PART TWO (continued 2)

Tony Baring sat opposite and stared with liquid expressive blue eyes. He had a sensitive face, changing all the time, a wide mouth with beautiful sensuous lips, thick black hair and a broad white forehead with the eyebrows meeting above the nose, strongly marked and mobile. When he spoke he moved them, singly or together. His voice was soft and precious, and he had a slight lisp. He looked like a young poet. Suddenly she noticed his hands,—thin unmasculine hands,—queer hands—making nervous appealing ineffectual gestures that contradicted the nobility of his head. She heard him call Roddy ‘my dear’; and once ‘darling’; and had a passing shock.

There was a submerged excitement in the room. Mariella’s absence had noticeable effect: there was a lightness of wit, an ebullience of talk and laughter; gay quick voices answering each other.

The polished table was blotted over with pools of red candleshade, and pale pools from the white tulips picked in honour of the guest. The great mirror opposite reflected the table with all its muted colours; reflected too the back of Tony’s broad head and a bit of Roddy in curious profile, and her own face, lustrous-eyed, dark-lipped, long of neck and mysterious. When she looked at it she thought it was transfigured; and she knew who made the electric feeling.

It was time to go home.

But Roddy got up and started the gramophone; then caught her by the hand and led her out on the verandah.

‘One dance,’ he said.

‘And then I must go.’

‘You dance better than ever to-night.’

‘It’s because I’m so enjoying myself.’

He laughed and tightened his arm round her.

‘Judy——’

‘Yes? Oh, Roddy, I do love it when you say “Judy.” Nobody else says it like you.’

He bent his face to look into her lifted one with a soft hidden smile.

‘What were you going to say?’ she asked.

‘I forget. When you look at me with your enormous eyes I forget everything I mean to say.’

The gramophone stopped abruptly, with a hideous snarl; and the form of Julian darted forth like a serpent upon them.

‘You’ve waked the boy with that damned noise,’ he said. ‘I knew you would.’

He was gone; and in the succeeding shock of quiet the wail of Peter floated down to them. Quick footsteps sounded in the room above; and suddenly there was silence.

‘Oh, Roddy, he was cross.’

‘Yes,’ said Roddy indifferently. ‘He’s fussier than twenty old Nannies. The brat’s nurse has gone to see her sister buried, so he’s looking after him.’

‘It’s funny how Julian seems to take charge of him, rather than Mariella.’

‘Oh, Julian’s always got to know best. I expect he told her she couldn’t be trusted with him. I believe they had words,—I don’t know. Anyway she went off to London this afternoon to a dog show or something, and left Julian triumphant.’ Roddy chuckled. ‘God, he’s a peculiar man.’

‘I never can believe that baby belongs to Mariella—and Charlie.’

But he gave her no response to that; although, as she spoke the name, with stars, lights, voices, music, his shadowed face, all that was lovely life around her, the pathos of that death struck her so wildly it seemed he must feel it too and draw closer to her.

How he watched her!

‘Roddy, what are you thinking about?’

She pleaded silently, suffocated with strange excitement: ‘Let us be frank. There’ll never be another night like this and soon we’ll be dead too. On such a night let us not miss one delight, let us speak the truth and not be afraid. Tell me you love me and I will tell you. You know it’s true to-night. Never mind to-morrow.’

But he shook his head slowly, smiling.

‘I never tell.’

She turned to go into the house.

‘Nor I. But I think one day I will,—tell somebody, one person, something—the truth, just once,—just to see how it feels.’

He followed her in silence into the house.

Martin and Tony were lying in arm-chairs, looking sleepy.

‘Poor things—longing to go to bed. It’s all right, I’m going now. I want to say good-night to Julian.’

On such a night Julian must not be left angry, alone. There must be no failure on her part at least.

‘He’s with Peter.’

‘In his old room?’

‘Yes.’

‘I know. I’ll be back in a minute.’

She ran up the stairs. Dimmed light streamed through a door ajar in front of her. It was the room where Julian and Charlie had slept years ago. Softly she pushed the door open.

Julian sat by the window with the child on his knees. He had thrown a shawl over his head and out of its folds the pale face peeped, owl-like and still. In his little night-suit he looked absurd and touching.

Julian raised a face so haggard and suffering that she paused, half-ashamed, uncertain what to say or do.

‘Come in, Judith,’ he said.

‘Only for a minute.... Won’t he sleep?’

‘No. I think he’s feverish. He got a fright, waking up alone. He’s very nervous.’

He bent over the child, rocking him, patting his shoulder.

‘I expect he’s just playing up. You ought to put him back in his cot.’

‘No. He’d cry. I couldn’t endure it if he cried any more. I’ll keep him till he’s asleep.’

Solemn in his shawl, Peter bent his too-brilliant gaze upon her as she stooped to touch his cheek. He never smiled for her; but then neither did he greet her as he greeted most people with a clear: “Go ‘way.” He accepted her with grave politeness.

‘Do you like holding him?’

‘Yes,’ he said simply.

He was holding the child to comfort himself.

‘He’s very nice,’ she said. ‘What a different sort of childhood he’ll have from yours, with the others always round you! He’s likely to be the eldest of the next generation by a good deal, isn’t he?’

‘I should say so,’ he said bitterly. ‘I don’t mind betting not one of us provides a little cousin for him. I don’t see us breeding somehow. Unless possibly Martin....’

Not Roddy. No....

‘Well, you mustn’t let him be lonely.’

‘That’s her affair.’

‘Is it? She seems to let you take charge. Julian, does she love him?’

He was silent for a moment before answering: ‘I think she does.’ He put his hand to his head and said suddenly, very low: ‘O God, it’s awful! You know I quarreled with him—Charlie—over that marriage. I never saw him after it—we were never reconciled. But after the child was born, she wrote and told me he had said in his last letter to her that if anything happened to him he would like me to be the child’s guardian.... So I suppose he forgave me.’

‘Of course, of course, Julian,’ she said, half-weeping at the look of his bowed head.

Was this the canker that gnawed Julian,—interminable thought of Charlie dead like that, without a reconciling word?

‘I blame only myself,’ he said, still in the low voice. ‘She has been very good. Never a word of—anything. Always that sweet empty unresentful way,—like a child. Sometimes I think she never knew—or never understood, anyway. I think she can’t understand that sort of thing. It’s a sort of insensitiveness. She might hate me over Peter, but she doesn’t seem to. Why doesn’t she?’

The expression she had surprised on Mariella’s face came back to her, still undecipherable.

‘I almost wish she would,’ he went on. ‘I wish I was certain she was jealous or even critical of me. I haven’t the least idea where I am.’ He rubbed his eyes and forehead wearily. ‘It’s odd how her presence affects me. She gets on my nerves to a degree! Nothing but this sweet blank passivity.... You know I like people with spikes and facets, people who thrust back when I thrust, brilliant, quick glittering people. And I like people who are slow and deep and warm; and I think you’re one of that sort, Judy. But what is she? Sometimes I think she’s watching me intently but I don’t know where from, and it makes me irritable. She’s got quality, you know,—incredible physical and moral courage. I think that must have been what Charlie loved in her. But cold, cold and flat—to me.’

He sighed and shivered.

‘Oh, Julian, you’re very tired, aren’t you? There’s nothing to worry about. You’ve got things on your mind because you’re so tired. Does your head ache?’

‘Yes. No.... I’m in a bad mood, Judith. You’d better leave me.’ But he spoke gently and raised his face to smile at her. It was then she saw that he had been crying.

‘I will leave you, Julian. I only came to say good-night. And to say I was sorry I made you angry. I wouldn’t have waked him for the world.’

‘It’s all right. I’m sorry I was angry. Don’t worry.’

‘Good-night, Julian.’

‘Good-night Judith.... You look so lovely——’

She thought: ‘I shall never see him like this again. I must remember....’

They looked at each other deeply, and when she turned silently away she had in imagination stooped and kissed his cheek.

As she opened the door, laughter and talk came suddenly to her from below,—a faint roar of male voices that struck her with strange alarm, and seemed to threaten her. She took a step back into the room again, listened and whispered:

‘Julian, who is that Tony?’

He shrugged.

‘I don’t know. He doesn’t talk to me. He writes verse I believe. He’s just bringing out a book. I gather from his conversation he is quite the thing at Cambridge—in certain circles.’

‘Is Roddy very fond of him?’

‘Oh, Roddy! Fond of him! I don’t know.’

‘He seems to be very fond of Roddy.’

‘Yes, it looks like it.’ He glanced at her sharply.

She knew then she had dreaded that he would answer in that way, give her just such a look. She remembered that Tony had been suddenly hostile; his eyes stony and watchful, had fastened on her when she came in from the verandah with Roddy.

The voices came up to her again, like a reiterated warning. ‘Keep away. You are not wanted here. We are all friends, men content together. We want no female to trouble us.’

Better not to go down among them all, safer to stay here in the quiet with Julian. She lingered, looking back in doubt and loneliness; but this time he did not tell her to stay. The muffled shining of the lamp filled the room, flowed over his form, his forehead bowed, drowsy and meditative, one great shoulder curving forward to support the white bundle lying against it. His pose suggested the something in him which it was hard to name,—a kind of beauty and nobility a little twisted. Close beside his narrow bed stood Peter’s cot, and Peter’s two plush animals lay upon the pillow.

Softly she closed the door upon that strange pair. If Mariella had seen them, would her face have changed?

Downstairs again.

It would not be Roddy who would offer to take her home. She saw in one glance that he had finished with her for to-night: he leaned against the mantelpiece, and Tony, beside him, had an arm about his shoulders; and Tony’s eyes, coldly upon her, said he was not for her. Something licked sickeningly at her heart: it was necessary to be jealous of the young poet Tony; for he was jealous of her. To her good-night Roddy replied with chilling mock-formal politeness, bowing his head, laughing at her. Martin put her cloak about her shoulders with reverent hands, and they went out.

The night was dark. All the blossoming things of earth were hidden, and the fragrances abroad seemed shaken from the stars that flowered and clustered profusely in the arching bows of the sky. They were back at her garden-gate. Above it rose a faint broken shadow where, by day, lilac and laburnum poured over in a wild maze to the lane. But when they came to the cherry-tree they found it still glimmering faintly,—a cloud, a ghost.

Judith stretched up a hand and picked a scrap of cherry and held it out to Martin.

‘That’s the secret of it all, I do think. Cherry blossom grows from the seeds of enchantment. Keep it and wish and you’ll have your heart’s desire. Wish, Martin.’

He snatched it and her hand with it. They waited. He held the spray and clutched her hand, sighed and said nothing. Their forms were shadows just outlined against the luminous tree.

‘What were you going to say?’ she whispered.

‘I—don’t know.’

‘No wishes?’

‘Too many.’

He was lost,—caught away, spell-bound, lost.

‘What a night! Isn’t it, Martin?’

‘It’s the very devil.’

‘I don’t feel a bit like myself, do you? There’s some sort of queerness about,—magic. Or is it just being young, do you think?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Don’t let’s ever be old. Could you bear it?’

‘I shouldn’t like it.’

‘Well wish that. Wish never to be old.’

Silence.

‘No,’ he said at last. He held her hand still and bent his head, twisting his bit of cherry. His voice came huskily: ‘I’ve wished something else.’

Gently she drew her hand away. She must run away quickly from whatever was happening: no emotional conflict with Martin must thrust across and confuse the path where all was prepared for one alone.

‘Don’t go in,’ implored Martin. ‘Can’t we walk?’

‘Oh, I must—I must go in.’

‘Oh, Judith!’

‘I must, Martin. Thank you for bringing me home, I must fly now. It’s so late——’ she said in panic.

‘When shall I see you again?’

‘Soon—soon.’

He was speechless. She called a soft good-night and left him and the darkness swallowed him up.

As she went towards the solitary light burning for her in the hall she thought with a sudden fear that he had implored her for assurance just as she mutely implored Roddy every time he left her; and she had answered—oh, not, surely not, as Roddy would have answered?

‘Oh, Roddy, come out of your dark maze and make me certain!’

She must warm herself with the remembrance of the first part of the evening, ignore the little chill of those few last minutes. What were his eyes telling her when he bade her good-night? Surely they were whispering: ‘Take no notice. We know what has passed between us, we know what must come. Though we must keep our secret before others, we do not deceive each other.’

Yes, that was it.

She started running; and wondered why; and ran as hard as she could.

As she opened the front door, she stopped, aghast. The telephone bell was screaming, screaming, screaming.

Telegram for Judith Earle. From Paris.

‘Father died this evening. Come to-morrow. Mother.’

As she hung up the receiver silence in a vast tide flowed in and drowned the house, his house, as if for ever.

He had been deep in the business of dying while she, his daughter—— No. She must not think that way; she must just think of him dead. What an extraordinary thing.... Last time she had seen him had he looked as if he were going to die? There came a doubtful indistinct picture of him—yes—going upstairs to bed, early, not later than ten o’clock. She had looked up the staircase and seen him near the top, mounting with a hand on the bannister: going to bed so early, looking—yes—a little feeble; the bowed back and slow yielding step, the slightly laborious stair-mounting of a man getting old—yes—a delicate elderly man, a little frightening, a little pathetic to see unexpectedly: for could youth then really depart? He had been young and he had come upon old age. Some day she too—she too ... yes, for a moment she had thought that. And now he was dead.

She crept to the library and switched on all the lights and stared at the portrait of a young man. That beautiful youth had lived, grown old and died. He had begotten a daughter who was looking at him and thinking these things. But the cold portraits of people held them bound for ever in unreality; they could not die: they had not lived.

She sank into a chair, burying her face in her hands, seeking for a memory that would make her know that he had lived and died.

She was very small and he, very kind and noble, was taking her to hear the child-genius play. Her excitement was too great to bear: she too would be a child-genius; and when the violin came it wrought on her so violently that she was sick where she sat. He had been deeply disappointed in her, his kindness and nobility turned to disgust.

At night, every night for a long time, with the night light burning, he had sat on her bed and sung softly to her. He sang ‘Uncle Tom Cobley.’

Oh, the haunting echo, the loneliness of that! Over and over he sang the names of the mysterious company of men, but so softly that the slipping syllables wove round her hazily and fled before she caught them.

Then he sang of a golden apple.

Evoe, evoe.... The sound started a pang, a question, a stir of rich sadness that went aching on, through the twice-sung whisper of the sibilants, right on after the fall, the lingering soft pause and fall of the last words.

At the end he sang “Good-night ladies.” When he had finished she said “Again”; and he sang it again and yet again, always more low, till finally it was nothing but a plaintive sigh. She lay listening with eyes shut, weeping with sorrow and delight.

That was so sad, so sad!

She saw a dim swaying far-stretching line of lovely ladies all in white, waving good-bye upon a dark sea-shore. The great ship faded away over the waves, bearing further and further the deep-throated chorus of singers. The long line swayed, reached vainly forward. Their white hands glimmered. She saw them fade, alas! fade, vanish out of sight.

Oh, he had known how to stir mystery in a child. He had turned sound inside out for her, making undreamed-of music,—and pictures besides, and light and colour. He had seemed to forget her for weeks at a time, but when he had remembered, what a more than compensating richness had come into life! She had planned to grow so beautiful and accomplished that he would be proud of her and want her with him always. They were to have travelled together, famous father and not unworthy daughter, and they were to have discussed very intellectual topics and she was to have looked after him when the steps, going upstairs, started, really started, to have that feebleness.... He was to have lived to be very old and go upstairs on her arm, cherished by her.

No more lessons in Greek: no more hearing him softly open his door to listen to her playing,—(though he never praised her, what praise that had been!) No more talk—now and then, when he remembered her, when his eyes dwelt on her with interest—of books and pictures and music and famous people he knew. No second proud visit to Cambridge with him, no seeing him sigh, smile, dream from an old don’s window over Trinity Great Court in the sun, after the lunch-party. The three elderly bachelors had smiled at her, embarrassed by her presence, doubtful as regards the attentions due to a young lady. They had been shy with her, courteous, careful and elegant of speech, a little dusty altogether, but gentle like their rooms, like the old gold light falling outside on ancient buildings. She had listened to them all savouring and playing with words, quoting Greek, saying “Do you remember?” He had seemed so distinguished, so brilliant, a man ripe and calm with knowledge. And afterwards he had shown her the colleges and the Backs and promised to come often to see her when she came up. He had talked of his youth and for a moment they had trembled on the verge of shared emotions: no more of that, no hope of future rich Cambridge occasions.

No more watching his intent and noble profile in the lamplight, stooped hour after hour over his writing, opposite the bust of Homer. Once or twice he had looked up and smiled at her as though vaguely content to have her with him. His desk was empty for ever. That was pathetic; it would bring tears if dwelt on; it made him so human.

Did it hurt to die?

Now in a flash she remembered the question:

‘Daddy, does it hurt to die?’

Years ago. Grandmamma had just died. When he came to say good-night to her in bed, she had asked him that.

He had remained silent and brooding. His silence filled her with terror: her heart beat and, red and panic-stricken, she stared at him. He was going to tell her something dreadful, he knew something so terrible about Grandmamma, about death and the way it hurt that he could not speak.... He was going to die.... She was.... O God! O Jesus!

At last he had sighed and said:

‘No, no. It doesn’t hurt at all to die.’

She had flung herself weeping into his arms, and he had clasped her in silence; and from his quiet, pressing shoulder, comfort had poured in and in upon her.

It did not hurt at all to die, it was quite all right, he had said. He had just died.

She looked about her, at the brooding room. Nothing but loneliness, helplessness, appalling silence. She was cold too, shivering.

A little while ago she had been next door. Now the house would all be dark, shut to her. Supposing she were to run back to them with her tidings, surely they would help, advise, console: for they were her friends.

‘Roddy, Roddy, Daddy’s dead.’

He was standing with Tony’s arm around his shoulders, remote, indifferently smiling. He did not like grief, and Tony kept him from her. Her time was far away and long ago.

‘Julian, Daddy’s dead.’

He was bowed over the child; and he raised his head to listen, but made no answer. He had plenty of his own sorrows; and he feared she would wake the child.

But Martin might be told, Martin would listen and comfort with large and inarticulate tenderness. He would be standing under the cherry-tree, waiting, just as she had left him. She ran to the window.

There was nobody in the garden. A faint light was abroad,—it might be the small rising moon or the dawn—making the cherry-tree pale and clear. It seemed to float towards her, to swell and tower into the sky, a shining vision.

Then death, lovely death, lay at the heart of enchantment. It was the core of the mystery and beauty. To-morrow she would not know it, but to-night no knowledge was surer. And he whom they were to mourn was—in one minute she would know where he was,—one minute.

She leaned out of the window.

Now! Now!

But the cherry-tree was nothing but a small flowering cherry-tree. Before her straining eyes it had veiled itself and withheld the sign.