PART TWO (continued 2)

My heart began to thump. I had not realized that he would talk like that, yet. I was not ready. I wanted to go inside and shut the door, but I couldn’t shut the door while he stood there. The rain was falling faster now, and as I moved my head a little stream of water ran off the brim of my hat, down my neck.

I said:

‘I suppose everybody would like to be different if they could. I should like to have black hair, quite black and straight’; and I tried to laugh. ‘But we can’t be different really, ever.’

He said:

‘Not completely different, of course; but we can alter. People do alter. They can develop new sides in themselves without losing what they have got.’

I said:

‘It is too wet to talk any more now. Good-bye.’

He said:

‘I may come again, mayn’t I?’

I said:

‘Of course, if you like.’ I tried to answer lightly, to make what we were saying seem of no consequence.

I fumbled with my latch-key at the door. At last it opened, and a shaft of light shot out on to the steps. He turned away then and went down the steps, slowly at first and then faster. He turned down the Square to the north, towards Holland Park Road, and I went into the house. The hall was light and warm, and I shut the front door behind me with relief. Upstairs in my bedroom there was a fire. I took off my shoes and stockings and my wet coat, and then I sat down on the hearth-rug and cried for Hugo. He had never seemed so far away before.

XX

I did not speak to Mollie about Walter at first, nor to Hugo. It was almost a week before I saw Hugo again and then we were all together, and Sophia was there too. We were going to a concert, a Mozart concert at the Queen’s Hall. We did not go to dances so often since Sophia came, because she couldn’t dance. I danced with George and Guy sometimes, Mollie and I, without Hugo; but of course that was not the same thing.

The concert was lovely. It made us all happy. I felt that I had been horrid to Sophia, and that I would be nicer.

We went back to Hugo’s rooms and had coffee. It looked very pleasant, Hugo’s room that night, with the fire flickering on the low ceiling and the blue curtains and the charioteer.

Hugo said:

‘That music does one good. People could not be bad-tempered or fussed or worried if they heard some Mozart played every day before they got up.’

Guy hummed an Aria from Don Giovanni, a bit we had heard.

‘That is about the most perfect thing of all,’ he said.

Mollie was pouring out the coffee; she always did that part.

‘I think sometimes,’ said Sophia, ‘that music is all wrong, and poetry too, and all that we call art. I wonder sometimes if it isn’t all a kind of dope that we make for ourselves because we can’t face life; and it seems all pointless then.’

I said:

‘How odd that you should say that. It is almost what Mr. Sebright said.’

‘Sebright?’ said George. ‘When did he talk about it?’

‘I went to the British Museum with him the other day.’ I tried to say it nonchalantly, but I felt self-conscious, and that vexed me, for why shouldn’t I go with him? ‘He says Greek vases are like faces without souls.’

‘So they are,’ said George.

Hugo said:

‘No, they are not at all like that. They are more like souls without faces—impersonal and rather cold. Why did you go there?’ he asked abruptly.

And I said:

‘Because he asked me to. It was very interesting there.’

‘I don’t suppose he would care for vases,’ said Hugo, ‘or statues. He would like just objects of interest. Did you like them?’

I felt then that I could not discuss Walter, nor repeat what he had said, even what he had said while Mr. Furze was there. I felt suddenly that they were all hostile, my own dear people, and that Walter had somehow put his trust in me.

I said:

‘I did when he explained them to me.’

Guy said:

‘I should not have expected him to explain very well.’

‘Who is Mr. Sebright?’ asked Sophia. ‘Was that the man we met at the Roman Camp?’

‘Yes,’ said Mollie. ‘He is an archæologist.’

‘Epigraphist,’ corrected George.

Sophia said:

‘I liked him. He was a wild man.’

Guy said:

‘Oh, not at all wild. Quite a model young man—no vices and a credit to his college.’

Sophia said:

‘I didn’t mean wild in that way. More fanatical—or ruthless—I meant—as though he would be burned alive for something quite foolish—or burn other people.’

Sophia understood him better than the others, I thought, and I liked Sophia for it.

‘We might see Sebright some time,’ said George. ‘He is here now, isn’t he, at the Grey College?’

XXI

After that the Addingtons invited Walter to their flat. He came several times, and generally I was there. Sometimes Guy or Hugo came too, and once Sophia. Ralph Freeman was abroad at the time in Vienna, and Anthony Cowper had also been abroad.

Mollie talked to Walter about his work at Grey College and his pupils and the courses they were taking. Mollie could talk to people about that sort of thing. She did not find it boring, if it made the conversation easier. That was partly why people liked Mollie.

But he did not talk to her as he had to me, about the proto-Hittite script, and the Rosetta Stone. That side of his work was nearer, I felt, to him than the classes and lectures, and it was somehow a sort of secret between him and me.

I used to watch Walter when he was talking to Mollie or to George, and I used to wish he looked different from what he did.

I could not bear the black steel spectacles he wore, and I wished he would not speak so jerkily, nor come into a room as though he were afraid.

He was worst, always, when Guy and Hugo were there. He seemed ludicrous then somehow, like a caricature of himself. He would say provocative things in a nervous voice, and I could see that he irritated Guy.

He came for me again at Campden Hill Square, as he had said he would. Once he took me to a lecture on excavations in Syria. It was a dull lecture, but it seemed somehow an adventure to be there with him. It was like walking on a volcano, for I did not know his mind. I did not know what he would think or say next, as I did with Guy and Hugo, and with George.

Another time we went for a walk by the Serpentine, and he told me how he used to go for walks there when he was a little boy, on Sundays with his mother. He had lived near Earl’s Court all his life. He still lived there, with his mother. His father had been a clergyman at some church round there, and had died when he was five. He had a half-sister much older than himself, who was headmistress at a school. He had been at St. Paul’s himself.

He was devoted to his mother.

‘She gave all her life to me when my father died,’ he said. ‘She was with me always and did whatever I did. I can’t think how children grow up with ordinary mothers, when I think what mine was to me.

‘We were poor, of course,’ he said. ‘We were always poor. But I am glad of that. It made us closer together. In a household with lots of servants, children cannot be close to their mothers, as I was to mine.’

I thought of Cousin Delia, and disagreed. But I did not interrupt him. Walter was never easy to interrupt.

‘I owe a great deal to my sister too,’ he said. ‘She helped with my education. My mother would not have known about that, but Maud saw that I was well prepared, and that I worked hard. I don’t think I was idle by nature, but I am grateful to Maud.’

He did not ask me about my childhood. He did not seem to like it when I spoke of Yearsly. He talked mostly about himself. He was ambitious, he told me that, and determined to do great things with his proto-Hittite script.

And all that attracted me in an odd, contrary way. It was so unlike Hugo—and I thought of Walter as strong because Hugo was weak, and determined because Hugo was undetermined. I was trying hard during these weeks to think less well of Hugo. It seems a long time now, that time with Walter before we were engaged. It seems strange now, in a way, that Hugo did nothing—but when I think of the dates I know it was not long at all. It was at the end of February that Walter came first to Campden Hill, and he asked me to marry him on the 10th of April.

We had met, I suppose, a dozen times, not more. We did not know each other at all.

He came to me in the drawing-room at Campden Hill Square. He had not said that he was coming, and I was not expecting him.

The room was full of tulips from Yearsly, for Cousin Delia sent them to us every week, and the parcel had just come. It was a warm sunny day, and the sun streamed in through the window at the end of the room. I was sitting on the window-seat, and the window was open. I had been putting the tulips in water. They were done now. I was gathering up the ends. There was string and brown paper, and a note from Cousin Delia as well, and the little stalks and ends of leaves from the tulips.

I was thinking of Yearsly, and Cousin Delia, and not of Walter at all. I was thinking that I would go down to Yearsly for a bit; that I would write to Cousin Delia that evening and tell her I was coming. I had not been there lately even for week-ends. I would go alone now, without Hugo or Guy, and be there with Cousin Delia.

And then the door opened and the parlourmaid came in and said:

‘Mr. Sebright to see you, Miss.’

It was a red-haired parlourmaid called Hannah. She had not been with us very long, and she married a policeman soon afterwards, soon after I was married.

Walter came in, and she shut the door. It took me a little time to collect my thoughts—they had been so far from him—and then I looked at him, and I knew why he had come.

He came into the middle of the room, and stood there. I asked him to sit down, but he didn’t listen.

He said:

‘I have come to ask you to marry me. I have meant to always, since the first day that I saw you—at Oxford, in those rooms in the Broad.

‘I don’t see the good of waiting any longer. You are different from me, I know that. You are beautiful and bright, like a flower, and I love you for that. I love you for being what you are. I am a dull fellow in many ways. I know that too. But I could be different with you.’ He said it in a jerky, monotonous voice, as though he had learnt it by heart—and he did not look at me while he said it.

His eyes were fixed on the floor, about a foot in front of me, and his hands were clasped behind him. My eyes followed his, instinctively, and I saw a leaf there—a little leaf that I had forgotten to pick up. I couldn’t pick it up now.

I had known this was coming sooner or later, but I was not ready. It was as though I was paralysed and struck dumb—I could not say anything at all.

And then he looked up suddenly and our eyes met. His were all alight—those pale blue eyes of his behind the steel spectacles. I had never seen them like this before, and his voice shook now when he spoke.

‘I don’t suppose it is any use,’ he said. ‘I never thought it was. But I had to tell you—it can’t hurt you to be told.’

I said:

‘I am sorry.’

He said:

‘Don’t be sorry. There is nothing to be sorry about. I am glad I met you. My life was very empty before I met you. It can never be so empty again.’

And I felt suddenly:

‘What is this I am doing? What am I pushing away?’ I felt that it was wonderful to be wanted like that—and that Hugo did not want me—and I said: ‘Forgive me. I will marry you if you want me.’

It was funny, I think, that I said, ‘Forgive me.’ I didn’t know then why I said it—I just heard myself saying it.

Walter came up to me and kissed me. He did it awkwardly—very stiffly, as if he did not know how—and I thought how Hugo did not kiss me on the night of Guy’s party, at Yearsly by the Jasmine Gate. And I knew as he was kissing me that I had made a mistake.

I felt very cold, and I shivered—perhaps because I had shivered with Hugo at the Jasmine Gate. But that had been different, quite.

Walter said:

‘Don’t be afraid, my precious. I will try to be what you want.’

And I thought:

‘Does he understand after all? How much does he understand?’

XXII

I went the next day to tell Mollie. It was a Saturday, I remember, and it had rained; all the streets were wet.

Walter had stayed with me all the evening before, and I asked him not to come the next day. I felt that I must have a day in peace, without him, or anyone.

I sat in my room all the morning, and tried to read. In the afternoon I went out and walked about.

The trees were all green now, but it was not warm. Clouds had come up in the night, and the sky was still grey.

I meant to go to Mollie in time for tea; I was on the Embankment by half-past four, but I did not go in; I went to a tea shop instead, a little restaurant, not far from Mollie’s flat, where we had had lunch together very often before. I sat a long time over my tea. I shrank somehow from seeing Mollie and George; he would be there too on a Saturday afternoon. They might be out of course, but I did not think so, for it had been arranged before, or half arranged, that I should go there this afternoon.

I went out again, on to the Embankment; I walked along by the river, westward, past the Addingtons’ windows, towards the power station. The sun was beginning to go down, and the sky was all pink now, behind the four chimneys; the broad stretch of river where it bends, beyond Battersea Bridge, was pink too; a mist was coming up, with the tide, I suppose, from the sea, and the colours were dimmed and obscured by the greyness of the mist. A man came along with a stick, and lit the lamps, one lamp, and then two, and then three; it was quite light still, and the lamps looked small and rather foolish; I wondered why they lit the lamps so soon.

There was an old man selling flowers by the corner of Battersea Bridge; I had never seen him there before; he looked a very poor old man; I bought a bunch of narcissi from him; it cost a shilling.

I thought:

‘That is expensive, for a bunch of narcissi.’

I thought:

‘It is no good; I must go in and tell them; it is too late to go back; I must tell them now what I have done.’

I knocked on the door, and rang the bell. The woman from below opened it; she often did, and I went up.

There was a knocker on the door of Mollie’s room; it was the first door one came to in their part of the house. I knocked on the door with the knocker and walked in.

They were sitting beside the fire, George in his arm-chair, and Mollie on a cushion on the floor. There was tea on the table, pushed back again against the wall; they had finished tea, and were reading; the grey cat was with them, on the hearth-rug.

It was comfortable, and familiar, and homely. There were blue curtains in this room too, but there were patterns on them, blue and white, and the cushions on the chairs were red; it was a homelier room than Hugo’s, and the chairs came mostly from their old home in Manchester, ordinary sort of chairs, not straight deep shapes like his. There was a Persian carpet that had been in Manchester too, the ordinary blue and red sort of carpet, a pinkish red like the cushions; Hugo said they did not match it quite, and Mollie said she would change them, but she never did; and we got to like the cushions that did not quite match, and we would not have liked to have them changed.

‘We thought you were not coming,’ said Mollie, looking up from her book. George pulled up another chair for me.

I threw the bunch of narcissi into Mollie’s lap:

‘A peace offering,’ I said. ‘I meant to come sooner; I started out quite early after lunch.’

‘You’ve had tea?’ asked Mollie, and I said, yes, had.

George had his pipe; he always had; he took it out of his mouth, and held out his book.

‘Have you read it?’ he asked. ‘Awfully good!’

I looked at the book; it was Aksakov’s Memories of Childhood; I had not read it; I turned over the pages, and read bits of it, here and there. I said:

‘I came to tell you, really, that I am engaged to Walter Sebright.’

I did not look at either of them, only at the book.

‘What?’ said George, sitting up sharply.

Mollie said:

‘Oh, Helen!’

They were both looking at me; I knew it and pretended not to see. I felt as though I were going to cry, and was determined not to.

‘Do you mean that, Helen?’ Mollie asked very gently.

I said:

‘Yes; are you surprised?’

She said:

‘Yes; very much surprised; I didn’t expect it at all!’

I looked at George, but his face was turned away; he was staring at the fire, bending forwards, away from me.

I said:

‘Won’t you congratulate me, either of you?’ and my voice sounded odd, and jerky, even to myself, ‘Won’t you give me your good wishes?’

‘Yes . . . oh surely, all good wishes . . .’ Mollie said, ‘but . . .’ She hesitated and I saw her look at George. . . .

‘If you are going back now, I will go with you,’ George said abruptly.

He knew, of course, that I had not meant to go back then, for I had only just come. Mollie looked at him again, surprised, I thought, and anxious.

I nearly said: ‘I am not going back!’

But I wanted to get away, and somehow, too, I had to do what George wanted.

I said:

‘Yes, I am going back now; but you needn’t come.’

He got up from his chair and went to get his hat it was hanging up on the landing, outside the door. I stood up too. Mollie took both my hands in hers.

She said:

‘I wish you happiness with all my heart, you do know that, my dear!’

I nodded; I felt I could not speak without crying, and I did not want to cry.

George was waiting for me outside, at the top of the stairs; he waited for me to pass and then followed me down.

We crossed the road to the pavement by the river, and turned Eastward, towards the bridges and the trams. We passed the two bridges, and Oakley Street, where my bus for Kensington would run; we did not, either of us, think about that. We were walking very quickly, along the river; the lamps were all lit now, broad streaks of light lay out in front of each, across the wet pavement and the road.

‘It isn’t true, what you said just now?’ George asked at last.

I said:

‘Yes; why should it not be true?’

‘I can’t believe it is true!’

‘You mean that no one would want to marry me?’

‘No,’ he said quietly, ‘I don’t mean that.’

We walked along without speaking; we were nearly at Chelsea Bridge now.

George stopped walking, and turned round:

‘Does Hugo know?’ he asked.

I said:

‘No. I haven’t seen Hugo.’

He leaned his elbows on the stone parapet and looked straight in front of him, across the river.

‘You know, Helen,’ he said, ‘you must not do this; you can’t understand what you are doing; you haven’t thought.’

I said:

‘I am tired of thinking’

‘I know it is not my business; you can say it is nothing to do with me; but it is; Hugo . . . and you are the best friends I have; I can’t stand by and see you . . . and Hugo messing up your lives . . .’

His voice was very low; I had never heard George’s voice like this.

I thought:

‘How he loves Hugo! Why do we love him so?’

I said:

‘I thought you liked Sophia?’

He said:

‘I do like her.’

‘And you like Walter Sebright too; you said you did.’

‘I do,’ he said, ‘I like him too, but not for you.’

I said:

‘That is for me to judge.’

He said:

‘No, not now; you don’t know what you are doing. You are unhappy and angry, and . . . oh Helen, why do we beat about the bush? You and Hugo love each other far too well to marry other people? You know that . . . I know it . . . and Hugo knows it too!’

I said:

‘I don’t think Hugo does.’

‘He does . . . . I know he does. Give him time, Helen. He will never care for anyone as he does for you.’

I said:

‘He leaves it to you, to say!’

‘Can’t you wait a little while? Six months, or three months even . . . ? That is not very long to wait . . .’

I said:

‘I am sick of waiting. I don’t know even, that I want Hugo, now.’

George was silent; I knew how hard it must be for him to say these things, and I wanted to hurt him. There were sea gulls walking in the mud, at the edge of the river. They rose up in a cloud in front of us, calling and flapping their wings.

I said:

‘It is good of you to consider Hugo so much, but I don’t think he would be grateful to you.’

I said it in a hard, horrible voice.

George clasped his hands together; he clasped and unclasped his fingers, and said nothing at all.

I said:

‘I suppose you think I should wait for ever, on the chance of Hugo’s wanting me some day? You don’t mind what happens to me?’

I can’t bear now to think how I spoke to George; it was as though a devil was in me. I did not mean what I said, and I knew that I did not mean it; I would have waited for Hugo always, if I had thought he would want me ever; but I did not think so. That was not George’s fault.

George said:

‘I did not mean that, Helen. You know, surely, that I did not. Do you think I should have said all this, if I did not mind what happened to you?

‘It is not fair to Sebright,’ he said abruptly, ‘to marry him like this.’

I said:

‘That is his affair, and mine; you had better leave it alone.’

We walked on again; past Chelsea Bridge, and along Grosvenor Road. There was no parapet here, only railings, and the river showed through the iron bars, with the lamplight on it. Across the water, where the wharfs and warehouses are, there were more lights, and a noise of hammering. A train went past with lighted windows, across the railway bridge. I did not ask George to leave me; I did not want him to go. Twice I looked round at him.

‘Why does he mind so much?’ I wondered. ‘It is wonderful to mind so much about other people.’

I said once:

‘It is very dark for April.’

He said:

‘Yes, it is getting late.’

Lorries went past us, a train of lorries, with iron girders on them. There was a Salvation Army meeting at the corner of a street.

I said:

‘I should like to be religious.’

George said:

‘So should I.’

I wished already, that I had been kinder to George. I knew how hard it must have been for him to say all that to me. I was grateful to him for caring about it at all.

We had left the river now, and were walking through streets with more warehouses and yards. We came out soon to Westminster, and crossed the wide space in front of the Houses of Parliament. We stood and waited for a bus.

George said:

‘Forgive me, Helen. I am afraid I have made it worse. I am sorry, if I have.’

I wanted to say:

‘Forgive me, George. I love you for what you said. It was dear and brave of you to say it. It was like you, George.’

But there were people all round, near us, and my bus was coming, round the corner, and across to where we stood.

I only said:

‘It’s all right; you haven’t a bit. Good-bye.’

I held out my hand, and George took it.

Then I climbed up on to my bus, and went up the steps to the top. I turned round to wave to him again, but he did not see me. He was standing quite still, where I had left him, staring in front of him at the road.

XXIII

I did not write to Hugo. George told him, and Guy wrote to me at once.

‘Congratulations and good wishes,’ he said; that was all.

Cousin Delia asked me to bring Walter down to see her I said I would, the next week-end.

Hugo wrote later:

‘Helen dear, I hope you will be happy. I hope you have chosen right. Other people cannot judge for you, not even we, who have known you best.’

I thought:

‘He does not mind. He does not like Walter, but he does not mind.’

Walter took me to see his mother. She looked old to be his mother; much older than Cousin Delia. She had light blue eyes like his, and fair hair. Her hair was not so grey as Cousin Delia’s, but her face was much more lined. She was small, and like a bird, with quick, nervous movements. She was dressed in purple; a purple silk bodice, with a high collar, up round her chin. She was very neat and slim, and her face was pink, like a soft apple.

She lived in a high house, with steep, dark stairs. There were Indian things in the room; weapons, and powder horns, and inlaid tables. Walter’s grandfather had been in India; he was an Indian merchant who traded in rice. There were water-colours on the walls, of cottages, and churches in green trees; old-fashioned, rather charming pictures, but the room was dark all the same; the curtains were dark and heavy, and there was too much furniture; I felt very much a stranger in that room.

Mrs. Sebright kissed me in a fluttering, half-frightened way.

‘My dear, I am so glad to meet you,’ she said. ‘Walter has talked to me often about you. I should like to have seen you before.’

She made me sit down in a big chair; it had a chintz cover with purplish flowers on it; faded, dull sort of flowers.

‘I must look at you,’ she said, ‘you must let me look at you, my dear!’

She put on her spectacles, and looked at me. It was natural that she should want to look, but I felt embarrassed.

‘Yes, you are very pretty, very pretty indeed! Walter told me so. Walter is always right.’

She gave a little nervous laugh.

‘We must make friends now,’ she said; ‘you see, it seems so strange to me, that I do not know you at all. Walter has been such a good son to me, such a devoted son, and good sons make good husbands, so they say. . . . I am sure my Walter will. You are a fortunate young lady, my dear, though I say it, and I am sure you will do your best to deserve him.’

I said I hoped I should. I liked her for thinking so much of Walter; she was so naive, and so single-hearted; the attitude of my friends would have been inconceivable to her.

And I thought:

‘She knows him much better than they do, after all.’

She said:

‘You must tell me all about yourself. Your parents are dead, I believe?’

I told her that my father was dead, and my mother had married again.

‘Poor dear, poor dear, so you were all alone?’

I told her about Cousin Delia and Yearsly.

I said:

‘I was with her long before, after my father died.’

‘Ah, yes; and you had cousins there, to play with, I believe?’

I said:

‘Yes; two cousins—Guy and Hugo.’

‘They must be almost like brothers to you now?’

I said:

‘Yes; almost.’

‘Walter knows them, I think? He knew them at Oxford.’

I said:

‘He does not know them very well.’

‘They would not be quite Walter’s type, perhaps . . . you see, Walter is so clever, he does not care much for people who are not . . . but he will, of course, my dear, later on, if they are your cousins. He has a most affectionate nature, and I am sure they are very nice young men!’

I suppose I did not respond, for she added quickly:

‘I did not mean, of course, that your cousins were stupid, Walter has never said such a thing to me, oh, not at all, but I thought from what he told me that they were . . . just . . . not quite like Walter . . . he has, of course, a quite exceptional brain.’

I said:

‘Oh no; my cousins are not like Walter; but I love them very much; I hope he will be friends with them, more, later on.’

I did not mind what Mrs. Sebright said; I did not mind what Walter had told her about them.

I thought:

‘She feels about Walter as I do about Hugo; I am glad that some one feels about him like that.’

Walter came in then. He had left me alone with his mother for a talk. He stood beside her with his hand on her shoulder, and looked at me.

‘Wasn’t I right, Mother?’ he asked softly. ‘Isn’t she all I said?’

He looked flushed and happy; his eyes were shining; I wished he would not wear those black steel spectacles.

Grandmother went to call on Mrs. Sebright. Grandmother was the only person who seemed really pleased at the engagement.

She said:

‘I like your young man. He has brains and character. You might have done worse. You won’t be well off, not at all well off; but that does not matter; we all value money too highly, and you will have enough when I die,’

I don’t know what she said to Mrs. Sebright, or Mrs. Sebright to her, but she was not displeased.

She said:

‘A good woman, I think, but a fool; he must get his brains from his father. Stupid women often have clever sons; perhaps the clever men marry them. She will not trouble you, Helen, she won’t interfere, but you must be kind to her, and attentive.’

I said that I would try. I was grateful to Grandmother for being pleased at all.

XXIV

Guy and Hugo were not at Yearsly that week-end; they were sorry they could not come, Cousin Delia said.

She welcomed Walter, giving him both her hands, and looked at him hard, as his mother had looked at me; but she did not ask him questions. Some people said that Cousin Delia was hard to talk to, for she never asked you the ordinary things; she did not ask people how their relations were, as some women always do. She took people as they were, and left them alone; and she talked, when she did talk, about anything that was in her mind, or yours, at the moment.

She showed Walter some gems, Greek gems, in the library; he told her about them, their dates, and where they were made. He did not say they were decadent, or ‘too late,’ as I expected. He was polite to Cousin Delia, and treated her with respect.

He said:

‘She is not at all like her sons.’

I said:

‘Oh, Walter, I think her so like them both.’

He did not get on very well with Cousin John; that did not surprise me; Cousin John might seem dull to anyone who did not know him well.

I took him to Joseph and Mathew, and the Elliots at the farm. He was awkward with them all, and did not know what to say. They shook hands with us, and wished us joy, but they were not hearty, and as we turned away, I heard Elliot say to his wife:

‘I aye thought it would have been Mr. Hugo!’

I don’t think Walter heard what he said.

I took Walter to the Temple, and into the High Wood. He made love to me and kissed me, and called me pretty names; I would not have thought he could say the things he did, and I was glad he did; but I did not show him the Happy Tree, nor the Frog Pond, nor the Jasmine Gate.

XXV

Cousin Delia came to see me in my bed, as she used to when I was little.

She said:

‘Dear Heart, are you happy?’

I said:

‘I don’t know, Cousin Delia. Ought I to be?’

She said:

‘I don’t know. I wasn’t; but some people are. It is better to be happy.’

I said:

‘Yes. I know it would be better.’

She stood beside my bed, and looked across it at the window, and the branches of the trees. There was a moon outside and we could see the branches; I had pulled the curtain back.

She said:

‘Poor Hugo; I am thinking of my Hugo.’

I said:

‘You need not be sorry for him.’

She looked down at me.

She said:

‘No? Need I not?’

I said:

‘No. Be sorry for me; and Walter.’

She said:

‘Walter has got what he wants. Not many people get that.’

I said:

‘No, not many people; I know that; and I don’t think Walter really has.’

She said:

‘Dear Heart, don’t be impatient; don’t decide too soon.’

I said:

‘I have decided.’

She bent down and kissed my forehead.

She said:

‘I like your Walter; and he is very happy.’

XXVI

Walter took me to see his sister Maud. She was the headmistress of a school at Lessingham; a County Secondary School.

We travelled by train for nearly two hours; we were to spend the night with Maud, at the school.

We sat opposite to each other in the train; we had two corner seats.

I thought:

‘It will be like this when I am married to Walter. We shall travel together always. How funny that will be!’

Walter had bought me newspapers at the station. He bought a lot of them and put them on the seat beside me; there was Vogue, and Colour, and the Daily Mirror; and I laughed.

I said:

‘I should not have thought you would buy papers like this. Have you ever bought any of these before?’

Walter laughed too.

He said:

‘No, of course not; I have never had any one to buy them for, before.’

He had no newspaper himself; he did not read them; he had told me that before. He took out a German book, Der Hittitische Kult, and began to read it, but soon he put it down. I was looking at him, and now he looked at me.

He said:

‘Not even that, when you are here. I wonder if you know how much that means?’

He leaned across, and took my hands in his.

He said:

‘Perhaps, you will make me human. Perhaps I shall be quite different when I am married to you.’

I bent forward too and kissed his forehead; I felt curiously moved.

I thought:

‘Perhaps, he really needs me; perhaps I have something to give him that he really wants . . . beyond mere falling in love.’

I felt that there were depths in him I had not fathomed.

I thought:

‘Can I do it? Am I what he thinks me?’

And then I thought:

‘Perhaps I shall love him more than any one, in time.’

People got into the train at the next station. Walter talked to me about his sister Maud.

He said:

‘I hope so much you will like her’; and I felt behind his words, the hope, more doubtful, that she might like me.

He said:

‘She is a very remarkable woman; she took a i.i. at Cambridge, you know, that is not common for women, and she did it all herself. She was only seventeen when my father died. She was at school then, of course, and insisted on staying on. My mother would have taken her away, I think, and gone to live in the country, but Maud was right. She said it was better for us all, to keep her on at school, and at college too; she would earn more in the end, and of course she was right. She paid her own way with scholarships, all the way up, just as I did afterwards, and she helped with me too. She kept me up to the mark, and my mother too. My mother was inclined to spoil me. She thought I was delicate and that the work at St. Paul’s was too much for me, but Maud insisted on my working hard, and again, I am sure she was right. She is not so gentle as my mother, of course, nor so affectionate, but I admire her very much, and I am grateful to her.’

I said:

‘I don’t expect she will approve of me!’

Walter hesitated.

‘Not quite, at first, perhaps, but you mustn’t mind that. She does judge people on their merits, really, in the end, though sometimes she is prejudiced at first.’

I was afraid that I should not like Maud, and I was sure that she would not like me.

XXVII

Maud was waiting for us in her ‘Private Room.’ We came to it through long corridors with notices on the walls, and a place with pegs, and rows and rows of hats and coats. There was a smell of disinfectant, and ink, and books. It was different from the smell at Ellsfield, but reminded me partly of that.

The ‘Private Room’ was pleasanter. There was a big window with green serge curtains, and a table with a green serge cover, and lots of books on it. There were daffodils on the table in a green, ‘art pottery’ jug, and reproductions of pictures by Watts on the walls, in broad, dark oak frames.

Maud came forward to meet us. She was tall and fair; she seemed much taller and more powerful than Walter; she looked healthier, and more athletic. Her hair was parted in the middle, and pushed forward, very neatly, with little combs behind each ear. She was wearing a very clean, well ironed, white silk shirt, with a dark blue tie, a tie-pin, and a long, navy blue serge skirt; she had pince-nez, rimless ones, fastened by a fine, black cord.

She smiled in a bright, business-like way, as though she were accustomed to smiling.

‘My dear Walter, how do you do? How do you do, Helen?’

She kissed us both, brightly too, and led us back to the tea-table, which was waiting by the hearth-rug. There was no fire, though the day was rather cold; the kettle was boiling on a brass spirit lamp, on the table.

‘Your train must have been late,’ she said, as she made the tea. ‘I expected you a quarter of an hour ago. Fortunately, to-day is my “free day,” and I have an hour and a half, quite free, after tea.’

She made us feel that it was our fault that the train was late, but that she forgave us.

Walter murmured an apology, and she smiled again:

‘It is of no consequence, none whatever. I have kept myself entirely at your disposal this afternoon. I had to take the chair at a staff meeting between three and four; we have a staff-committee now, you know, Walter, to decide on internal questions of policy in the school, slight variations in curriculum, and so forth, as far as our governing body will permit: it meets on Saturday afternoon. I find it a useful experiment. I find that it encourages keenness in the staff, more especially the younger members, if they feel they have some say in the management of the school. I have, of course, a casting vote myself, but I seldom use it. It is surprising to find how often we are unanimous, or practically so. Sugar, Helen and milk?’

She gave me sugar and milk, without waiting for my reply, and handed me the cup.

‘Let me see,’ she went on, ‘where were you at school? Walter did tell me, I believe.’

I said:

‘Ellsfield, in Surrey; Miss Ellis’s school.’

‘Ah yes, of course! They do not take the Higher Certificate there, I think? There was some discussion about it at the last Headmistresses’ Conference. Miss Ellis takes, shall we say, an independent line?’

I said:

‘I don’t think they did many examinations. I believe Miss Ellis didn’t approve of them.’

‘Quite, quite; and not many of the girls would go on to the Universities, I suppose?’

‘Some did, I think; oh, several did. You could go if you liked.’

Maud smiled.

‘No compulsory abstention,’ she said, ‘but not unduly encouraged, I suppose. Of course here we have quite the opposite idea. We train our girls to regard a University training as the natural culmination of their education. Under present conditions they cannot always afford it, but it is surprising how many can, when once the girl and her family are made to feel it the natural and proper thing. There ought to be more scholarships, of course, for Oxford and Cambridge are too expensive for most girls of the class who come to us, but the Provincial Universities are now excellent. A number of our girls go to Birmingham and more still to the University College here.’

I said:

‘It must be very convenient to have a college here.’

‘Yes, a good departure, quite good. Standard not very high yet, but that will come. I thoroughly approve of this movement for increasing the number of University Colleges in Provincial towns. By the way, Walter,’ she went on, ‘I want to speak to you about that last regulation of the Board of Faculties and Arts, about the P.Q.T. External Examinations, you know the one I mean, 1346; I think it is on the new schedule.’

She took up a bunch of papers from the table beside her and began to look through them.

‘Here it is,’ she said, and began to read it aloud.

It was something about the qualifications necessary for anyone going in for some particular examination; it conveyed nothing, of course, to me. Walter said something about its not making much difference, and she interrupted him:

‘I entirely disagree with you, Walter. Take the case, for instance, of a girl in the Vth Form who had already passed 3y and 6b in the Higher Certificate; her position would be quite anomalous!’

‘But do many girls pass 3y and 6b, and nothing else?’

‘Not many, but some do. In any case it ought to be made quite clear; would such a girl be eligible, or not?’

‘You see,’ she said, turning to me, ‘so many of our girls take the London University External degree, and as Walter is now a Member of the University, I always apply to him in my difficulties.’

Walter said:

‘I am afraid I can’t be any use to you over this, Maud. I really have nothing to do with the External Examinations. You had better apply to the Secretary of the Board of Faculties, direct.’

There was irritation in his voice; he held out his cup.

‘May I have some more tea?’ he asked.

‘Certainly, certainly. I did not see that you had finished; and, Helen, let me give you some more. You did say milk and sugar, I think. Walter, please give Helen some cake. Yes, I think I had better apply to the Board of Faculties direct. It is always best to go to the Fountain Head. But you must support me on the Board, if the question is raised. Helen must excuse us talking so much shop,’ and she turned brightly to me: ‘We Academic people have so much shop to talk, and so little opportunity.’

Walter said:

‘I find plenty of opportunity!’

‘Ah, but you are at the Fountain Head! That is one of the advantages of University life over that of a school. It has that advantage, undoubtedly. But what is Helen most interested in? We must make friends, mustn’t we? Now that we are to be sisters-in-law!’

Walter said:

‘Helen is interested in a great many things. Literature and pictures, and music . . . aren’t you, Helen?’

I felt like a child, being discussed and drawn out by grown-up people.

I said:

‘Yes. I am interested in that sort of thing, chiefly, I suppose.’

‘I see,’ said Maud, artistic. ‘Well, that is a very important side of life. I always teach my girls to appreciate Art. We have lectures on Art, every alternate week, in the Winter terms, with lantern slides; and literature too; three of our girls took A.A. in the English Literature paper of the L.L.U.’

‘Helen is a great dancer too!’

Maud gave a little laugh.

‘The lighter side,’ she said, ‘that we can hardly call Art!’

I wondered why Walter had said it. I thought he might have known that Maud would not count dancing ‘Art.’

‘It can be Art,’ said Walter doggedly. ‘Have you seen the Russian Ballet?’

I was surprised that Walter should have seen it himself.

Maud laughed again, her quick, business-like laugh.

‘I am afraid I have no time for Ballets,’ she said:

‘Helen will not find much time to dance when she is married, I am afraid. I am afraid Academic life will seem a little strange to you at first. We are poor, dull people you know, my dear, but we have our good points, if you take us as you find us! And now, would you like a walk round? We have extended the playing field since you were here last, Walter, and there are some new books in the Classical Library.’

Walter and I were not alone all the evening. There were prayers for the boarders, and supper in a big dining hall, only two tables, at the end in use, for the day girls were not there.

In the morning we went to church with Maud and two other mistresses, and the boarders.

We were alone for a little, in Maud’s room, before lunch.

‘When did you go to the Russian Ballet?’ I asked.

And Walter said:

‘When you said you liked dancing; in the tea-shop near the British Museum. I went the next evening.’

I took his hand.

I said:

‘That was dear of you. Did you like it?’

He said:

‘I don’t know if I liked it really. Not very much, perhaps, but I liked to know what you liked . . .’

He hesitated, and smiled shyly.

‘I thought it made me understand you better.’

I felt, somehow, nearer to Walter after that visit. I felt that there was an understanding between us in relation to Maud. He did not say it and I did not say it, but I felt that he was on my side, and not on hers; that he was resisting what she stood for, and defending me.

I had dreaded the meeting with Maud, and now it was over I did not mind her; I was not afraid of her: it did not seem to me that she would count.

XXVIII

We were to be married in July, as soon as Walter’s term ended. Grandmother had arranged that, I think, with Walter.

Cousin Delia said:

‘Wait a little. Wait till the Autumn, or even Christmas.’

Mrs. Sebright said July seemed rather soon.

Walter said:

‘Why wait, now it is settled?’

I let them arrange it as they liked. I felt all the time quite passive, as though things happened, and decisions were made, quite separately from me; it was not my business to interfere; I just watched.

And I thought:

‘Now this is happening, now that. Now she is engaged to be married. Now she is looking for a house. Now they are getting clothes for her. Now, sheets. Soon there will be a wedding in a church. And what then?’

It was as though I were watching it all from a long way off.

We found a house in Hampstead; number seven, Edinburgh Terrace. It was a stucco house, semi-detached, with a garden back and front, and a high flight of steps up to the front door. There was a stucco wall between the road and the garden in front, and a straight path that sloped up from the gate to the front door, so that the house itself looked high up, higher than it really was. There were lilac bushes at the side of the house, where the back door was, and a trellis gate that led through to the garden behind. There was a verandah at the back, with iron steps leading down to the back garden. The gardens were oblong strips of grass, neglected for some time. The whole terrace had been built, I should think, about 1850; it was old-fashioned, and a little dilapidated; much more attractive, I thought, than more modern houses, and Walter thought it cheap.

I wanted to have the outside of it painted; it had been painted a sort of cream colour once, and I wanted it white, and the windows and door bright green. It was the sort of house that ought to be white and green.

Walter said he thought it would do as it was. We could decorate it inside, and then see how much money we had left. We had five hundred pounds to spend on decorating and furniture; Mrs. Sebright said that would be ample; Grandmother said we must do the best we could with that, and that she would make up the extras. I could see that she did not think it would be enough.

Cousin Delia came to see the house. She stood on the steps and looked at the front garden.

She said:

‘You should grow roses here; red roses, I think. Richmond, or General Macarthur; and a pond in the middle, perhaps.’

I said:

‘Will roses grow in London?’

She said:

‘Oh surely they will! Do you think they won’t?’

Cousin Delia seemed always a little lost when she came to London; a little bit as though she were walking in a dream.

She said:

‘It would be dreadful, of course, if the roses would not grow.’

I showed her the rooms inside; upstairs and down; She said:

‘It is a nice little house. You shall have the “Little chair,” from Yearsly. It would go well, I think, in that drawing-room. Your chairs must be small, for these rooms.’

She said that the paint on the stairs would not do. It was dark brown paint, and very ugly, but Walter thought we should leave it.

She said:

‘It is all wrong, that brown paint, you must have it taken off.’

Mrs. Sebright said we must have the drains relaid. I had thought we might leave the drains.

Maud came up from Lessingham to see the house. She said we should have the paint inside green.

She said:

‘It saves work; white paint gives far more trouble.’

But I did not want green paint inside.

In the bedroom, she said:

‘You can have a nice fumed oak suite, in here. There are excellent fumed oak suites at the Army and Navy Stores. I have furnished the bedrooms in our teachers’ hostel with their suites. Well made, and in very good taste.’

Walter said:

‘Helen does not like fumed oak.’

‘Oh really! I thought every one liked fumed oak now. What does Helen like?’

They always talked of me as though I was not there.

Walter said:

‘She likes old furniture. Old mahogany and . . . and walnut.’

Maud laughed:

‘Oh, of course,’ she said, ‘we should all like old walnut best, I imagine. I am afraid Helen will find that a professor’s salary will hardly allow of furnishing in that style!’

She smiled at me, in what I think she meant to be an encouraging way.

She said:

‘Helen will soon learn, I am sure. A poor professor’s wife can hardly expect to live in the way she has been accustomed to; even clothes, for instance, the cost of clothes will have to be considered,’ and she glanced at mine, ‘but I feel sure that Helen will soon learn. We must all help her’; and she smiled again.

I began to hate Maud. I wondered if she wanted to make it all seem horrid.

I said:

‘We can have packing-cases with chintz frills. Sophia Lane Watson has those in her room and they look very nice. I would rather have that than fumed oak.’

‘Rather too, what shall we say? . . . Bohemian, perhaps, to live in packing-cases. I am sure you will have ample for your needs, if it is laid out carefully, with foresight, and consideration.’

Mrs. Sebright gave us a sideboard; it was a big mahogany sideboard that had belonged to Walter’s grandfather.

It was ugly and took up a great deal of room; and she gave us a portrait of his grandfather too, the India merchant; Walter was not at all like him. I could not say I did not want them, but they spoiled the rooms.

I thought:

‘It is only the dining-room, after all; we shall not sit in it very much.’

George and Hugo came to see the house when it was almost finished. Mostly they liked it, but Hugo said:

‘Oh, must you have that sideboard?’

And I saw George nudge his elbow, to stop him speaking about it.

I said:

‘I rather like it. It belonged to Walter’s grandfather, who was a merchant in India. It is interesting to have it, I think.’

Hugo said:

‘Oh, yes . . . yes, of course! If there is a reason for it, that is quite different!’

He looked at the portrait of the grandfather, a big portrait in oils, badly painted, but he said nothing about it.

He said:

‘That room upstairs is awfully nice! that drawing-room, with the steps down to the garden, and I am sure you can make the garden awfully nice.’

I had hardly seen Hugo, since I had been engaged; only once or twice, at parties; at Campden Hill Square, and at Mollie’s. I did not want to see him much just then.

He gave me an alabaster bowl; old white alabaster; I think it was Chinese. I put it on the drawing-room chimney-piece, in the middle, and straight silver candlesticks, from George and Mollie, on either side. Walter thought it looked rather bare. He thought it would have been more convenient to put a clock there, but he didn’t mind about things like that.

We had old walnut furniture in the drawing-room, after all, for Cousin Delia and Cousin John gave me a walnut cabinet, a beautiful thing, like one at Yearsly, and Grandmother gave me a writing-desk, Queen Anne walnut too.

XXIX

Cousin Delia came with me to buy sheets.

It was June now, and the house was nearly ready. We were to be married on the third of July.

She bought a great many sheets, and bath towels, and pillow-cases. We were sitting facing each other, beside the counter, on two high chairs; and then, quite suddenly, when we had nearly finished, I felt that I could not marry Walter; I felt terrified at what I was doing; I felt as though I was caught in a trap.

I don’t quite know what did it, but I think it was the sheets. Cousin Delia was feeling them in her fingers, and she told me to feel them. They were very fine and soft, and I liked the feeling of them, and then I thought of them on a bed, and me in bed, and Walter; and I realized that he would sleep with me, and be as close to me as that; I had not, somehow, thought of that before, and I felt it was impossible; I could not go to bed with Walter.

I said:

‘Cousin Delia, I don’t think I want any sheets.’

Cousin Delia looked at me, and I think she knew what I was feeling, for she did not ask me why. She waited a minute or two, and then, when the shopman came back, she said, quite quietly:

‘I think we will leave the sheets for to-day. Send me the bath towels and the face towels; that will be enough. We can send them back afterwards, if we want to,’ she said to me, and she took me into the tea-room which was in that shop.

We sat in two basket chairs, very low, with cushions in them, in a corner, away from the door. There were little white cloths with green shamrocks round the edge on the tables, and a band was playing, a string band, with women in green uniforms playing. A waitress came round with a big tray of cakes, very gorgeous cakes, that you took with a fork.

I kept saying to myself:

‘It can’t be true. I can’t be going to marry him, really, in two weeks. This cannot be going to happen to me, this horrible thing!’

I wished that the band would stop playing and let me think.

I looked at Cousin Delia; she was looking at me. She put out her hand and let it rest on mine.

‘Dear Heart,’ she said very gently, ‘it is not too late. Don’t do this, unless you are sure.’

I said:

‘I want to think. I don’t know what I am doing. I didn’t until just now.’

XXX

I went to Walter that evening after dinner. I went out alone, and to his house. I asked to see him, and was afraid I should see his mother, but she was upstairs, in the drawing-room, and he came down alone.

He came into the dining-room; there was a smell of fish there, but the dinner was cleared away. There was gas alight in the room, over the table; the maid had lit it when she showed me in; it had lit with a loud report, like a gun.

He came up to me and took my hands.

‘What is it?’ he asked me quickly. ‘What has happened?’

I said:

‘It is all a mistake. I cannot marry you. I am sorry.’

He said:

‘Why not?’

I said:

‘What do you mean?’

‘It is all my fault. It is not fair to you either. I don’t love you enough or in the right way, at all.’

He said:

‘You will love me in time. I know you will. I know you don’t yet; not as I love you.’

I said:

‘I am afraid not. That is why I have come. I ought not to have let it go on so long. Somehow, I did not understand. I don’t think I shall marry any one, ever at all. I don’t think I ever could!’

And then I cried; it was stupid; it was the last moment in the world to cry, but a sob came in my throat, and then another, and I sobbed out loud, and Walter took me in his arms and comforted me.

And it was over. I had meant to be cold and firm, and I could not. I felt so frightened; frightened of life, and of myself, and he was very kind. He seemed much older than me, and much wiser; he seemed just then all I wanted him to be.

He took me back to Campden Hill Square, and said good-bye to me on the step as he had said it that evening in March, that seemed now, long ago.

He said:

‘It will be better when we are married. Only two weeks more to wait now.’

And I knew then that it was bound to come; that I must go through with it; and I did not know whether it was a mistake or not.

XXXI

We were married on the third of July, at St. Mary Abbots Church.

Those two weeks of waiting were terrible, but they passed, as everything does, in the end.

I thought:

‘Twelve days . . .’ then: ‘Eleven days . . .’ then: ‘Ten . . .’ and then: ‘Four days . . . three days . . . two days . . .’

I thought:

‘It must feel like this if one is diving from a high bridge, from a railway bridge, down into a river.’

—I don’t know why I thought of a railway bridge, but I did—‘It must feel like this, while one is waiting to jump.’

And I thought:

‘It must feel like this if one is going to be hung; counting the days, and knowing, quite for certain, that something terrific will happen to you in the end.’

And then I thought:

‘It has happened to other people; to Cousin Delia, and to Grandmother, and to people I pass every day, in the street.’

And I thought:

‘If they have gone through with it, I can.’

Nunky came up with Cousin Delia, to dress me for the wedding. I had a white satin dress, like all brides’ dresses, and a veil that had been Mary Geraldine’s wedding veil, and roses from Yearsly, golden and white.

There was a red carpet, and a great many people. Guy and Hugo were there, and Mollie and George, and Anthony Cowper, and Ralph Freeman, and his sister, and Sophia, and the Lacey girls, and Faith Vincent, and vague cousins of mine, and cousins of Walter’s, and Mrs. Sebright, of course, and Maud; and there were two uncles of Walter’s; one was a schoolmaster in the North of England, and one, a solicitor in the West; they came to London on purpose for the wedding, and I liked them, particularly the schoolmaster; and there were people that had to be asked, friends of Grandmother’s, and friends of Mrs. Sebright’s.

Cousin John gave me away, and Mr. Furze was the best man, and Mr. Vincent, from Yearsly, came up on purpose to help with the service.

My relations sat on one side of the church, and Walter’s on the other; there were more of mine.

There was a good deal of music. Guy had chosen a chorale that they sang at the end; but Mrs. Sebright chose the hymns. None of that seemed to matter very much; and afterwards there was a party and a cake, at Campden Hill Square.

Walter was dressed in a tail coat; he looked quite different; it made it seem queerer, somehow, and more like a dream.

I walked up the aisle of the church with Cousin John while the choir sang ‘Oh Perfect Love, All Human Thought Transcending’; and Walter and Mr. Furze were waiting for us at the top. I had never been to a wedding before, and only twice to this church when the banns were being read and Grandmother said we had better go. It seemed odd to see Mr. Vincent there; he belonged so much to Yearsly, and the little old church with so few people in it, but he smiled at me, and I was glad.

Then he said the things about Holy Matrimony, and asked us the questions, and we answered, first Walter and then I, and then there were prayers and hymns, and the vicar of the parish preached a sermon, and then there was the chorale that Guy had chosen—a Bach chorale that he used to sing with the waits sometimes at Christmas; I liked to hear that again, and I was glad that Guy had wanted to choose it.

Then we went into the vestry and signed our names, and other people came too, and signed their names. Cousin John and Guy signed, and Walter’s two uncles, and they were all talking.

And I thought:

‘Now I am married. There is no escape now.’

And there seemed to be a great singing noise in the church, though really it was quiet; a sort of noise like the sea on a beach, or wind in trees.

Outside the vestry, Hugo was waiting. He said good-bye to me there, for he did not come on to the party. He stopped me in the shadow of the aisle, as I came out with Walter, and said Good-bye.

He said:

‘Dear, God bless you. Be happy.’

And he took my hand; and then he went away; he seemed somehow to drift away, in the shadow, at the side; and we walked down the middle of the church to the door.

There was a motor-car outside, and we got into it. We were alone in the motor, driving back to Campden Hill Square, and Walter kissed me, very seriously, and we sat very still. I think he was a little frightened too, now it was done.

The drawing-room at Campden Hill Square was full of people, and the dining-room too; there was food in the dining-room, a wedding cake, and ices, and claret cup, and things like a supper at a dance; and every one came up and shook hands with Walter and me, and talked to us; and Walter was introduced to my relations, and I was introduced to his; and there was a great noise of people talking all round, like there is at an evening party; it was like an evening party, though it was only twelve o’clock.

Mr. Furze came and spoke to me too.

He said:

‘It is not very long since our first meeting, in the British Museum. That was a very different scene!’

I said:

‘Yes; different; but it seems to me a long time ago.’

He said:

‘Four months, not quite four months, A great deal can happen in four months.’

He smiled at me, but he looked sad, I thought, and I wondered why.

XXXII

After a time they called me away, upstairs, and took off my wedding gown and dressed me in other new clothes, a brown coat and skirt, and a hat with a long feather, and a fur neck thing; all these were new too; I had been to shops with Cousin Delia to buy them.

And then we got into the same motor that had brought us from the church. Some one had lent it, but I can’t remember who, and Cousin John shut the door of the motor with a bang, and people shouted and waved to us, and Anthony Cowper threw some rice, and some one else confetti. Some of the confetti got into my umbrella, I don’t know how; it fell out a long time after, on the platform, when I opened the umbrella; that was on the journey back, after our honeymoon was over.

We drove to Euston, for we were going up to Carlisle the first night, and then on to the farmhouse on the Roman Wall, where Walter had been staying when we met him there.

It was a long journey; too long, perhaps, and people were in the carriage until Crewe.

The funny thing is, that I don’t remember that journey distinctly. I remember getting into the train at Euston and getting out at Carlisle, but in between it is a sort of blur; I only remember looking out of the window, at the rails, running along beside us, and thinking:

‘I might throw myself out on to those. That would be a way out of it still.’

But I knew I would not throw myself out really. That was nearly at the end of the journey, after passing Preston, and the place where the railway runs near to the sea.

It was evening when we reached Carlisle, but quite light, for it was summer and the days were longer there than in the South.

We got into another motor and drove to the hotel. A room had been engaged for us at that hotel, and the motor had been ordered; everything seemed to happen automatically, as though we were puppets, and somebody else was moving us by strings; at least, I felt like that; I don’t know if Walter did. I suppose it was he who had arranged these things, or he and Grandmother together.

People at the hotel came out to meet us; a sort of concierge man in uniform, and the proprietress of the hotel, who was fat and smiling, with black hair. They took us upstairs, and another man came after with the luggage. They took us along a passage, to a big room with a wardrobe in it. Bedrooms do have wardrobes in them as a rule, I know, my own bedroom has, but this wardrobe was different; it was so big that it seemed to dominate the room, it was a sort of triple wardrobe; it had two doors with looking-glasses at each end, and a long plain part in the middle, and the doors came open too easily, so that they swung out, and you saw yourself reflected somewhere, wherever you walked in that room. I did not want to see myself. I did not like that big wardrobe.

There was a big bed too; bright red mahogany like the wardrobe, with very thick, shining posts, and red curtains at the back. There were heavy red curtains at the windows, with big mahogany curtain rods and rings, and lace curtains inside. It was a bow window-looking out into the street, but it was not a noisy street.

The proprietress said it was her ‘Best bedroom.’

‘We keep it for these occasions,’ she said, smiling.

She meant to be kind, I could see. She thought how nice it was to be just married; I could see that she thought that. I suppose that she had been married a great many years, longer even, than I have now.

She said:

‘Dinner will be served whenever you wish; in the dining-room, or a private room if you prefer it?’

And I said quickly:

‘In the dining-room, please.’

I didn’t want to be alone with Walter.

Then she went out, and a maid came in with hot water, and I poured it out and washed; and there was the wedding ring on my finger; I could see it through the water and the soapsuds in the basin, when I held my hand right down.

Walter was standing behind me; he saw the ring too.

He said:

‘My hand now,’ and took hold of my wrist, and I laughed, and drew my hand away, and I dried it quickly on the towel, and told him to go downstairs, and I would come.

I wanted to brush my hair, and clean my face, and I was shy of Walter being there.

I thought:

‘How shall I ever take off my clothes, with Walter in the room? Will he stay downstairs? Will he understand that I want him to stay downstairs?’

After dinner, we went out for a walk. That was much better than staying indoors. We walked about the streets, and looked at the Castle, and the road to Scotland; and Walter talked about the Romans, and the Picts and the Scots.

It did not get dark till nearly ten o’clock, and then we had to go in.

As I went upstairs I thought:

‘Other people have been through this. Grandmother, and Cousin Delia, and even the proprietress of this hotel. They do not tell us about it, because they can’t. I shall not be able to tell my daughter.’

XXXIII

Next day, we went on to Howsteads, to the farmhouse; we went early and had lunch at the farm. They were pleasant people there, and they seemed to like Walter. I was glad to be there.

We stayed six weeks at that farmhouse. We spent the days out of doors, going long walks over the Fells, with sandwiches and books in a rucksack, and not coming in, very often, till it was dark.

Walter had brought Gibbon with him, and he read it aloud to me, lying out on the Fellside, with the sound of plovers calling, and sheep cropping, and sometimes a stream rippling over stones, and we were happy. It was a new world to me, and a new life. It was all quite different from my old life at home, and the country here was not Hugo’s country, and the books we read were not Hugo’s books.

And I thought:

‘I shall learn to know Walter’s world as well as I knew Hugo’s; his is a bigger, stronger world; it needs more knowing.’

I found Gibbon interesting, and Walter explained it well. Once he was annoyed with me because I said that Love among the Ruins made me feel ‘past greatness’ more than Gibbon, but he was not seriously annoyed. I said I would read Love among the Ruins in exchange for his reading Gibbon, and when I had read it he said that anyhow the last line was sense, and he kissed me, and we did not argue about it any more.

When we came back to London, we were almost used to each other.

I thought:

‘How funny it is that I was so shy of Walter. I am so close to him now. It is wonderful to be so close to anyone.’

XXXIV

Mrs. Sebright had engaged maids for us; a cook and house-parlourmaid. The cook was called Sarah, the house-parlourmaid Louise. She was younger than the cook, and pretty, but Mrs. Sebright said she was not so good a servant.

The house was all ready for us. Mrs. Sebright had ordered in food, and she was waiting there to receive us. She was like a little bird, fluttering from room to room; showing us little things she had done; muslin curtains tacked up behind wash-stands, rubber knobs on the floors to prevent doors banging backwards, and so on; she did so hope I would not mind, she said.

I did not mind, of course. I thought how nice it all was; I thought:

‘How delightful to have a house of one’s own!’

I thought how kind Mrs. Sebright was, and how easy it would be to get on with her.

I thought:

‘I will never let her feel in the way. I will never let her feel that I have taken Walter away from her.’

And so we settled down in our own home, and enjoyed it. Walter began work again. His University work did not begin till October, but besides that, he was writing a book on proto-Hittite scripts. He was only at the beginning of the book, the very beginning, and it would take many years to finish, he said, but it would be the only book on that subject, or at least on that aspect of the subject.

He had a study upstairs, looking out on the garden behind. He was very pleased with the study; he said it was so quiet, and there was good wall space for books.

He would work there all the morning, while I did housekeeping and gardening. I found the housekeeping great fun. I bought cookery books, and made Sarah try new recipes, French and Italian ones that I found in books. She did not mind trying, though they did not always turn out very well. She treated me as though I were a child whom she was humouring; she made me feel always, that she knew much more about it all than I did, but then, that was quite true, and I did not mind.

I used to go marketing with a basket; there was a little group of shops, down the hill, two streets away; sometimes I used to go there, and sometimes further afield. It was interesting to me to discover the prices of things, for I had never heard prices discussed, and knew nothing about them. I did not know that chicken cost more than rabbit. At Yearsly, we had both fairly often, and both were supplied at home; it never seemed to make any difference which we had, and at Campden Hill Square, it was much the same; chickens and game and rabbits came from Yearsly, and I never heard Grandmother speak about the price of food.

Sometimes now they sent hampers to me, and that was nice, but I enjoyed more to buy my own food. It seems odd now to think that one ever could enjoy it.

The first trouble was when Maud came to lunch, on the 1st of October, and I had bought a pheasant. It was expensive; I was surprised to find how expensive it was, but we always had pheasants at Yearsly on the 1st of October; Cousin John always went out to shoot them in the morning, and Guy with him as a rule, and some were sent to Grandmother; these, of course, she did not get till the next day. I would have had some too, if I had waited, for Cousin John sent some to me too that year; I might have known he would, but I did not think of that at all; I only wanted a nice lunch for Maud, and in the shop I saw pheasants, and I remembered it was the first, and I thought:

‘That will be just the thing for Maud! I must try and please Maud, for Walter’s sake.’

The pheasant cost fifteen shillings, and I bought it, and Maud was not pleased at all. She remarked on it at once.

She said:

‘Pheasant already! I did not think they were in season yet!’

And I said:

‘It is the first to-day.’

She said:

‘The first?’

‘The 1st of October. I don’t know how they got them in the shop so early, though.’

She said:

‘My dear child, you don’t mean to say you bought a pheasant the first day they came in?’

And I said:

‘Yes; I saw it in the shop, and I remembered it was the first. Guy will have gone down to Yearsly to-day; he always does.’

Then Maud asked me what it had cost, and I told her fifteen shillings, and she took in a deep breath, and looked at Walter, and Walter looked uncomfortable. Maud asked him whether he made me a housekeeping allowance and he said he didn’t, and then Maud asked me how much I spent on my housekeeping every week, and I said I did not know.

And then Maud said I must keep accounts. She said it was most important.

After lunch, she began to show me how to do them. She had an elaborate method, ‘double entry’ she called it, which was supposed to show quite clearly if one had made a mistake. I tried to understand it and to use it, but it was really no use to me, for when the sum came out wrong, which was very often, I could not understand at all how to make it come right. Afterwards, I asked Mollie to show me her way, and that was better. There was much less system in Mollie’s accounts than in Maud’s, and I understood them much better. Now, I have still to do accounts, for Walter likes me to, and in all these years I have grown accustomed to it, but they do not come right very often, even now; I have never learned to be efficient, as Mollie learned with her father; you cannot develop what is not there at all; Walter does not realize that; I do, now.

That was an unhappy afternoon. Maud went on and on. She seemed to think that it was an arithmetic lesson, and that I was a stupid child. I always was stupid at arithmetic, I know, but she made it worse, and all the time, I resented her interfering. I felt angry, and rebellious, and not really ashamed of myself, as she seemed to expect me to be.

I kept saying to myself:

‘I must not quarrel with Walter’s sister. I must be polite to her. I am sure she means to be kind.’

But I was not sure, really. I felt always that underneath there was a fight going on, between Maud and me, for Walter. It was not quite a personal fight; she stood for one side of life, one attitude towards life, and I for the opposite, and Walter was wavering between.

It was true, of course, that I had been silly to buy the pheasant, I realized that, and it was true, too, that I was stupid over accounts, and did not know how to manage, and organize, and yet I felt underneath that there were some things I knew and Maud did not, some things I could understand, that Maud never would, only my things did not seem to count when Maud was there.

She did not go away till after tea.

Generally, Walter and I went out in the afternoon. He worked in the morning, and again after tea, but he had kept the afternoon free, so far, and we used to go out and walk on Hampstead Heath, or sometimes have a ride on the top of a bus. Walter had not been much on the tops of buses; he went by Underground because it was quicker, and he was always in a hurry to be where he was going. It had never occurred to him that the actual process of going, should be enjoyed, not, he said, till he met me. Hugo always went on the tops of buses, and I had got the habit, I suppose, from him. He would sometimes spend a whole afternoon on the top of a bus; getting on at random, and going wherever the bus went, to the very end. He used to see things from the tops of buses; he used to watch the people and the streets; different sorts of people, and different sorts of streets, and different sorts of houses. He used to get quite excited sometimes about people he saw like that. Walter never looked at people or things he passed; he could read a book in the Underground, he said, and not on a bus, besides its being quicker.

It was a joke between us at first, and so sometimes to please me he would come on a bus, in those first weeks of ours. But this afternoon we did not go out at all because of Maud, and it mattered more because it was the last day before Walter’s term began; after that he would not be free in the afternoons. I don’t suppose this had occurred to Maud; but I don’t think it would have made any difference if it had.

Walter went up to the study while Maud was teaching me; he looked worried and cross, but whether he was cross with her or with me, I did not know. He was cross at tea too, and afterwards, when Maud went away, he did not go with her to the tube, as he used to when his mother came to see us, but he did not come back to me either. He went upstairs again and worked in his study till dinner time.

The next morning, some pheasants came from Yearsly from Cousin John, and I was afraid to have them cooked for dinner; I was afraid they would remind Walter of the day before, and the trouble there had been. I gave one to the charwoman, to take home, for that was the day she came, and I sent the other to the children’s hospital in Chelsea, near Mollie’s flat.

Sarah was annoyed with me that time; she said it was waste to give pheasant to Mrs. Simms, and I told her a lie, and said Walter did not like it; and then I went up to my room and cried.

Maud had made everything horrid. I have never known anyone like Maud for doing that.

XXXV

It was soon after this that I first knew I was going to have a baby. I went to see a doctor called Mrs. Chilcote, whose name I had seen on a brass plate at right angles to our road. She was a nice person; efficient I think, but like Mollie, not like Maud. She was kind to me afterwards very often. Then I went out on the heath and sat down on a seat under a tree; it was a birch tree and the little yellow leaves fluttered down from the tiny branches and I tried to think what it meant. It seemed to me then too wonderful almost to be true. I would have a son, I felt sure of that, and he would be all that I was not, and that Walter was not, nor Hugo; it seems funny now to remember that I thought all that; it did not strike me as improbable at all that my son should be perfect and all I could wish him to be, and I thought of my own relation to him—how I would be a perfect mother to him, as Cousin Delia had been to Guy and Hugo, as she had been even to me; that too did not seem difficult or unlikely to me. I thought:

‘I will never misunderstand him, nor be cross, nor wish him different from what he is.’

Other mothers made those mistakes, I knew, but I would not; and I thought of my son and worshipped him, shutting my eyes on the seat under the birch tree.

When Walter came home and I told him he kissed me and said he was glad, but he did not seem very much interested.

There had been some hitch at his College that afternoon. One of his lectures had been announced at the wrong time and he had not been there; he was thinking about that.

I minded his not caring more, but not badly.

I thought:

‘He will care when it is there.’

And I was so happy myself, so full of happiness, that nothing else could matter very much.

Next day I went down into Oxford Street to shop, and I looked at the people in the bus, and thought:

‘Which of these women have had children? How many of them have known this wonderful thing?’

Most of them probably had known it and yet they looked quite ordinary, quite dull and unexcited, and thinking of dull little things. I felt then that I could never be the same again, that I could not even look the same as I had a few months ago.

I thought:

‘How could anything else count at all if one has a child?’

And I was afraid crossing the streets that I should be run over, afraid when I was in the bus that it would upset, because this wonder was too great and this happiness.

XXXVI

I used to make the coffee for breakfast myself; Walter liked it better when I made it and that pleased me, for I had never made coffee before and I felt proud now, that I should do it well. It had to stand for fifteen minutes after it was made, so I had to be downstairs earlier than Walter; that too was fun, I thought. It gave me a sense of competence to be down in the dining-room with the coffee all ready before he came.

Now, sometimes, I felt very ill in the mornings, and it was an effort to get up. Once when I got downstairs I turned faint and sick and had to sit down in the chair, and Mrs. Simms, the charwoman, came in and brought me a cup of tea. I can’t remember why she came there so early, or why it was she who brought the tea, but it was.

‘Poor dear,’ she said. ‘I know how you feels. Take a cup o’ tea, mum, that’ll do you good.’

I drank the tea and she talked to me and told me how many children she had had; eight, I think it was, and five of them dead and how ill she had been with every one of them; but Simms had been good to her, she said,—Simms was her husband, of course. He would bring her a cup of tea in the mornings before she got up. ‘It’s the putting your feet to the ground that does it. I know that,’ she said.

And I thought:

‘How funny it is that Mrs. Simms should know what I feel like, and Walter doesn’t.’

And I thought:

‘How funny it would be if Walter brought me up cups of tea.’

At home we had had tea in the mornings even when we felt quite well, and I had supposed that we would still here, but Maud had stopped that. She said it was an unnecessary expense.

‘Especially,’ she said, ‘if it is China tea.’

I did not like Indian tea.

Mrs. Simms made the coffee that morning. It was not so good as when I made it; I noticed the difference, but Walter did not. I was sorry he did not; I wondered if he had only said he liked mine best, to please me, if he had really never noticed it different at all.

I felt very ill, those next months, and although I was so happy, I cried quite often at silly things. It was very odd to me to feel like this, for I had never been ill in my life except when I was seven and had measles. Ordinarily I felt so well and full of life. I did not expect to be tired at the end of the day; now I felt very tired, and as though the life had gone out of me.

Maud said:

‘You must not let Helen become invalidish, Walter. She ought to realize that having a child is not an illness at all.’

Walter said:

‘That depends, I suppose, on whether she feels ill.’

Maud said:

‘Not in the least; that is merely subjective; a great many women give way in these things, especially women of Helen’s type. It is most important that she should lead a normal and active life.’

Walter said:

‘My dear Maud, you know nothing about it.’

I was not there, but he told me about it afterwards, and I loved him for being rude to Maud.

She seemed to come and visit us very often, but I suppose it was not very often really.

Mrs. Sebright came every Wednesday to dinner, and every Sunday we went to lunch with Grandmother in Campden Hill Square.

Hugo had gone abroad, he had gone as private secretary or attaché on a Royal Commission in India, and would be away nearly a year. He had gone already before we came back to London, and I had not seen him since the wedding.

It surprised me rather to find how little I missed him; he seemed to belong to another life, a different kind of existence that was quite past now. That had been playing at life; I was living now. Yet sometimes I thought:

‘I should like to tell Hugo about it. I should like to tell him how wonderful this is.’

He would understand, I was sure of that.

Guy came to dinner with us once or twice, but it was not a success. He and Walter did not get on at all, and somehow each showed his worst side to the other; I was sorry about it.

‘We had better leave it alone for the present,’ I thought, ‘later on they will fit in better.’

The Addingtons came oftener to see us. George and Mollie could, I think, get on with anybody. Walter could not dislike them and they quite liked him. I was glad to see them always, but it was different even with them; they seemed much further off than they used to be, like pleasant strangers, outside one’s life, instead of inside. I did not want to talk to Mollie intimately as we used to talk. ‘She is not married,’ I thought. ‘She is not going to have a child. I cannot talk to her about the vital things’; and outside things seemed unimportant to me at this time.

Sophia Lane Watson came to lunch. She talked to Walter about Babylon, and he said she was ‘an intelligent girl,’ and liked her. I wondered how she knew about Babylon; she seemed to know a good deal, but one never did know with Sophia what she knew, and what she didn’t; it was all in streaks.

I wondered if she missed Hugo, and why he had gone away. You could not tell anything from her; she looked just the same as always, white, and non-committal, and self-possessed; at least not exactly self-possessed; you could never be sure with Sophia whether she was hiding her feelings or just not there in her mind at all; sometimes it seemed like that, as though she was mentally and emotionally a long way off, and only her lips speaking to you.

I felt her more interesting now. I did not feel hostile to her, as I had when Hugo was there. I did not think now, somehow, that he would marry her.

Her play was finished now. It was going to be acted. The Drama Society were going to do it. She did not seem excited about it at all. She did not want to talk about it.