a fading snapshot on a +mount. “There he is! That’s the thing she married!” + +“What’s he doing in your holy of holies?” Mr. Flood’s eyes seemed to +bore into her desk. + +Anita, still thrusting down the overflowing papers, answered coldly— + +“Madala sent it to Mother. She said that it wasn’t good enough but that +it would give her an idea.” + +“It certainly gives one an idea,” said the blonde lady languorously. + +“And then she put in a post-script that it didn’t do him justice because +the sun was in his eyes. Defiantly, as it were. Isn’t that significant? +She’d never own to a mistake. Pride! She had the devil’s own pride. Look +at the way she took her reviews! And in this case she would be bound to +defend him. She’d defend anything she’d once taken under her wing.” + +“Well, you know,” drawled the blonde lady, her eyes on the photograph, +“according to this he topped her by two inches. I don’t somehow see him +_under_ Madala’s wing.” And then—“After all, there’s something rather +fascinating in bone and muscle.” + +“Yes, and I don’t see,” the Baxter girl hurried into defiance, “honestly +I don’t see, Miss Serle, why she shouldn’t have been in love with him. +Of course, it’s not a clever face, but it’s good-tempered, and it’s +good-looking, and there’s a twinkle. Madala loved a twinkle. And I don’t +see——” + +Anita crushed her. + +“We’re discussing the standards of Madala Grey.” + +“That’s not the point either, Anita.” Mr. Flood would sometimes rouse +himself to defend the Baxter girl. “You know something. You own to it. +What do you know?” + +“Simply that she was in love with someone else. I’ve papers that prove +it. Now it was either some man whom none of us know, whom for some +reason she wouldn’t let us know, or——” she hesitated. Then she began +again—“Mind you, I don’t commit myself, but—has the likeness never +struck you? _Hugh Barrington_ in _The Resting-place_ and——?” Her eyes +flickered towards Kent Rehan. + +Mr. Flood whistled. + +“Be careful, Anita.” + +“He?” Miss Howe laughed, but kindly. “He’s lost to the world. He’ll be +worse than ever now.” + +“There!” Anita dropped upon the sentence like a hawk upon a heather +bird. “You see! You say that! And yet you tell me there was +nothing—nothing—between them? Didn’t she rave about him? his talents? +his personality? his charm? And then she goes and writes the story of an +artist’s model!” + +Miss Howe laughed again. + +“When a thing’s as obvious as that, it probably isn’t so. Besides, the +artist’s model marries the artist.” + +“Exactly. She leaves them, and us, cloyed with love in a cottage. I +repeat, the artist’s model marries the artist because Madala Grey +didn’t. It’s the merest shadow of a solution as yet, but—isn’t that a +living portrait in _The Resting-place_? Oh, I know it by heart— + + “Maybe it was his height that gave you the impression, less of + weakness than of vagueness, as if his high forehead touched + cloud-land, and were obscured by dreams; for his cold eyes + guarded his mind from you, and his dark beard hid his mouth.” + +“You _do_ know it by heart!” said Miss Howe. + +“Of course I know it by heart. It was the first clue. Can anybody read +those lines without recognizing him?” + +The Baxter girl persisted— + +“But I don’t see it. Oh, of course it is like him—but because she +borrowed his face, the story needn’t be about him. Why couldn’t she just +imagine the story? If she was a genius?” + +“That remains the point,” said Mr. Flood. + +“She was,” insisted Anita stubbornly. + +Miss Howe smiled and said nothing. + +He continued— + +“The mere fact that she was a genius would prevent such a descent into +milk and sugar, unless she were money-making or love-sick.” + +The blonde lady spoke— + +“Just so! Love-sick—sick of love—savage with love—savaging her holy of +holies. A parody. Lila’s right.” + +But Miss Howe shook her head. + +“No, no. I didn’t mean that sort of parody. Madala may have had her +emotions, but she’d always be good-tempered about them. She’s laughing +at herself in _The Resting-place_ as well as at us.” + +“But why do you cavil at it so?” said the Baxter girl slowly. + +“Only at its plain meaning. Grant the parody and——” + +“But why can’t you just read it as it stands? Why do you say +sentimental? I—I liked it.” + +Anita took the book from her hand. + +“But, my dear child, _any_body can write this sort of thing. Where’s the +passage the ladies’ papers rave about, where they have a day on the +river together?” She whipped over the pages while I said to the Baxter +girl— + +“What is it? What’s it about? What’s the plot?” + +“Oh, there isn’t any. That’s what they complain of. It’s just a little +artist’s model who sits to an elderly, broken-down dreamer, and thinks +him a god. The duke and door-mat touch. It’s just how two people fall in +love and find it out. It’s as simple as A, B, C. But people ate it when +it came out.” + +“Treacle, I tell you,” insisted Mr. Flood. + +Anita overheard him. + +“Exactly! Listen to this— + + ... and they landed at last in a meadow of brilliant, brook-fed + grass. + + She had no words in which to say a thousand times ‘How + beautiful!’ Words? She had never known a country June. She had + never seen whole hedges clotted with bloom, she had never in all + her life breathed the perfume of the may or heard a lark’s + ecstasy. She had never—and to her simplicity there was no break + in the chain of thought—she had never before been alone with + him, unpaid, not his servant but his equal and companion. How + should she have words? + + She sat in the grass with the tall ox-eyes nodding at her elbow + and looked at him from under her hat with a little eased sigh. + This, after the dust of the journey, of the day, of her life, + was bliss. She prepared herself for this bliss, deliberately, as + she did everything. She was too poor and too hungry to be + wasteful of her happiness: she must have every crumb. Therefore + she had looked first at herself, critically, with her trained + eye, fingering the frill of her blouse, flinging a scatter of + skirt across her dusty city feet, lest her poverty should jar + his thoughts of her. + + Then she looked at him. She saw him for a moment with undazzled + eyes, the blue sky enriched with clouds behind him. She was + saying to herself—‘I’m not a fool. I can see straight. I know + what he is. He’s just an ordinary man in a hot, black suit. He + stoops, I suppose. He’s worn out with work. He’ll never be young + again. And there’s nothing particular about him. Then what makes + me like him? But I do. I do. He has only to turn and smile at + me——’ + + Then he turned and smiled at her, and it seemed to her that the + glamour of the gilded day passed over and into him as he smiled, + glorifying him so that she caught her breath at his beauty. She + knew her happiness. She knew herself and him. He was the sum of + the blue sky and green, green grass, and the shining waters and + the flowers with their sweet smell, and the singing birds and + the hum of the little things of the air. All beauty was summed + up in him: he was food to her and sunshine and music: he was her + absolute good: and she thought that someone ought to see that + his socks were mended properly, for there was a great ladder + down one ankle, darned with wrong-coloured wool. + +“Well?” She shut the book. + +“I like it,” said the Baxter girl stubbornly. + +Mr. Flood twisted uneasily in his seat. + +“Oh, pretty, of course. Of course it’s pleasant enough in a way. But +Madala oughtn’t to be pretty. Think of the stuff she _can_ do.” + +“But can’t you see,” Miss Howe broke in, “how it parodies the slush and +sugar school?” + +Anita shook her head. + +“She used another manner when she was ironical. I wish you were right. +Oh, you may be—I must consider—but I’m afraid that she is in earnest. +That phrase now—‘The green, green grass,’ (why double the adjective?) +‘the shining waters, the singing birds’—pitiful! And that +anti-climax—‘He was her absolute good: and she thought that someone +ought to see that his socks were mended properly.’ I ask you—is it art?” + +“Not as serious work, of course,” said Miss Howe, “but——” + +“I wish I could think so,” said Anita. + +“Well, I wish I could do it,” said the Baxter girl. “What do you say, +Jenny?” + +But it had brought back the country to me. It had brought back home. I +hadn’t anything to say to them. + +“And she wouldn’t discuss it, you know. She came in after supper that +night, just as I was reading the last chapter. It had only been out a +day. There she sat, where you are now, Lila, smiling, with her hands in +her lap and her eyes fixed on her hands, waiting for me to finish.” + +“Oh—” Miss Howe gave a little gushing scream, “that reminds me—d’you +know, Anita, somebody actually told me that nobody had seen _The +Resting-place_ before it was published, not even you. I was amused. I +denied it, of course.” + +“Why?” said Anita coldly. + +Miss Howe screamed again. + +“Then you didn’t? Oh, my dear?” + +“Emancipation with a vengeance,” said Mr. Flood. + +“It had to come, Anita,” said Miss Howe with deadly sympathy. + +“It was not that. It was only—she was so extraordinarily sensitive about +the _Resting-place_—unlike herself altogether. I think, I’ve always +thought that she herself knew how unworthy it was of her. She—what’s the +use of disguising it?—she, at least, had a value for my judgment,” her +eyes, wandering past Miss Howe, brooded upon the Baxter girl, “and she +knew what my judgment would be. She owned it. She anticipated it. I had +shut the book, you know, quietly. She sat so still that I thought she +was asleep. She had had one of those insane mornings——” + +“Of course. She used to take a crowd of children into the country, +didn’t she?” + +“Once a week. Slum children.” + +“I know. ‘To eat buttercups,’ she told me,” said Miss Howe. + +“It was ridiculous, you know. She couldn’t afford it. Look at the way +she lived! I always said to her, ‘If you can afford mad extravagances of +that sort, you can afford a decent flat in a decent neighbourhood’——” + +“Oh, but I loved those rooms,” said the Baxter girl, “with the Spanish +leather screen round the wash-hand-stand.” + +Anita glanced behind her. + +“Ah, you’ve noticed? I happened to admire it one day and—you know what +she is—‘Would you like it? Why, of course, it would just suit the rest +of your things. Oh, you must have it. I’d like you to. It’s far too big +for this room.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘if you want it housed——’ So that’s how it +comes to be here. One couldn’t hurt her feelings. And you know, it was +quite unsuitable to lodging-house furniture.” + +Miss Howe laughed. + +“It disguised the wash-hand-stand. That was all Madala cared. Only then +she always took you round to show you how beautifully it did disguise +it.” + +“Typical,” said Mr. Flood. “Her reserves were topsy-turvy.” + +“But she had her reserves,” said Miss Howe quickly. + +“I doubt that,” he answered her. + +“Oh, but she had.” Anita recovered her place in the talk. “Curious +reserves. You know how she came to me over _Eden Walls_ and _Ploughed +Fields_. I saw every chapter. But as I was telling you, she wouldn’t +hear a criticism of _The Resting-place_. That evening she pounced on me. +She was as quick as light. She said—‘You don’t like it! I knew you +wouldn’t! Never mind, Anita. Forget it! Put it in the fire! You like me. +What do the books matter?’ She’d been watching me all the time.” + +“She had eyes in the back of her head,” said Miss Howe. + +“Kind eyes,” said the Baxter girl. + +“And I assure you she wouldn’t have said another word on the subject if +I hadn’t insisted. I told her not to be ridiculous. How could I help +being disappointed? How could I separate her from her work? I was +disappointed, bitterly. I made it clear. I said to her—‘Well, Madala, +all I can say is that if your future output is to be on a level with +this—this pot-boiler——’” + +“It’s not a pot-boiler,” said the Baxter girl loudly and quite rudely. +“I don’t know exactly what it is, but it’s not a pot-boiler.” + +Anita stared her down. + +“‘—pot-boiler,’ I said, ‘then—I wash my hands of you.’ I wanted to rouse +her. I couldn’t understand her.” + +“Well?” said Miss Howe. + +They all laughed. + +“Oh, you can guess.” Anita was petulant, but she, too, laughed a little. +“You know her way. She just sat smiling and twisting a ring that she +wore and looking like a scolded child.” + +“But what did she say?” said the Baxter girl. + +“Nothing to the point. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘but, Anita, if I’d never written +anything, wouldn’t you be just as fond of me?’ Such a silly thing to +say! She was distressing at times. She embarrassed me. Fond of her! She +knew my interests were intellectual. Fond of her! For a woman of her +brains her standard of values was childish.” + +“But you were fond of her, you know,” said Miss Howe. + +“Oh, as for that—there was something about her—she had a certain +way——After all, if it gave her pleasure to be demonstrative, it was +easier to acquiesce. But she made a fetish of such things. I was only +trying to explain to her, as I tell you, that it was quite impossible to +separate creator and creatures, and that to me she was _Eden Walls_ and +_Ploughed Fields_, and if you believe me, she was upon me like a +whirlwind, shaking me by the shoulders, and crying out—‘No, no, stop! +You’re to stop! It’s me you like, not the books. I hate them. I hate all +that. I shall get away from all that one day.’ And I said—‘I don’t +wonder you’re ashamed of _The Resting-place_. I advise you to get to +work at once on your new book. You’ll find that if you pull yourself +together——’ And all she said was—‘Nita! Nita! _Don’t!_ And she looked at +me in such a curious way——” + +“How?” somebody said. + +“I don’t know—laughing—despairing. She’d no right to look at me like +that. It was I who was in despair.” + +“I’d like to have seen you two,” said Miss Howe. + +“I didn’t know what had got into her. Of course I blame myself. I ought +to have followed it out. I might have prevented things. But I was +annoyed and she saw it, and she——” + +Miss Howe twinkled. + +“She wouldn’t let you be annoyed with her long. What did she do with +you, Anita?” + +“She? I don’t know what you mean. We changed the subject. And as a +matter of fact I was much occupied at the time with the _Anthology_.” +She paused. “She had excellent taste,” said Anita regretfully. +“Naturally I reserved to myself the final decision, but——” + +“Just so,” said Mr. Flood. + +“Be quiet, Jasper.” The blonde lady’s draperies dusted his shoulder +intimately. + +“She’d brought me a delicious thing of Lady Nairn’s, I remember, that +I’d overlooked. And from talking of the _Anthology_ we came, somehow, to +talking about me. Yes—” Anita gave an embarrassed half laugh—“She began +to talk to me, turning the tables as it were—about myself. She’s never, +in all the years I’d known her, taken such a tone. Astonishing! As if—as +if I were the younger.” She stared at them, as one combating an +unuttered criticism. “I—liked it,” said Anita defiantly. “There was +nothing impertinent. It was heartening. She made me feel that one person +in the world, at least, knew me—knew my work. I realized, suddenly, that +while I had been studying her, she must have been studying me, that she +understood my capacities, my limitations, my possibilities, almost as +well as I did myself. The relief of it—indescribable! She was +extraordinarily plain-spoken. As a rule, you know, I thought her +manner——” + +“Insincere?” said the Baxter girl. “Yes, I’ve heard people say that.” + +“It had that effect. It didn’t seem possible that she could like +everyone as much as she made them think she did. But with me, at least, +she was always frankness itself. She believes, you know,—she believed, +that is, that all my work so far, even the _Anthology_ and the _Famous +Women_ series, not to mention the lighter work, is still preliminary: +that my——” she hesitated—“my master-piece, she called it, was still to +come. She said that, though she appreciated all my work, I hadn’t ‘found +myself.’ Yes! from that child to me it was amusing. But right, you know. +She said that my line, whether I dealt with a period or a person, would +always be critical, but that I’d never had a big success because so far +I’d been merely critical: that I’d never become identified with my +subject: that I’d always remained aloof—inhuman. Yes, she said that. A +curious theory—but it interested me. But she said that it was only the +real theme I needed, the engrossing subject. She said that my chance +would come: that ‘she felt it in her bones.’ I can hear her voice +now—‘Don’t you worry, Nita! It’ll come to you one day. A big thing. +Biography, I shouldn’t wonder. And I shall sit and say—I told you so—I +told you so!’ Yes, she talked like that. Oh, it’s nothing when I repeat +it, but if you knew how it seemed to pour new life into me. It was the +belief in her voice!” + +“She always believed in you,” said Miss Howe with a certain harshness. +“Insincere! You should have heard her talk of your _Famous_ _Women_!” +And then—“Yes. She believed in you right enough.” + +“More than I did in her that night. I couldn’t forget _The +Resting-place_. It lay on the table, and every now and then, when I felt +most comfort in her, my eyes would fall on it, and it would jar me. She +felt it too. When I saw her off at last—it had grown very late—she +stopped at the gate and turned and came running back. I thought that she +had forgotten her handbag. She nearly always forgot her handbag. But no, +it was _The Resting-place_ that was on her mind. It was—‘Nita! try it +again. Maybe you’d like it better.’ And then—‘Nita! I enjoyed writing it +so.’ ‘That’s something, at any rate,’ I said, not wanting, you know, to +be unkind. Then she said—‘I wish you liked it. Because, you know, Nita—’ +and stopped as if she wanted to tell me something and couldn’t make up +her mind. ‘Well, what?’ I said. It was cold on the steps. She hesitated. +She looked at me. For an instant I had an absurd impression that she was +going to cry. Then she kissed me. She’d kissed me goodnight once +already, though, you know, we never did as a rule. And then, off she +went without another word. I was quite bewildered by her. I nearly +called her back; but it was one of those deep dark blue nights: it +seemed to swallow her up at once. But I heard her footsteps for a long +while after—dragging steps, as if she were tired. I wasn’t. It was as if +she had put something into me. I went back into the house and I worked +till daylight. And all the next day I worked—worked well. I felt, I +remember, so hopeful, so full of power. By the evening I had quite a +mass of material to show her, if she came. I half expected her to come. +But instead—” she fumbled among her papers—“I got this.” + +It was a sheet of note-paper, a sheet that looked as if it had been +crushed into a ball and then smoothed out again for careful folding. +Anita’s fingers were still ironing out the crinkled edge while she read +it aloud. + + “I want to tell you something. I tried to tell you yesterday, + but somehow I couldn’t. It oughtn’t to be difficult, yet all + this afternoon I’ve been writing to you in an exercise book, and + crossing out, and re-phrasing, and putting in again as carefully + and dissatisfiedly as if it were Opus 4. I wish it were, because + then you’d be very much pleased with Madala Grey and forget the + dreadful shock of Opus 3! I was always afraid you wouldn’t like + it, and sorry, because I like it more than all my other work put + together. Have you never even begun to guess why? But how should + you, when I didn’t know myself until after it was finished? + Coming events, I suppose. It’s quite true—one isn’t overtaken by + fate: one prepares one’s own fate: one carries it about inside + one, like a child. I hear you say—‘Can’t you come to the point?’ + No, I can’t. Partly because I’m afraid of what you’ll say, + because I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed, and partly, + selfishly, because there is a queer pleasure in beating about + the bush that bears my flower. It’s too beautiful to pick + straight away in one rough snatch of a sentence. Am I selfish? + You’ve been so kind to me. I know you will be sorry and that + troubles me. And yet—Anita, I am going to be married. You met + him once in the churchyard at home, do you remember? I’ve seen + him now and then when I took the children down there in the + summer. He—— + +There’s something scratched out here,” said Anita. + + “I think we shall be happy. When you get accustomed to the idea + I hope you will like him.” + +She paused. + +“Now what do you make of that?” said Anita. + +“It explains the expeditions with the children,” said Mr. Flood. “They +were always too—philanthropic, to be quite—eh?” + +“Oh, but she began those outings ages ago,” said Miss Howe quickly. + +“Besides,” said Anita, “she didn’t go every week that summer. That’s the +point. She told me herself that she was so busy that she had to get +help—one of those mission women. Now why was she so busy?” + +“Diversions in the country _and_ attractions in town?” said Mr. Flood. +“It all takes time.” + +Anita nodded. + +“You think that? So do I. _And_ attractions in town! Exactly! At any +rate I shall make that the big chapter, the convincing chapter, of the +_Life_. I think I shall be able to prove that that summer was the climax +of her affairs. I grant you that she met Carey that summer, but as she +says herself, a few times only. We must look nearer home than Carey.” + +“Oh, but there’s such a thing as love at first sight,” protested the +Baxter girl, and Anita dealt with her in swift parenthesis— + +“I was there when they first met. Shouldn’t I have realized——?” And +then, continuing—“Well, reckon up my points. To begin with—the +difference in her that we all noticed, the restlessness, the—unhappiness +one might almost say, the aloofness—oh, don’t you know what I mean? as +if she didn’t belong to us any more.” + +“As if she didn’t belong to herself any more.” + +“Yes, yes, that’s even more what I mean. Then comes the fact that we saw +so little of her. What did she do with her time? Writing _The +Resting-place_, was her explanation, but—is that gospel? Do you really +believe that she sat at home writing and dreaming all those long summer +days and nights, except when she was—eating buttercups—with Carey and +her chaperons? And then comes _The Resting-place_ with its appalling +falling-off, and following on that, this letter, this sudden engagement. +Now doesn’t it look—I ask you, doesn’t it look as if something had been +going on behind all our backs and had at last come to a head?” + +“Oh, that she was in love is certain,” said Mr. Flood. “Was there ever a +woman of genius who wasn’t?” + +“Exactly. It’s a moral certainty. And this letter to me proves that, +whoever it was, it wasn’t Carey. ‘I think we shall be happy.’ ‘I hope +you will like him.’ Is that the way a woman writes of her first love or +her first lover?” + +“Oh, but that sentence just before——” the Baxter girl stretched out her +hand for the letter—“‘The bush that bears my flower——’” She spoke +sympathetically; but it jarred me. I wondered how I should feel if I +thought that the Baxter girl would ever read my letters aloud. + +“Ah, that’s the literary touch. Madala could never resist embroideries. +Besides—she wants to confuse me. That means nothing. But here, you, +see——” she took the letter out of the Baxter girl’s hand—“as soon as she +comes to the point, the real point, the confession, the apologia—then +the baldest sentences. Try to remember that Madala Grey has written one +of the strongest love scenes of the decade, and all she can say of the +man she is to marry is—‘I hope you will like him.’” + +“H’m! It’s curious!” Miss Howe was frowning. + +“Isn’t it? And then you know, the whole manner of the engagement was so +unlike her usual triumphant way. She always swept one along, didn’t she? +But in the matter of the marriage she seems, as far as I can make out, +to have been perfectly passive. She left everything to the +man—arrangements—furniture—I imagine she even bought her clothes to +please him. And the wedding itself—no reception, no presents, no notice +to anyone, so sudden, so private. Not a word even to her oldest +friends——” + +Great-aunt stirred in her corner. + +“—there was something so furtive about it all: as if she were running +away from something.” + +Miss Howe sat up. + +“D’you mean?—what do you mean, Anita? Are you hinting——?” + +Anita looked at her in a puzzled way that relieved me, I hardly knew +why. + +“Why, only that it carries out my theory—of Carey as a refuge.” + +“From what?” + +“Life—frustration—what did you think I meant?” + +“I don’t know. Nothing. It was my evil mind, I suppose.” She flushed. + +“How she harps on the child!” the Baxter girl carried it on. + +“That’s a mere simile——” said Miss Howe swiftly. + +“But a queer simile!” + +“The marriage _was_ sudden,” said Mr. Flood from the floor in his silky +voice. “Anita’s theory has its points.” + +“A seven months’ child!” It was the first word that the blonde lady had +said for some time. There was something sluggishly cold, slimily cold, +in her abstracted voice. + +Anita started. + +“I never suggested that,” she said sharply. But there was a quiver in +her voice that was more excitement than anger. + +“My dear lady, nobody suggests anything. We are only remarking that the +union of our Madala and her ‘refuge’—the soubriquet is yours, by the +way—was as surprising as it was—er—sudden. That was your idea?” He +turned to the shadows and from them the blonde lady nodded, smiling. + +At the time, you know, I didn’t understand them. They were so quick and +allusive. They said more in jerks and nods and pauses than in actual +speech. But I saw the smile on that woman’s face, and heard the way he +said ‘our Madala.’ I felt myself growing angry and panic-stricken, and I +was quite helpless. I just went across the room to that big man sitting +dully in his corner, in his dream, and I caught his arm and cried to him +under my breath— + +“You must come. You must come and stop them. They’re talking about her. +Come quickly. They—they’re saying beastly things.” + +He gave me one look. Then he got up and went swiftly from one room to +the other. But swiftly as he moved and I followed, someone else was +there before us to fight that battle. + +It was Great-aunt Serle. + +She was a heavy old woman and feeble. She never stirred as a rule +without a helping arm; but somehow she had got herself out of her seat +and across the floor to the table, and there she stood, her knitting +gripped as if it were a weapon, the long thread of it stretched and taut +from the ball that had rolled round the chair-leg, her free hand and her +tremulous head jerking and snapping and poking at that amazed assembly +as she rated them— + +“I won’t allow such talk. Anita, I won’t have it. If I let you bring +home friends—ought to know better! And you——” the blonde lady was +spitted, as it were, on that unerring finger, “you’re a wicked woman. +That’s what you are—a wicked, scandalous woman. And you, Anita, ought to +be ashamed of yourself, to let her talk so of my girl. Such a woman! +Paint and powder! Envy, hatred, malice! And in my house too! Tell her to +wash her face!” She glowered at them. + +There was a blank pause and then a sound somewhere, like the end of a +spurting giggle. It must have been the Baxter girl. There was a most +uncomfortable moment, before Anita cried out “Mother!” in a horrified +voice, and Miss Howe said “Beryl!” in a voice not quite as horrified. + +But the blonde lady sat through it all quite calmly, smiling and +moistening her lips. At last she drawled out— + +“Nita! Your dear mother’s quite upset. So sorry, Nita!” Then, a very +little lower, but we could all hear it—“Poor dear Nita! Quite a trial +for poor dear Nita!” + +But Anita had jumped up. She was very much flustered and annoyed. I +think, too, that she was startled. I know that I was startled. +Great-aunt didn’t look like herself. She was like a witch in a +picture-book, and her voice had been quite strong and commanding. + +Anita tried to quiet her and get her away. + +“Mother! You must be quiet! D’you hear me, Mother? You don’t know what +you’re saying. You’ve been up too long. You’re overdone. It’s time you +went to bed.” + +She took her firmly by the arm. But Great-aunt struggled with her. + +“I won’t. Leave me alone. It’s your fault, Anita. You sat and listened. +You let them talk that way about my girl.” + +“Now, Mother, what nonsense! Your girl! Madala’s not your daughter.” And +then, in apology—“She’s always confusing us. She gets these ideas.” + +“Not mine? Ah! That’s all you know! ‘Anita upstairs?’ That’s how she’d +come running in to me. ‘Are you busy, Mrs. Serle?’ Always looked in to +my room first. Brought me violets. Talked. Told me all her troubles. +_You_ never knew. Not mine, eh? Didn’t I see her married, my pretty +girl? ‘Hole-and-corner business!’ That’s what you tell them? ‘Nobody +knew.’ But I knew.” + +Anita’s hand dropped from her mother’s arm. She stared at her. + +“You, Mother? You there?” And then, angrily, “Oh, I don’t believe it.” + +“Don’t believe it, eh? But it’s true, for all I’m lumber in my own +house. I’m to go to bed before the company comes, before she comes. +Don’t she want to see me then? Who pinned her veil for her and kissed +her and blessed her, and took her to church, and gave her to him? Not +you, my daughter. She didn’t come to you for that.” And then, with a +slacking and a wail, “Eh, but we were never to tell!” + +“Mother, you’d better come to bed. I——” there was the faintest +suggestion of menace in her voice—“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” + +The old woman shrank away. + +“I won’t come. I know. You want me out of the way. You don’t want me to +see her. What are you going to say about me? You’ll say things to her +about me. I’ve heard you.” + +Quite obviously Anita restrained herself. + +“Now, Mother, you know you don’t mean that.” + +“Hush!” Great-aunt pulled away her hand. “Quiet, child, quiet! Wasn’t +that the cab? I’ve listened all the evening, all the long evening.” Her +old voice thinned and sharpened to a chirp. “Soft, soft, the wheels go +by. The wheels never stop. Wait till the wheels stop. It’s the fog +that’s keeping her. There’s fog everywhere. Maybe she’s lost in the +fog.” Then she chuckled to herself. “Naughty girl to be so late. But +she’s always late. Why should I go to bed? I’ve got to finish my +knitting, Nita. Only two rows, Nita. They’ll just last me till she +comes.” And then, “Anita, she will come?” + +Anita turned to the others. + +“Don’t be alarmed. It’s nothing. I’m afraid she hasn’t realized——” She +began again—“Now, Mother! It’s bed-time, Mother dear.” + +“‘Dear’—‘dear’—why do you speak kindly? Madala’s not here to listen.” +And then—“Nita, Nita child, let me stay till she comes.” + +Anita was quite patient with her, and quite unyielding. + +“Now listen, Mother! It’s no use waiting. Come upstairs with me. She +won’t——” her voice altered, “she can’t come tonight.” + +Beside me Kent Rehan spoke— + +“I can’t stand it,” he said. “I can’t stand it. I can’t stand it.” He +didn’t seem to know that he was speaking. + +But Great-aunt heard his voice if she didn’t hear the words. She broke +away from Anita and went shuffling over the floor towards him with blind +movements. She would have fallen if he hadn’t been beside her in an +instant, holding her. + +“Kent, d’you hear her? You know my daughter. You know Madala too. You +speak to her! You tell her! Madala always comes, doesn’t she? Always +comes. You tell her that! I want to see Madala. Very good to me, Madala. +Brought me a bunch of violets.” + +Anita followed. + +“Kent, for goodness’ sake, try to help me. She’ll make herself ill. I +shall have her in bed for days. Now, Mother——Now come, Mother!” + +Great-aunt clung to his arm. + +“She’s not kind. My daughter’s very hard on me.” + +For the first time Anita showed signs of agitation. She was almost +appealing. + +“Kent! You mustn’t believe her. It’s not fair. You see my position. One +has to be firm. And you don’t know how trying——What am I to do? Shall I +tell her? She’s as obstinate—I’ll never get her to bed. Ought I to tell +her? She’ll have to be told sooner or later. She’ll have to realize——” + +He said— + +“I’ll talk to her if you like.” + +Anita looked at him intently. + +“It’s good of you. She has always listened to you. Since you and I were +children together. Do you remember, Kent? Yes, you talk to her.” + +“What’s she saying?” demanded Great-aunt. Her old eyes were bright with +suspicion. “Talking you over, eh? Talk anyone over, my daughter will—my +clever daughter. So clever. Madala thinks so too. ‘Dripping with +brains.’ That’s what Madala said. Made me laugh. Quite true, though. +Hasn’t Madala come yet?” + +“Now, look here, Mrs. Serle——” he put his arm round her bent shoulders, +“it’s very foggy, you know, and it’s very late. Nobody could +travel—nobody could come tonight. You’ll believe us, won’t you?” + +“Wait! What’s that?” She stood a moment, her finger raised, listening +intently. Then she straightened her bowed body and looked up at him. One +so seldom saw her face lifted, shone upon by any light, that that alone, +I suppose, was enough to change her. For changed she was—her countenance +so wise and beaming that I hardly knew her. “Now I know,” she said, “she +will come. Wait for her, Kent. She will come. I—I hear her coming. She’s +not so far from us. She’s not so far away.” + +They stared at each other for a moment, the man and the old woman. Then +her face dropped forward again, downward into its accustomed shadow, as +he said to her— + +“It’s too late, Mrs. Serle. She won’t come—now. Not now any more. And +Anita thinks—truly you’re very tired, aren’t you? Now, aren’t you?” + +“Very tired,” she quavered. + +“I know you are. Won’t you let me help you upstairs?” + +“And stay a bit?” she said, clutching at him. “Stay and talk to me?” + +“Yes, yes,” he humoured her. + +“About Madala?” + +He was very white. + +“About Madala. Anita, take her other arm. That’s the way.” + +They helped her out of the room, and we heard their slow progress up the +stairs. + +It was the blonde lady who broke the silence with her tinkling laugh— + +“Poor dear Nita!” + +“Kent’s a good sort,” said Miss Howe. + +“What’s Hecuba to him now?” Mr. Flood’s smile glinted from one to +another. + +“A very old friend,” said the blonde lady. “You heard what dear Nita +said to him.” + +“‘Children together!’ I didn’t know that.” He was still smiling. + +“And they always kept in touch,” put in Miss Howe. + +“Trust Nita for that,” said the blonde lady. + +Miss Howe nodded. + +“She told me once that from the first she realized that he would do big +things.” + +“So Nita kept in touch!” Mr. Flood laughed outright. + +“But it’s only the last few years that she’s been able to produce him at +will, like a conjuror’s rabbit.” + +“Since Madala’s advent, you mean,” said the blonde lady. + +“‘Will you walk into my parlour?’ said Anita to the fly. ‘It’s a +literary parlour——’” murmured Mr. Flood. And then—“No. Kent’s not likely +to have walked in without a honey-pot in the parlour. Madala must have +been useful.” + +“That’s what Miss Serle will never forgive her, _I_ think,” said the +Baxter girl. + +“What?” + +“That she was useful. Do _you_ believe in the other man?” + +“The unknown influence?” His eyes narrowed. “H’m!” + +“And yet of course there’s been someone.” The Baxter girl never quite +deserted Anita, even in her absence. + +The blonde lady nodded. + +“Of course. Nita’s always nearly right. The influence—the adventures—the +_mariage de convenance_—she’s got it all so pat—and the man too. She +knows well enough; yet she fights against it. She won’t have it. I +wonder why. ‘Very old friends’ I suppose.” She laughed again. “But of +course it was Kent. Can’t you see that’s why Nita hates her? What a +_Life_ it will be! I just long for it to come out. Nita’s a comedy.” + +“A tragedy.” + +“Nita? My dear Lila! What do you mean?” + +“I’m only quoting,” said Miss Howe. And then—“But when she isn’t +actually annoying me I think I agree.” + +“Who said it?” said the Baxter girl inquisitively. + +“Madala. It’s the only thing I’ve ever heard her say of Anita. She never +discussed Anita. Now of Kent she would talk by the hour. Which proves to +me, you know, that the affair with him didn’t go very deep. Nita quoted +that description of Kent just now, but only so far as it served her. She +carefully forgot how it goes on. Here, where is it? Ah—— + + He brooded like a lover over his colour-box, and as she watched + him her thoughts flew to her own small brothers at home. Geoff + with his steam-engine, Jimmy sorting stamps—there, there was to + be found the same ruthlessness of absorption, achieving dignity + by its sheer intensity. She smiled over him and them. + + “Keep your face still,” he ordered. + + She obeyed instantly, flushing; and as she did so she thought to + herself—‘I could be afraid of that man,’ but a moment + afterwards—‘He _is_ like a small boy.’ + +“Now that may be Kent—oh, it is Kent, of course—but it’s not Madala’s +attitude to Kent. She was not in the least afraid of him.” + +“Ah, but that later passage, the country passage—that’s pure Madala.” + +“Yes. Just where it ceases to be Kent—‘He stoops, I suppose. He’s worn +out with work. He’s quite ordinary.’ That’s not Kent.” + +“No, that’s true. One doesn’t know where to have her. She muddles her +trail,” said Mr. Flood. + +“I call it weakness of touch not to let you know whom she drew from,” +said the Baxter girl. + +“Ah, but she always insisted that she didn’t draw portraits.” + +“Of course. They always do. If one believed _them_ one would never get +behind the scenes, and if one can’t get behind the scenes one might as +well be mere public and read for the story,” said the Baxter girl +indignantly. + +“Well, you know,” Miss Howe sat turning over the pages of _The +Resting-place_ with careful, almost with caressing fingers, “I don’t +believe she meant to draw portraits. She had queer, old-fashioned +notions. I think she would have thought it—treacherous.” + +“The portraits are there though, if you look close enough,” insisted the +Baxter girl. + +“Yes, but they happened in spite of her. Anyone she was fond of she took +into her, in a sense: and when her gift descended upon her and demanded +expression, then, all unconsciously, she expressed them too. But gilded! +We find ourselves in her books, and we never knew before how lovable we +are. You’re right, Blanche, _she liked whate’er she looked on_. And +you’re right too, Jasper, _Grande amoureuse_, she was that. That +capacity for loving made her what she was. The technical facility was +her talent and her luck; but it was her own personality that turned it +into genius.” + +“Then after all you admit the genius,” said the Baxter girl +triumphantly. + +“No. No. No. My judgment says no. When I read her books in cold +blood—no. But we’ve been talking about her. It’s as if she were with us, +and when she’s with us my judgment goes! That’s the secret of Madala +Grey. She does what she likes with us. But the next generation, the +people who don’t know her, whether they’ll find in her books what we do, +is doubtful. Who wants a dried rose?” + +“Yes, but Miss Serle—in the _Life_? Won’t she—preserve her?” + +“Preserve—exactly! But not revive. No, I’d sooner pin my faith to _The +Spring Song_, although I haven’t seen it. It ought to be a revelation. +She eluded Nita, impishly. I’ve seen her do it. But there’s no doubt +that she gave Kent his chance.” + +“Every chance. She’d deny it, I suppose.” + +“Oh, she did.” Miss Howe laughed. “Have you ever seen her in a temper? I +have. I was a fool. I told her one day (you know how things come up) +just something of the gossip about Kent and her. I thought it only kind. +But you should have heard her. She was as healthily furious as a +schoolgirl. That was so comfortable about Madala. She hadn’t that +terrible aloofness of really big people. She didn’t withdraw into +dignity. She just stormed.” Miss Howe laughed again. “I can see her now, +raging up and down the room—‘Do you mean to say that people——? I never +heard of anything so monstrous! What has it got to do with them? Why +can’t they leave me alone? I’ve never done them any harm. I wouldn’t +have believed it, pretending they liked me, and letting me be friends +with them, and then saying hateful things behind my back. I’ll never +speak to them again—never! That they should go about twisting things—Why +can’t they mind their own business? And dragging in Kent like that! Oh, +it does make me so wild!’ ‘Oh, well, my dear,’ I said to her, ‘when two +people see as much of each other as you and Kent do, there’s bound to be +talk.’ At that she swung round on me. ‘But he’s my _friend_,’ she said. +‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that’s just it.’ ‘But I’m not expected to marry everyone +I’m fond of!’ ‘Are you fond of him, Madala?’ I asked her. ‘Yes,’ she +said directly, ‘I am. I’m awfully fond of him. I’d do anything for him, +bless his heart!’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you needn’t be so upset. That’s all +that people mean. If you’re fond of him and he—he’s obviously in love +with you——’ But at that she caught me up in her quick way—‘In love? Oh, +you don’t understand him. Nobody understands Kent. He doesn’t understand +himself. Dear old Kent!’ Then she began walking up and down the room +again, but more quietly, and talking, half to herself, as if she had +forgotten I was there, justifying herself, justifying him. ‘Dear old +Kent! Poor old Kent! I’m awfully fond of Kent. So is he of me. But not +in the right way. He’s got, when he happens to think of it, a great +romantic idea of the woman he wants, of the wife he wants; but the truth +is, you know, that he doesn’t want a wife. He wants a mother, and a +sister, and a—a lover. A true lover. A patienter woman than I am. A +woman who’ll delight in him for his own sake, not for what he gives her. +A woman who’ll put him first and be content to come second with him. +He’ll always put his work first. He can’t help it. He’s an artist. Oh, +not _content_. I didn’t mean that. She must be too big for that—big +enough to know what she misses. But a wise woman, such a loving, hungry +woman. ‘Half a loaf,’ she’ll say to herself. But she’ll never have to +let him hear. He’s chivalrous. He’d be horrified at giving her half a +loaf. He’d say—“All or nothing!” But he couldn’t give her all. He +couldn’t spare it. So he’d give her nothing out of sheer respect for +her. That’s Kent. He’s got his dear queer theories of life—oh, they’re +all right as theories—but he fits people to them, instead of them to +people. Procrustes. He’d torture a woman from the kindest of motives. +It’s lack of imagination. Haven’t you noticed?’ ‘Considering he’s one of +the great imaginative artists of the day, Madala,’ I said to her, +‘that’s rather sweeping.’ ‘But that’s why,’ she said. ‘It’s just because +he’s a genius. He lives on himself, in himself. Kent’s an island.’ I +said—‘No chance of a bridge, Madala?’ She shook her head. ‘Not my job.’ +I said I was sorry. I was, too. It would have been so ideal, that pair. +I wanted to argue it with her; but she wouldn’t listen. She said—‘If I +weren’t an artist too, then maybe—maybe. I’m very fond of Kent. But +no—I’d want too much. But, you know, there’s a woman somewhere, rather +like me—I hope he’ll marry her. I’d love her. She’d never be jealous of +me. She’d understand. She’s me without the writing, without the outlet. +She’ll pour it all into loving him. I hope she’s alive somewhere. He’d +be awfully happy. And if he had children—that’s what he needs. I can +just see him with children. But not my children. If I married——’ And +then she flushed up to the eyes in that way she had, as if she were +fifteen. ‘I—I’d like to be married for myself, for my faults, for the +bits I don’t tell anyone. Kent would hate my faults. I’d have to hide my +realest self.’ She stood staring out of the window. Then she said, still +in that rueful, childish voice—‘I would like to be liked.’ ‘But, my dear +girl,’ said I, ‘what nonsense you talk! If ever a woman had friends——’ +She flung round at me again—‘If I’d not written _Eden Walls_ would Anita +have looked at me—or any of you?’ I said—‘That’s not a fair question. +Your books _are_ you, the quintessence, the very best of you.’ ‘But the +rest of me?’ she said, ‘but the _rest_ of me?’ I laughed at her. ‘Well, +what about the rest of you?’ Then she said, in a small voice—‘It feels +rather out of it sometimes, Lila.’” + +“I say,” Mr. Flood twinkled at her, “are you going to present all this +to Anita? She’d be grateful.” + +“Not she,” said Miss Howe sharply. “Too much fact would spoil her +theory. Let her spin her own web.” + +“Agreed. There’s room for more than one biography, eh?” They laughed +together a little consciously. + +“You know,” the blonde lady recalled them, “she must have been quite a +good actress. She always seemed perfectly contented.” + +“Imagine Madala Grey discontented,” said the Baxter girl. “How could she +be?” + +“Oh, Kent was at the root of that,” said Miss Howe, “for all her talk.” + +Mr. Flood nodded. + +“Yes, the lady did protest too much, if your report’s correct.” + +“It’s the only explanation and, as you said, Blanche, in her heart Anita +knows it. After all, he’s a somebody. Madala wouldn’t be the only one +who’s found him attractive, eh?” She cocked an eyebrow. + +“Don’t be scandalous, Lila,” said the blonde lady virtuously, and Mr. +Flood gave his little sniff of enjoyment. + +“Oh, give me five minutes,” said Miss Howe cosily. “She’ll be down in +five minutes. I’ve been good all the evening. But I’m inclined to agree +with her, you know, that Madala was attracted, just because Madala +denied it so vehemently. Only Anita goes too far for me. She’s right, of +course, when she says of Kent—‘Not a marrying man!’ but not in the way +she means it. There are dark and awful things in the history of every +unmarried man, to Anita. She scents intrigue everywhere. I’m a spinster +myself, but I’m not such a spidery spinster. She may be partly right. +Some other man, some question-mark of a man, may have treated Madala +badly. But Kent didn’t. Kent isn’t that sort. Intrigue would bore him. +Still, he wasn’t a marrying man in those days, and I think Madala was +perfectly honest when she said—‘Just friends.’ But I think also, if you +ask me, that they were far too good friends. It’s not wise to be friends +with a man. You must be a woman first and let him know it. I don’t +believe in these platonic friendships. So I think that in time Madala +found out where they were making the mistake. And he didn’t, or +wouldn’t. Oh well!” she paused expressively, “he’s finding it out now. +He has been all the year. Didn’t you see his face when he came in +tonight? Madala shouldn’t have hurried. Poor Madala! Though I don’t +think it broke her heart, you know.” + +“No.” The blonde lady nodded. “She was too serene, too placid, for real +passion. She could draw it well enough, but always from the outside.” + +“Oh, I don’t think so,” said the Baxter girl. “Think of the end of +_Ploughed Fields_.” + +“Let’s give her some credit for imagination, even if we don’t say +‘genius’! I agree with Blanche. Oh, perhaps her heart did crack just a +little——” + +The blonde lady struck in— + +“But then Carey’s a doctor. So convenient!” + +“Yes,” said Mr. Flood. “I always said he caught her on the rebound.” + +“And then, to mix metaphors, the fat was in the fire. Then, Kent woke up +to her. Isn’t it obvious? He was fond of Madala Grey, but it was Mrs. +Carey that he fell in love with. Just like a man!” + +“Oh, I hate you,” said Mr. Flood. “You destroy my illusions. I’m like +Anita. I demand the tragic Madala.” + +“You can have her, I should think,” said the Baxter girl thoughtfully. +“Oh, of course your theory does seem probable as far as it goes, Miss +Howe, but——” + +“But what?” said Miss Howe. + +“Well, she hardly ever came to town afterwards, did she?” + +“Ah, Madala was always wise,” said the blonde lady. + +Mr. Flood rubbed his hands. + +“Thank you, Beryl. We’re in sympathy. And it’s quite a satisfying, +tragical picture, isn’t it? The two artists—he with his lay figure and +she with her Hodge, and the long year between them. Can’t you see them, +cheated, desirous, stretching out to each other their impotent hands? +One could make something out of that.” + +“You could, Mr. Flood,” said the Baxter girl fervently. + +“Out of what?” Anita was always noiseless. I jumped to hear her voice so +close behind me. + +Miss Howe looked up at her quizzingly. + +“Madala and——Where _is_ Kent?” + +“With Mother still. He’s managed her extraordinarily. She’s getting +sleepy, thank goodness! He’ll be down in a minute.” Then, with a change +of tone—“Madala and Kent? I think not, Lila dear.” + +“But you said yourself——” the Baxter girl interposed. + +“Oh no! I flung it out—a suggestion—a possibility. I haven’t committed +myself—yet. I wish I could be sure of Kent. He’s upset my conception of +him tonight. I should have said—selfish. Especially over Madala. But all +men are selfish. Yet, tonight——” she hesitated, playing with the papers +that lay half in, half out of the open desk. “But who was it, if it +wasn’t Kent? Because there _was_ someone, you know——” And then, as if +Miss Howe’s smile annoyed her beyond prudence—“Do you think I’m +inventing? Do you think I’ve talked for amusement’s sake? I tell you, +she was on the verge of an elopement. _Without_ benefit of clergy!” + +“Anita!” Miss Howe half rose from her chair. + +“We’re getting it at last.” Mr. Flood addressed the room. “I knew she +had something up her sleeve.” + +“I don’t believe—I won’t believe it,” said Miss Howe. + +Then Anita smiled. + +“Didn’t I say she was careless about her drafts? I’ve a fragment +here—no, I’ve left it in my writing-table——” and she rose as she +spoke—“no name, but it’s proof enough. It’s an answer to some man’s +letter.” + +“But does she definitely consent——?” began the Baxter girl. + +“Not in so many words. But it’s obvious there was some cause or +impediment, and he, whoever he is, has evidently had qualms of +conscience about letting her call the world well lost for his sweet +sake.” + +“That would rule out Kent, of course,” said Miss Howe thoughtfully. +“There was no reason why Kent shouldn’t marry.” + +“We know of none,” said Anita in her suggestive voice. “Isn’t that as +much as one can say of any man?” + +“Ah!” said the Baxter girl, illuminated. I don’t know why—her round +eyes, I suppose, and her pursed mouth—but she reminded me of the woodcut +of Minerva’s owl in _Larousse_. + +“So you see my prime difficulty. I’ve passed under review every man of +her acquaintance, till I narrowed down the possible——” + +“Affinities,” said the blonde lady. + +“—to Kent Rehan, John Carey, and this probable but unknown third. There +I hang fire. Until I make up my mind on which of the three her love +story hinges, I can’t do more than trifle with the _Life_. And how shall +I make up my mind?” + +“Three?” said Mr. Flood. “Two. You can eliminate the husband. He’s fifth +act, not third.” + +“Yes, of course. But I never jump a step. Which leaves me the unknown—or +Kent.” + +The blonde lady leant forward rather eagerly— + +“Nita! Where’s that letter?” + +“I’ll get it.” She went across the room to her writing-table. + +The Baxter girl twisted her head. + +“I say! He’s coming down the stairs.” + +“If she read aloud that draft——” the blonde lady’s drawl had +disappeared. She glittered like an excited schoolgirl—“he might +recognize——” + +“You mean——?” Mr. Flood raised his eyebrows but Anita, fumbling with her +keys, did not hear. + +“It would be nice to be sure,” said the blonde lady. + +“It’s rather cruel, isn’t it?” said Miss Howe uneasily. + +“Why? It’ll be printed in the _Life_. Besides, it may not have been +written to him.” + +“That’s why,” said Miss Howe. + +“It would be nice to be _quite_ sure,” said the blonde lady again. And +as she spoke Kent Rehan came into the room. + +At once I got up, with some blind, blundering idea, I believe, of +stopping him, of frustrating them, but Anita was nearer to him than I. + +“Is she asleep? Very good of you, Kent. Sit here, Kent. Jenny, is the +window open in the passage? Very cold. I never knew such a draught.” + +I went out to see. I had to do as I was told. Besides, how could I have +stopped them or him? Yet I was shaking with anger and disgust at them, +and at myself for my hateful tongue-tied youth and insignificance. An +older woman would have known what to do. Shaking with cold too—Anita was +right—it was bitter cold in the passage. I could hardly see my way to +the window for the fog. It was open an inch at the bottom, and at my +touch it rattled down with a bang that echoed oddly. For an instant I +thought it was a knock at the hall door. I stood a minute, quite +startled, peering down into the black well of the hall. But there was no +second knock, only the fog-laden draught of the passage came rushing up +at me again, and again Anita called to me to come in and shut the door. +I did so: and because it rattled, wedged it with the screw of paper that +lay near it on the floor, the crumpled telegram that Kent Rehan had +dropped when he first came in. Then, still shivering a little, I sat +down where I was. I didn’t want to go nearer. I knew my face was +tell-tale. I didn’t want to have the Baxter girl looking at me, and +maybe saying something. I could hear them in the other room well enough. +Anita’s voice seemed to cut through the thick air. There was a letter in +her hand. She was twisting it about as if she couldn’t find the first +page. + +“—obviously a draft.” She held it away from her. Anita was long-sighted. + + “Dear—dear—— + +Then it breaks off and begins again. You see?” She displayed it to them. + + “Dearest——” + +“Why, how clearly it’s written!” The Baxter girl peered at it. “That’s +quite a beautiful hand. That’s not Madala’s scrawl.” + +The blonde lady looked at them through half-shut lids. + +“Ah! It’s been written slowly——” + +“As if she loved writing it!” The Baxter girl flushed. “Did _she_ know +about that sort of thing—that sentimental sort of thing? I should have +thought her too—oh, too splendid, removed—you know what I mean.” + +“I don’t suppose she talked about it,” said Anita coldly. “She was not +of your generation.” And then, to the others—“I assure you, this letter +shook me. Even I never dreamed of this side of her. Listen.” She read +aloud in her measured voice— + + “Dearest— + + I wanted your letter so. I reckoned out the posts, and the + distances, and your busyness. I thought that in two days you + would probably write, and then I gave you another day’s grace + because you hate writing letters, and because I thought you + couldn’t dream how much I missed you—how much, how _soon_, I + wanted to hear. And then to get your letter the very next day, + before I could begin to look for it (but I did look!). Why, you + must have written as soon as the train was out of the station! + You missed me just as much then? + + But it’s a mad letter, you know. It makes me laugh and cry. It’s + so sensible—and so silly. ‘Fame,’ ‘career,’ ‘reputation,’ + ‘position’—why do you fling these words at me? _I_ am making a + sacrifice? Darling, haven’t you eyes? Don’t you understand that + you’re my world? All these other things, since I’ve known you, + they’re shadows, they’re toys, I don’t want them. The reviews of + my new book—I’ve never been so delighted at getting any—but why? + D’you know why? To show them to you—to watch you shake with + laughter as you read them. When a flattering letter turns up, I + save it to show you as if it were gold, because I think—‘Perhaps + it’ll make him think more of me.’ Isn’t it idiotic? But I do. + And all the while I glory in the knowledge that all these + things, all the fuss and fame, don’t mean a brass button to + you—or to me, my dear, or to me. + + And yet you write me a solemn letter about ‘making a sacrifice,’ + ‘abdicating a position.’ + + Don’t be—humble. And yet I like you in this mood. Because it + won’t last! I won’t _let_ it. It’s I who am not good enough. If + you knew how I tip-toe sometimes. You’re so much bigger than I + am. I lie in bed at nights, and all the things I’ve done wrong + in my life, all the twisty, tortuous, feminine things, all the + lies and cowardices and conceits, come and sting me. I’m so + bitterly ashamed of them. I feel I’ve got to tell you about them + all, and yet that if I do you’ll turn me out of your heart. If + you did that—if you were disappointed—if you got tired of me—it + turns me sick with fear. + + I’m a fool to tear myself. I know you love me. And when you’re + with me I forget all that. I’m just happy. When you’re there + it’s like being in the blazing sunshine. Can ‘celebrity’ give me + that sunshine? Can ‘literature’ All my emptiness? Are the books + I write children to love me with your eyes? Oh, you fool! + + Oh, of course, I know you don’t mean it. It’s just that you + think you ought to protest. But suppose I took you at your word? + Suppose I said that, on careful consideration, I felt that I + wanted to lead my own life instead of yours? that—how does the + list run?—my Work, my Circle of Friends, my Career, were too + much to give up for—you? What would you say—no, do? for even I, + (and the sun’s in my eyes) even I can’t call you eloquent! But + what would you do if I wouldn’t come to you? + + Oh, my darling, my darling, you needn’t be afraid. I’d rather be + a door-keeper in the house of my God—— + + I’m changed. What have you done to me? Other people notice it. + My friends are grown critical of me. Only yesterday someone (no + one you know) sneered at me—‘In love? Oh well, you’ll get over + it. It’s a phase.’ You know, they don’t understand. I’m not ‘in + love,’ but I love you. There’s the difference. I love you. I + shall love you till I die. Till——? As if death could blot you + out for me! I used to believe in death. I used to believe it + ended everything. But now, since I’ve known you, I can never + die. You’ve poured into me an immortal spirit——” + +“Go on,” breathed the Baxter girl. + +“It breaks off there. It’s not signed. It was never sent.” + +“She had that much wisdom, then.” The blonde lady’s laughter came to us +over Mr. Flood’s shoulder. “That’s not the letter to send to any man. +Giving herself away?—giving us all away——” + +“To any man? To what man? There’s the point. You see the importance. +It’s the heart of the secret. Who is it? For whom was she ready to give +up, in her own words, name, friends, career——?” + +“Well, practically she did that, didn’t she, when she married Carey? She +buried herself in the country. She didn’t write a line. You said +yourself that she put her career behind her. Why shouldn’t it be written +to Carey?” + +“Oh, don’t be absurd. It’s Carey that makes it impossible. How could +Carey have written a letter needing such an answer? Little he cared. +What was her genius to him? Isn’t it obvious, isn’t it plain as print, +that Carey happened, Carey and all he stands for, _after_ the writing of +this letter, because of some hitch? Why wasn’t the letter sent? What +happened? What folly? What misunderstanding? What disillusionment? What +realization of danger?—to send her, with that letter half written, into +Carey’s arms? Carey, that stick, that ordinary man! And on the top of it +_The Resting-place_ comes out, the _cri du cœur_—or, if you like, Lila, +the satire—(for I’m beginning to believe you’re right) the satire of +_The Resting-place_. I tell you, I smell tragedy.” + +“It’s supposition, it’s mere supposition,” said Miss Howe impatiently. + +“Isn’t all detective work supposition to begin with? Wait till I’ve made +my book. Wait till I’ve sifted my evidence, till I’ve ranged it, stick +and brick, step by step, up, up, up, to the letter.” + +Suddenly from where he sat, half way between me and them, Kent spoke— + +“Anita, you can’t publish that letter.” + +Her face, all their faces, turned towards us. She stared. + +“Why not?” And then—“Why do you sit out there? Come here. Come into the +light.” + +He did not stir. + +She frowned, puckering her eyes. + +“Such a fog,” she said fretfully. “I can’t see you. Can’t you keep that +door shut, Jenny?” Then—“Well, Kent—why not? Why not?” + +He said slowly— + +“It’s not decent.” + +She flared at once. + +“Decent! Not decent! What on earth do you mean?” + +He kept her waiting while he thought it out. + +“I mean—it’s not right, it’s not fair. To whomever it was written, +that’s her business, not our business. And that letter——It’s vile, +anyway, publishing her letters.” + +She stared at him in a sort of angry bewilderment. + +“But why? I shall write her life. One always does print letters.” + +“Not that sort of letter,” he said. + +“But don’t you see,” she cried, “that _that_ letter, just _that_ +letter——” + +He said— + +“That’s why. How dare you read that letter here—aloud—tonight? It—it’s +ghoulish.” + +“Kent!” There was outrage in her voice. + +“But, Kent——” Miss Howe intervened—“we knew her—we care—it’s in all +reverence——” + +And Mr. Flood— + +“My dear man, she’s not a private character. The lives that will be +written! Anita’s may be the classic, but it won’t be the only one. +Letters are bound to be printed—every scrap she ever wrote. Nobody can +stop it. It’s only a question of time. The public has its rights.” + +“To what?” He turned savagely. “You’ve had her books. She’s given +enough. Will you leave her nothing private, nothing sacred?” + +“But, Kent, can’t you see——” Anita had an air of pushing Miss Howe and +Mr. Flood from her road—“aren’t you artist enough to see——? A writer, a +woman like Madala, she has no private life. She lives to write. She +lives what she writes. She _is_ what she writes. She gives her soul to +the world. She leaves her riddle to be read. Don’t you see? to be read. +That’s what I’m doing. That’s what I’m going to do—read her—for the rest +of you, for the public. Because—because they care, because we all care. +It’s done in all honour. It’s a tribute. And for what I am going to do, +such a letter is the key.” + +She spoke softly, sweetly, persuasively. She wooed him to agree with +her. She was extraordinarily eager for his approval. And the approval of +the others she did win. They were all murmuring agreement. + +His eyes strayed over them, undecidedly, seeking—not help. I do not know +what he sought, but his eyes found mine. + +“_You_——” he said to me—“would you want your letter——?” + +Anita’s voice thrust in sharply. In the instant the pleading, the +beauty, the woman, was gone from it. It was cold and shrill. + +“Jenny’s views can hardly concern us.” + +But he did not listen to her. He had drawn some answer from me that +satisfied him. He got up. + +“Oh,” I cried beneath my breath, and I think I touched his arm—“you +won’t let her?” + +He shook his head. Then he went across to where Anita stood, her eyes on +him, on me, while she listened to Miss Howe whispering at her shoulder. + +“Look here, Anita!” he began. + +“I’m looking,” she said. + +He checked a moment, puzzled. Then he went on— + +“That letter—you can’t print it. You’ve no right. It’s not your +property.” + +She waved it aside. + +“I shall be literary executor. She promised. It’s mine if it’s anyone’s. +It’s no good, Kent, it goes into the book. Nothing can alter that. +Nothing——” + +Then she stopped dead. There was that same odd look in her eye as there +had been when she watched us—that flicker of curiosity, and behind it +the same gleam of inexplicable anger. + +“Look here——” she said very deliberately—“look _you_ here—what has it +got to do with you?” + +It was not the words, it was the tone. It was shameless. It was as if +she had cried aloud her hateful questions—‘Did you love her?’ ‘What was +there between you?’ ‘I want to know it all. It tears me not to know.’ +But what she said to him, and before he could answer, was— + +“If, of course—anyone—had any right—could prove any right——” She broke +off, watching him closely. But he said nothing. “If,” she said, and +poked with her finger, “if that letter—if you recognized it—if that were +the rough draft of a letter that had been sent——” + +He stared down at her. His face was bleak. + +“You’ll get no copy from me, Anita!” + +“Oh!” She caught her breath, fierce and wicked as a cat with a bird, yet +shrinking as a cat does, supple, ears flat. “I only meant—I said +_right_. If anyone—if you could satisfy me—if you have any right——” + +He said— + +“I have no right.” + +“Oh well, then!” She shrugged her shoulders. + +“But,” he held stubbornly to his purpose, “whoever has a right to it—you +can’t print that letter.” + +She laughed at him. + +“You’ll see! You’ll see!” + +“Yes,” he said, “I’ll see.” + +They held each other’s eyes, angry, angry. I felt how Kent Rehan loathed +her. And she—yes, she must have hated him. She was all bitterness and +triumph and defiance. Yet all the time I was wanting to catch him by the +arm and say—‘Be kind to her. Say something kind and she’ll give in.’ I +knew it. He had only to say in that instant—‘Anita, I beg of you——’ and +she would have given him the letter. I knew it. I know it. I don’t know +how I knew it, but I was sure. But he was a man: of course he saw +nothing. He was very angry. He looked big and fine. I wondered that she +could stand outfacing him. + +But she, for answer, picked up the letter, and affected to search +through it. + +“Had I finished? Where was I? Ah, yes—‘An immortal spirit——’” + +His hand came down heavily and swept the light table aside. + +“You can’t do it. You shan’t do it. By God you shan’t.” + +How it happened I couldn’t see. He was too quick. But at one moment she +held the letter, and in the next he had it, and was kneeling at the +grate, while she cried out— + +“Kent!” And then—“Lila! Jasper! Stop him!” + +Nobody could have stopped him. There was no flame, but the fire still +burned, a caked red and black lump, smouldering on cinders. He picked it +up—with his naked hands—thrust in the crumpled stiff paper, and smashed +it down again, so that the lump split, and still held it pressed down, +with naked hands, till the sheet had charred and shrivelled into +nothing. I suppose it all happened in a few seconds, but it seemed like +hours. I was in a train smash once: I wasn’t hurt; but I remember that I +came out of it with just the same sense of being battered and aged. This +scene I had only watched: I had not shared in it: I was still in the +little outer room. Yet I was shaken. I heard Mr. Flood call out—“Kent, +you crazy fool!” I heard Anita—“Let me _go_, Lila!” And then the women +were between me and him, and I could only see their backs, and there was +a babel of voices, and I found myself sitting like a fool, clutching at +the arms of my chair, and saying over and over again—“Oh, his hands, his +hands, his poor hands!” The tears were running down my cheeks. + +But nobody noticed me. They were all too busy. The group had shifted a +little. The Baxter girl was edged out of it, and I watched her for a +moment as she sat down again, her cheeks flaming, her eyes as bright as +wet pebbles. She looked—it’s the only word—consumptive with excitement. +Every now and then she tried not to cough. I heard her saying—“It’s the +fog, it’s the awful fog!” defensively. But nobody listened. They were +all watching Anita. + +Anita was dreadful. She was tremulous with anger. She was like a +pendulum with the check taken away. Her whole body shook. She couldn’t +finish her sentences. She talked to everyone at once. + +Miss Howe had her by the arm. Miss Howe was trying to quiet her— + +“My dear woman—steady now! You don’t want a row, you know! You’ve got +the rest of the papers.” But she might have talked to the wind. + +“He comes into my house—my property—in my own house——It’s an outrage! +Kent, it’s an outrage!” + +Kent Rehan rose to his feet. It was like a rock breaking through that +froth of women. He stood a moment, nervously, brushing the black from +his hands and wincing as he did so. Then he looked up. His eyes met her. +He flushed. + +“Kent! Kent!” She flung off Miss Howe. + +The intensity of reproach in her voice startled me, and I think it +startled him. I found myself thinking—‘All this anger for what? for a +burnt paper? It’s impossible! But then—then what’s the matter with her?’ + +He said awkwardly— + +“I’m sorry, Anita.” + +“_You!_” she cried, panting—“_You_, to interfere! D’you know what you’ve +done, what you’ve tried to do? Will you take everything, you and he? +Haven’t I my work too? Oh, what you’ve had from her, what you’ve had +from her! And now you cheat me!” + +He was bewildered. He said again— + +“I’m sorry, Anita.” + +She came close to him. Her little hands were clenched. There was a wail +in her voice— + +“You! Aren’t you friends with me? Didn’t I share her with you? Isn’t she +my work too? What would you say if I came to your house and saw your +work, your life work that she’d made possible, your pictures that are +her, all her—and slashed them with a knife? What would you do if I’d +done that, if I’d cut it to ribbons, your _Spring Song_?” + +That moved him. I saw a sort of comprehension lighting his stubborn +face. The artist in her touched the artist in him. Of what lay behind +the artist he had no knowledge. But he said, quite humbly— + +“Anita, I’m sorry!” + +Yet I knew that he was not sorry for what he had done. + +“Sorry! Sorry! Much good your sorrow does!” she shrilled, and I saw him +stiffen again. She was strange. She valued him, that was so plain, and +yet, it almost seemed in self-defence, she was always at her worst with +him. “Sorry! It was the key of the book. You’ve spoilt my book.” + +“Nita! Nita! One letter!” Miss Howe was almost comical in her dislike of +the scene. “As if you couldn’t pull it off without that.” She pulled her +aside, lowering her voice—“Nita, what’s the use of a row? Pull yourself +together. Put yourself in his place. Besides—you can’t afford——” She +looked at Kent significantly. Anita’s pale glance followed her and so +their eyes met again. She was angry and sullen and irresolute. Another +woman would have been near tears. + +“Kent,” she began. And then—“Kent—if we quarrel——We’re too old to +quarrel——If you had a shadow of excuse——” + +He waited. + +She took fire again because he did not meet her half way. + +“But if you think you’ve stopped me——” she cried. She broke off with a +laugh and a new idea—“As if,” she said slowly and scornfully, “as if +Madala would have cared!” + +He said distinctly— + +“You didn’t know her. You’d never understand——” + +“Ah,” she said, pressing forward to him, “why do you take that tone? +What is it I don’t understand? If you’d help me with what you know, it +could be big stuff. I’d forgive you for the letter if you’d work with +me.” She hung on his answer. + +But he only said, not looking at her, in the same tone— + +“You’d never understand.” And then, with an effort—“I’ll go, Anita. I’m +going. I’d better go.” + +Without waiting for her answer he went across the room to the little +sofa near me where the hats and coats lay piled. I heard him fumbling +for his things. + +But Anita went back to the others. The watching group seemed to open to +receive, to enclose her. Her head had touched the lamp as she passed +under it, and set it swaying wildly, so that I could scarcely see their +faces in that shift of light and shadow through the thickened air. But I +heard her angry laugh, and her voice overtopping the murmur—“Mad! He was +always mad! If he weren’t such an old friend——” And then the Baxter +girl’s voice—“Think of the sketches there must be!” And Miss Howe—“What +I say is—you don’t want to quarrel!” And hers again—“Did you hear him? +_I_ not understand Madala! Mad, I tell you! If I don’t know Madala——” + +It was at that moment that I looked up and saw a woman standing in the +doorway. + +“Anita!” I murmured warningly. But my voice did not reach her, and +indeed, she and the little gesticulating group in the further room +seemed suddenly far away. The air had been thickening for the last hour, +and now, with the opening of the door, the fog itself came billowing in +on either side of the newcomer as water streams past a ship. It flooded +the room, soundlessly, almost, I remember thinking, purposefully, as if +it would have islanded us, Kent and me. It affected me curiously. I felt +muffled. I knew I ought to get up and call again to Anita or attend to +the visitor myself, but the quiet seemed to dull my wits. I found myself +placidly wondering who she was and why she did not come in; but I made +no movement to welcome her. I just sat still and stared. + +She was a tall girl—woman—for either word fitted her: she had brown +hair. She was dressed in—I should have said, if you had asked me, that I +could remember every detail, and I can in my own mind; but when I try to +write it down, it blurs. But I know that there was blue in her dress, +and bright colours. It must have been some flowered stuff. She +looked—it’s a silly phrase—but she looked like a spring day. I wanted +her to come into the room and drive away the fog that was making me +blink and feel dizzy. There was a gold ring on her finger: yes, and her +hands were beautiful—strong, white hands. In one she held the brass +candle-stick that stood in the hall, and with the other she sheltered +the weak flame from the draught. Yet not only with her hand. Her arm was +crooked maternally, her shoulder thrust forward, her hip raised, in a +gesture magnificently protecting, as though the new-lit tallow-end were +fire from heaven. Her whole body seemed sacredly involved in an act of +guardianship. But half the glory of her pose—and it was lovely enough to +make me catch my breath—was its unconsciousness; for her attention was +all ours. Her eyes, as she listened to the group by the hearth, were +sparkling with amusement and that tolerant, deep affection that one +keeps for certain dearest, foolish friends. It was evident that she knew +them well. + +“Can’t you keep that door shut, Jenny? The draught——” + +Anita’s back was towards me. Her voice, as she spoke over her shoulder, +rang high, muffled, imperious, and—I laughed. In a flash the stranger’s +eyes were on me, and I found myself thrilling where I sat, absurdly +startled for the moment, because—she knew me too! She knew me quite +well. She was smiling at me, not vaguely as who should say—‘Oh, surely +I’ve seen you somewhere?’ but with intimate, disturbing knowledge. It +was the glance that a doctor gives you, the swift, acquainted glance +that, without offence, deciphers you. I was not offended either, only +curious and—attracted. She looked so friendly. I half began to say—‘But +when? but where?’ but her bearing overruled me. Her mouth was pursed +conspiratorially: if her hand had been free she would have put a finger +to her lip. I smiled back at her, flattered to be partner in her +uncomprehended secret. But I was curious—oh, I was curious! It was +incredible to me that Anita and the rest should stand, subduing their +voices to the soft, thick stillness that she and the fog between them +had brought into the room, and yet remain unconscious of her vivid +presence. I was longing to see their faces when they should at last turn +and see her, and yet, if you understand, I was afraid lest they should +turn too soon and break the pleasant numbness that was upon me. And upon +them—the spell was upon them too. It was the look in her eyes, not +glamorous, but kind. It healed. It passed like a drowse across the +squabblers at the table: it stilled Anita’s feverish monologue. Indeed +the room had grown very still. There was no sound left in it but the +slurring of the lamp. It rested upon Kent as he stood in dumb misery, +and I watched the strained lines of his body slacken and grow easier +beneath it. At that—at that ease she gave him—suddenly I loved her. + +And as if I had spoken, as if I had touched her with my hand, her eyes, +that had grown heavy with his trouble, turned, brightening, upon me, as +if I were the answer to a problem, the lifting of a care. But what the +problem was I could not then tell; for, staring as she made me—as she +made me—into her divining eyes, I saw in them not her thought but my own +at last made clear to me—my dream, my hope, my will and my desire, +newborn and naked, and, I swear it, bodiless to me before that night and +that hour. It was too soon. I was not ready. It shamed me and I +flinched, my glance wandering helplessly away like a dog’s when you have +forced it to look at you. And so noticed, idly, uncomprehending at +first, and then with a stiffening of my whole body, that her hand did +not show as other hands, blood-red against the light she screened, but +coldly luminous, like the fingers of a cloud through which the moon is +shining: and that her breast was motionless, unstirred by any breath. + +Then I was afraid. + +I felt my skin rising. I felt my bones grow cold. I could not move. I +could not breathe. I could not think. + +A voice came out of the fog that had thickened to a wall between the +rooms—a voice, thin, remote, like a trunk call— + +“_Can’t_ you keep that door shut, Jenny? The draught——” and was cut off +again by the sudden crash of an overturned chair. There was a rush and a +cry—a madman’s voice, shouting, screaming, groaning— + +“Madala Grey! My God, Madala Grey!” and Kent’s huge body, hurling +against the door, pitched and fell heavily. + +For the door was shut. + +I ran to him. He was shaken and half stunned, but he struggled to his +feet. It was dreadful to see him. He was like a frightened horse, +shivering and sweating. His lips were loose and he muttered unevenly as +if the words came without his will. I caught them as I helped him; the +same words—always the same words. + +I got him to the sofa while the rest of them crowded and clamoured, and +then I found myself taking command. I made them keep off. I sent Anita +for water and a towel and I bathed his forehead where he had cut it on +the moulding of the door. Mr. Flood wanted to send for a doctor, but I +wouldn’t have it. I knew how he would hate it. Then someone—the Baxter +girl, I think—giggled hysterically and said something about a black eye +tomorrow, and then—“How did it happen?” “Did you see, Miss Summer?” And +at that they all began to clamour again like an orchestra after a solo, +repeating in all their voices—“Yes, what happened? What on earth was it? +Did you see him? Some sort of a seizure? I told you twice to shut that +door. The draught——Are you better now, old man? Kent—what happened?” + +They were crowding round him again. He pointed a shaking finger. + +“She saw,” he said. “She knows——” + +“Jenny?” Anita turned on me sharply, an employer addressing a servant at +fault. “Oh, of course—you were in here too. What happened then?” + +I had a helpless moment. + +“Well?” she demanded. + +I stared at her. It was incredible, but there was actually jealousy in +her voice. It said, pitifully plainly—‘Again I have missed the centre of +a situation!’ + +“Well?” she repeated. And then—“If you saw something——” She altered the +phrase—“Tell us what you saw.” + +But I had not missed the quick fear that had shown, for a moment, in +Kent’s eyes—fear of betrayal even while his tongue was betraying him. + +I laughed. I thought to myself as I answered, ‘Oh, I am doing this +beautifully!’ And I was. My voice sounded perfectly natural, not a bit +high. I had plenty of words. I said, most jauntily— + +“Oh, Cousin Nita, I could hardly see my own nose. The fog had been +simply pouring in. My fault—I didn’t latch the door properly, I suppose. +And then you called, and Mr. Rehan went to shut it for me, and he +slithered on the mat, and——” + +“I see!” + +“Of course! Parquet——” The Baxter girl took a step or two and pirouetted +back to us. “Perfect! You ought to give a dance, Miss Serle.” + +Anita made no answer, but taking the can and the towel she opened the +door of dispute, and, stooping an instant on the threshold to lift some +small object from the floor, went out of the room. We heard her set down +her load on the landing, and the rattle of the sash as she threw up the +window, paused, and shut it again. She came back. A fresh inflow of +acrid vapour preceded her and set us coughing. It was the stooping, I +suppose, that had reddened her cheeks, for she was flushed when she came +back to us. It was the only time that I ever saw my cousin with a +colour. She spoke to us, a little gaspingly, as if the fog had caught +her too by the throat— + +“Jenny’s quite right. One can’t see an inch in front of one. No—not a +cab in hearing. You’ll have to resign yourselves to staying on +indefinitely. What? oh, what nonsense, Kent! As if I’d let you go in +that state! Besides, there’s Jasper’s poem. Are you going away without +hearing it?” The soft monologue continued as she shepherded them to the +fire. “That’s always the way—one talks—one gets no work done. Get under +the light, Jasper! Beryl, help me to move the table. Oh yes, Jasper, I +forgot to tell you, I met Roy Huth the other day and he had just read——” + +I heard a movement behind me. I turned. Kent had half risen. He spoke— + +“Sit down. Sit down here.” He touched the cushion beside him. + +I shook my head. + +“Not yet. My cousin——” + +“Ah——” + +We were silent. + +I watched Anita. She stood a few moments in unsmiling superintendence, +while the women settled themselves and Mr. Flood sorted his papers and +cleared his throat. Then, as I had known she would do, she returned +soft-footed to her purpose. At the same moment I left Kent Rehan’s side. +When she reached the archway between the two rooms, I was there. + +“And now——” she confronted me—“what happened?” + +“I told you.” + +She smiled. + +“Did you? I have forgotten. Tell me again.” + +“Anita—he slipped. He fell. He was shutting the door.” + +“Did he replace this?” She opened her little hand. The wedge of paper +that I had twisted lay on her palm. “It was shut in the door when I +opened it just now.” She waited a moment. Then, with a certain +triumph—“Well?” + +I said nothing. What was there to say? + +She tossed it from her. + +“Don’t be silly, Jenny! What was it? _Who_ was it?” Her eyes were +horribly intelligent. + +“He slipped. He fell. He was shutting the door.” I felt I could go on +saying that for ever and ever. + +The red patches in her cheeks deepened. She spoke past me, rudely, +furiously— + +“I intend to know. I’ve a perfect right——Kent, I intend to know.” + +I put out my arms carelessly, though my heart was thudding, and rested +them against the doorposts. + +“He’s shaken—a heavy man like that. Better leave him alone.” + +“I intend to know,” she insisted. And then—“Jenny! _Jenny!_ Let me +pass.” + +“No!” I said. + +For a second we stood opposed, and in that second I realized literally +for the first time (so dominating had her personality been) that she was +shorter than I. She was dwindling before my eyes. I found myself looking +down at her with almost brutal composure. That I had ever been afraid of +her was the marvel! For I was young, and she was elderly. I was strong, +and she was weak. Her bare arms were like sticks, but mine were round +and supple, and I could feel the blood tingle in them as my grip +tightened on the woodwork. She was only Anita Serle, the well-known +writer; but I was Jenny Summer, and Kent was needing me. + +“Jenny—you will be sorry!” Her eyes and her voice were one threat. Such +eyes! Eyes whose pupils had dilated till the irids were mere threads +that encircled jealousy itself—jealousy black and bitter—jealousy that +had stolen upon us as the fog had done, obscuring, soiling, stifling +friend and enemy alike—jealousy of a gift and a great name, of a dead +woman and a living man and their year of happiness—jealousy beyond +reason, beyond pity—jealousy insatiable, already seeking out fresh food, +turning deliberately, vengefully, upon Kent and upon me. + +I felt sick. I had never dreamed that there could be such feelings in +the world. And now she was going to Kent, to probe and lacerate and +poison— + +“No!” I said. + +Actually she believed that she could pass me! + +I still held fast by the door-posts, and she did not use her hands. We +were silent and decorous, but for an instant our bodies fought. She was +pressed against me, panting— + +“_No!_” I said. + +Then she fell away, and without another word turned and went back into +the other room. + +I saw Miss Howe whisper some question. There was an instant’s silence. +Then her answer came— + +“Much better leave him alone. Yes—rather shaken—a heavy man like that.” + +It was defeat. She was using my very words, because, for all her +fluency, she had none with which to cover it. + +I was sorry. I felt a brute. But what else could I have done? I stood a +moment watching her recover herself. Then I went back to Kent. + +He did not look up, but he moved a little to give me room. I sat down +beside him. We were shut away between the wall and the window, in the +shadow, out of sight of the others. It was very peaceful. Now and then I +looked at Kent, but he was staring before him. He had forgotten all +about me again, I knew. But I was content. It made me happy to be +sitting by him. My thoughts hopped about like birds after crumbs. I +remember wondering what I should do on the morrow—where I should go? +That Anita would have me in the house another twenty-four hours was not +likely. I had ten pounds. I did not care. I knew that I ought to be +anxious, but I could not realize the need. I could not think of anything +but him; yet I was afraid to speak to him. He sat so still. His face was +set in schooled and heavy lines. There came a stir and a clash of voices +from the other room, but he did not seem to hear it. It was only the end +of a poem. In a little it had settled down again into the same +monotonous hum, but for a moment I had thought that it was the break-up, +and after that I had no peace. It had scared me. It made me realize that +I had only a few minutes—half an hour at most—and that then he would be +going away—and when should I see him again? Never—maybe never! He had +his life all arranged. He didn’t even know my name. I felt desperate. I +couldn’t let him go. I didn’t know what to do. I only knew that—that I +couldn’t bear it if he went away from me. + +It was then that he moved and straightened himself in his chair with a +sigh, that heavy, long-drawn sigh that men give when they make an end. +‘Work or play, joy or grief, it’s done with. And now——?’ Such a sigh as +you never hear from women. But then we are not wise at ending things. + +I thought that he was getting up, that he was going then and there, and +instinctively I hurried into speech, daring anything—everything—his own +thoughts of me—rather than let him go. + +“Yes—that’s over!” I translated softly. + +He turned with such a stare that I could have smiled. + +“I meant that. How did you know?” + +“Why shouldn’t I know?” I did smile then. It made him smile back at me, +but doubtfully, unwillingly. + +“Can you read thoughts—too?” The last word seemed to come out in spite +of himself. + +“Not always. Yours I can.” My face was burning. But I could have spared +myself the shame that made it burn, for he did not understand. My voice +said nothing to him. My face showed him nothing. He was thinking about +himself. But he leant forward in that way he has—a dear way—of liking to +talk to you. + +“Can you? I never can. Only when I paint. I can put them into paint, of +course. But not words. _She_ said——” and all through the subsequent talk +he avoided the name—“she said it was laziness, a lazy mind. But I always +told her that that was her fault. I—we—her people—were just wool: she +knitted us into our patterns. She was a wonder. You know, she—she was +good for one. She was like bread—bread and wine——” His voice strained +and flagged. + +I nodded. + +“Yes. I felt that too.” + +He glanced sideways at me. + +“Ah, then you knew her?” His voice (or I imagined it) had chilled. It +began to say, that faint chill, that if I too were of ‘the set,’ he +could not be at ease. But I would not give him time to think awry. + +“No, no! Only tonight. But I do know her.” + +“Tonight?” + +“Tonight,” I said and looked at him. + +“Then——” his hand tightened on the chair, “you saw? I was right? You +_did_ see?” + +“I saw—something,” I admitted. + +“Some one?” + +I nodded. + +His face lighted up. He pulled in his chair to me. + +“Her hands—did you notice her hands? I have a drawing of them somewhere. +I’ll show it to you——” He stopped short: Then—“What is your name?” he +asked me. + +“Jenny. Jenny Summer.” + +He considered that fact for a moment and put it aside again. + +“I’d like you to see it. Anita will want it for that damned scrap-book +of hers. She’ll be worrying at me—they all will.” + +“You won’t let it go?” I said quickly. + +He shook his head. + +“No. But they can’t understand why. They can’t understand anything. They +thought I was mad just now. So I was, for that matter. To see her again, +you know—to see her again——” + +“I know,” I said. + +He laughed nervously. + +“Hallucination, of course. Thought transference. What you please. They’d +say so. Do you think so? And I’d been thinking of my picture of her. Oh, +I admit it. So we must look at the matter in the light of common-sense.” + +“But I saw her too.” + +His eyes softened, and his voice. + +“Yes. You were there. That’s comfort. You saw her too—standing there +with her dear hands full of cowslips——” + +“A torch,” I said. + +“Cowslips——” he checked on the word. “_What?_” + +“She was carrying a candle,” I insisted. “It had just been lighted. She +was holding it so carefully.” + +We stared at each other. + +“You’re sure?” + +“Sure.” + +He fell back wearily in his chair. + +“What’s the good of talking? She’s dead. That’s the end of it. I was +dreaming. Of course. But when you said that you saw, for a moment I +believed——What does it matter? What does it matter anyway? But her hands +were full of cowslips.” + +I turned to him eagerly. I knew what to say. It was as if the words were +being whispered to me. + +“That was your Madala Grey. But mine—how could she be the same? Oh, +can’t you see? We’ve never seen the real Madala Grey. She gave—she +became—to each of us—what we wanted most. She wrote down our dreams. She +_was_ our dreams. Can’t you see what she meant to my cousin? Anita toils +and slaves for her little bit of greatness. But _she_ was born royal. +That’s why Anita hates her so—hates her and worships her. Why, she’s +been a sort of star to you all—a symbol—a legend— + +“But the real Madala Grey—she wasn’t like that. She was just a girl. She +was hungry all the time. She was wanting her human life. And he, the man +they laugh at, ‘the thing she married,’ he did love that real Madala +Grey. Why, he didn’t even know of the legend. Don’t you see that that +was what she wanted? She could take from him as well as give. Life—the +bread and wine—they shared it. Oh, and it’s him I pity now, not you. Not +you,” I said again, while my heart ached over him. “You—can’t you see +what she showed you? Not herself——” + +“What then?” he said harshly. + +I made the supreme effort. + +“But what—a woman—one day—would be to you.” + +I thought the silence would never break. + +The strange courage that had been in me was suddenly gone. I felt weak +and friendless. I wanted to cry. I waited and waited till I could bear +it no longer. Then I lifted my eyes desperately, with little hope, to +read in his face what the end should be. + +I found him looking at me fixedly—_at_ me, you understand, not through +me to a subject that absorbed him, but at me myself. It was as if he +were seeing me for the first time. No—as if he recognized me at last. + +Then the doubts went, and the shame and the loneliness. It made me so +utterly happy, that look on his face. I felt my heart beating fast. + +He said then, slowly—I can remember the words, the tone and pitch of his +voice, the very shaping of his mouth as he said it— + +“Do you know—it’s strange—you remind me of her. You are very like her. +You are very like Madala Grey.” + +The hunger in his voice hurt me. I wanted to put my arms round him and +comfort him. I might have done it, for I knew I was still but half real +to him. But I sat still—only, with such a sense in my heart of a trust +laid upon me, of an inheritance, of a widening and golden future, I said +to him— + +“Yes. I know.” + + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + ● Transcriber’s Notes: + + ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. + + ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. + + ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only + when a predominant form was found in this book. + + ○ The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in + the public domain. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGEND*** + + +******* This file should be named 63775-0.txt or 63775-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/3/7/7/63775 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive +specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this +eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook +for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, +performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given +away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks +not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the +trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. + +START: FULL LICENSE + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the +person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph +1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the +Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when +you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country outside the United States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work +on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: + + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and + most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no + restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it + under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this + eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the + United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you + are located before using this ebook. + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format +other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain +Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +provided that + +* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation." + +* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm + works. + +* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + +* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The +Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at +www.gutenberg.org + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the +mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its +volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous +locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt +Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to +date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and +official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular +state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + |