Kitabı oku: «Lilian», sayfa 8

V
In the Hills

When she at length returned to Felix and, squeezing through the outer rings of gladiators against chance, touched him delicately on the shoulder, he faced her with a bright youthful smile, and without any surprise-it was plain to her that he had recognized her from the light touch of her finger.

"Do you want me to stop?"

She nodded.

He gathered his counters together and rose with alacrity.

"You came in the nick of time," he said. "But, of course, you would! I've been playing wild and I've made a thousand francs into rather more than six thousand. It was the very moment to flee from the wrath that was coming. Let's run, run, to the change-desk before I change my mind and decide to begin to lose. That's the only insurance-getting rid of the counters, because when you've got rid of 'em you're too ashamed with yourself to get more."

He was quite uplifted, so gaily preoccupied with his achievement that he noticed nothing strange in her mien. She was glad that he noticed nothing; and yet also she was sorry; she would have liked him, after a single glance at her, to have said in his curt, quiet, assured manner: "What's wrong?"

She kept thinking, but not of Felix: "He must be very fickle and capricious. I'm certain he was making love to her. He happens to see me and off he runs after me! He can't be any good, with his debts and things. I was right to give him the bird. But he's terribly nice, and I don't care. I don't know what on earth's the matter with me. I think I must be a bit mad, and always was. If I wasn't, should I be here?"

Transiently she viewed herself as, for example, Gertie Jackson would have viewed her. And then she saw another and a worse self and viewed that other self as Lilian the staid and constant friend of Felix would naturally view such an abandoned girl. She was afraid of and disgusted by the possibilities discovered in the depths of her own mind.

At the desk the dancing girl whom Felix had indicated as inhabiting their hotel hurried up passionately and forestalled them. She threw down two green counters, as it were in anger.

"Can I play with that!" she exclaimed in cockney English.

The changer handed her two hundred-franc notes, which she crumpled in her hand.

"I must find a hundred thousand francs from somewhere!" she cried, departing. She was talking to herself. As she moved away a stout, oldish man with a thick lower lip, pearl studs in his shirt-front, and a gleaming white waistcoat, joined her, and they disappeared together.

Lilian stared after her in amazement. Felix's winnings suddenly seemed very insignificant. Still when he received six fine fresh thousand-franc notes, besides some small notes, in exchange for valueless discs, and handed to her one of the fine fresh notes-"That's for saving me from myself!" – she was impressed anew. A palace of magic, the baccarat rooms! The real thing, gambling!

"What do you want to do now?" he asked. "Dance? No? Well, I'll do anything you like, anything, the most absurd thing. Is that talking?"

They were moving somewhat aimlessly down the grand staircase.

"Felix, darling," she murmured, "let's go for a motor run in the hills. There's a lovely moon. I should so love it." She desired to be alone with him precisely as she had been alone with him in the taxi after their first dinner. She had a fancy for just that and nothing else. She pictured them together in the car, in the midst of gigantic nature and in the brilliant night.

"But it will be cold!" he protested.

"It wasn't cold when we came in here-it was quite warm-you said so," she replied softly. "But just as you please. I don't mind." And into the acquiescent charm of her voice she dropped one drop of angelic resentment-one single drop; not because he objected to gratifying her, but because she knew he was merely fussing himself about his throat and his health generally.

"We'll go, by all means. It won't take long," he yielded affectionately, without reserve.

She pressed his arm. She had won. He began to suspect that she was overwrought-perhaps by the first sight of the spectacle of gambling on a great scale-and he soothed her accordingly. Half a dozen automobiles were waiting and willing to take them into the hills.

Before Lilian had regained full possession of herself they were clear of the town, and continually ascending, in long curves. The night was magnificent; through the close-shut windows of the car could be seen, not the moon, which was on high, but the strong moonlight and sharp shadows, and the huge austere contours of the hills; and here and there a distant, steady domestic lamp. Lilian sat in her corner and Felix in his, and a space separated them because of the width of the car. She felt a peculiar constraint and could not reach the mood she wanted.

"Felix," she said, "you heard that girl say she must have a hundred thousand francs, how will she get it? How can she get it?"

"She'll just disappear for a day or two, and then she'll come back with it. I dare say she owes most of it already to the casino."

"But who will give it her?"

"Ah! That's her secret. There's always somebody in the background that these charmers have made themselves indispensable to. When this particular charmer tackles the particular man or men that she's indispensable to, she'll have what she needs out of them if they've got it to give. That's a certainty. If a man has hypnotized himself into the belief that a girl's body is paradise, he'll win paradise and keep paradise. He'll steal, commit murder, sell his wife and children, abandon his parents to the workhouse; there's nothing he won't do. And he'll do it even if she'll only let him kiss her feet. Of course, all men aren't like that, but there are quite a few of 'em, and these charmers always find 'em out. Trust them."

"I couldn't see that there was anything very extraordinary in her."

"Neither could I. But perhaps we're blind to what that fellow who's going to fork out the hundred thousand francs sees. I dare say if I were to dance with her I might have glimpses of his notion of her. Anyhow, you bet she's a highly finished product; she's got great gifts and great skill-must have-and she knows exactly what she's about-and she looks eighteen and isn't above twenty-five. You must remember she's on the way to being a star in the most powerful profession in the world. They've made practically all the history there is, even in the East, and they're still making it-making it this very night."

There was a considerable silence, and then Lilian shot across the seat and leaned heavily against Felix and clasped his neck.

"Darling," she said, "I know I'm going to have a baby!"

They could just see each other. Felix paused before replying.

"Very well! Very well," he said calmly. "We shall see who's right." Her thoughts concerning Lord Mackworth now seemed utterly incredible to her in their mad aberration.

The next moment the car swerved unexpectedly to the side of the mounting road and the engine stopped; the chauffeur jumped down, opened the bonnet, unstrapped one of the side lamps and peered with it into the secrets under the bonnet. Felix, loosing himself from Lilian, rapped sharply on the front window, but got no response from the bent chauffeur. Then impatiently he tried to let down the window and could not. He lifted it, shook it, rattled it, broke the fragile fastening of the strap. Suddenly the window fell with a bang into its slit, and there was a tinkling of smashed glass.

"Damn it! I ought to have opened the door, but I was afraid of too much cold."

The icy air of the hills rushed like an assassin into the interior of the car, Felix shivered, unlatched the door and got out. The chauffeur proved to be an Italian, with no more French than sufficed to take orders and receive fares and tips. He could give no intelligible explanation of the breakdown, but he smiled optimistically. The car was absolutely alone on the road, and the road was alone in the vast implacable landscape. No light anywhere, except the chilly, dazzling moon and the stars, and the glitter of a far range of god-like peaks, whence came the terrible wind. The scene and situation intimidated. The inhuman and negligent grandeur of nature was revealed. Felix returned into the car and shut the door, but could not shut out the cold. Lilian covered his chest with her warm bosom. Gently he pushed her away.

"No, no!"

"Let me, darling!"

"It's no use. I shall suffer for this."

After a few minutes the engine was throbbing again, and they had begun the descent. But no device could conjure away the ruthless night air. Back at the hotel Felix took brandy and hot water, accepted Lilian's hot water bag in addition to his own, and was in bed and thickly enveloped in no time at all. Lilian kissed him guiltily and left him. He bade her good night kindly but absently, engrossed in himself.

VI
The Benefactress

When Lilian was alone in her room she thought anxiously:

"Supposing he should want more brandy in the night-there is none!"

The travelling flask was now empty. (In the emergency, hot water from the lavatory-basin tap had been used to dilute the brandy. Felix having said impatiently that any water would do so long as it was hot-hang a few germs!) She had noticed that he would always take a little brandy if he felt unwell from whatever cause, and this habit caused her no uneasiness, for from her father she had acquired a firm belief in the restorative qualities of brandy; even her mother would say how unwise it was to "be without" brandy, and before starting for the annual domestic holiday invariably attended herself to the provision of it. The lack of brandy settled upon Lilian's mind, intensifying somehow her sense of guilt. She felt deeply the responsibilities of the situation, which became graver and graver to her-the more so as she had no real status to deal with it.

She wanted to ring the bell, but the bell was within a few yards of Felix's door-he often complained on this score-and to ring might be to wake him. Cautiously she stepped into the corridor, hoping to find Jacqueline in the service-room at the end of the shabby little side corridor where the bell and the room-indicator were. She knew the French for brandy. The main corridor stretched away with an effect of endlessness. In its whole length only two electric lights had been left to burn. Solitude and silence made it mysteriously solemn. A pair of boots, or two pairs of boots-one large, one small and dainty-here and there on a door-mat seemed inexplicably to symbolize the forlornness of humanity in the sight of the infinite. The beating of Lilian's heart attracted her attention. Not without an effort could she cross the magic and formidable corridor. The door of the service-room was locked. No hope! Even Jacqueline had a bed somewhere and was asleep in it; and brandy was as unattainable as on a coral island.

Lilian felt the rough hair-lining of pleasure. The idea of her insecurity frightened her. She perceived that a life of toil, abstinence, deprivation and cold virginity had its advantages. Of course, Felix was not going to be ill; but if he were, and if her dreadful fears about her own condition were realized-what then? What would happen? Were the moral maxims and strict practice of her parents after all horribly true? The wages of sin, and all that sort of thing … She heard steps in the distance of the corridor. She peeped. Somebody was approaching. Had she time to cross and vanish into the shelter of her room? She hesitated. The visitant was a woman. It was the girl who in the baccarat rooms had talked of a hundred thousand francs in a cockney accent, the girl whom Felix had described as probably a rising star in the most powerful of professions. She too had a bed, and was seeking it at last.

"I expect there's no chance of getting hold of a servant to-night," said Lilian meekly, as the girl instinctively paused in passing.

The girl, staring sharply out of her artificially enlarged eyes, shrugged the shoulders of negation at Lilian's simplicity.

"Anything the matter?"

"I only wanted some brandy. My" – 'husband' she meant to say, but could not frame the majestic word-"my friend's not very well. Chill. He's had a very little brandy, and might need some more in the night." She flushed.

"Come along of me. I'll let you have some." What a harsh, rasping little voice!

The benefactress's bedroom was in a state of rich disorder that astounded Lilian. The girl turned on every light in the chamber, banged the door, and pushing some clothes off a chair told Lilian to sit down. Drawers were open, cupboards were open, the wardrobe was open. Attire, boxes, bottles, parcels, candles, parasols, illustrated comic papers, novels with shiny coloured covers were strewn everywhere; and in a corner a terrific trunk stood upright. The benefactress began ferreting in drawers, and slamming them to one after another.

"I'm afraid I'm putting you to a lot of trouble," said Lilian. "You're very kind, I'm sure."

"Not a bit of it. I never can find anything… I think us girls ought to stand by each other, that's what I think. Not as we ever do!" Her voice seemed to thicken, almost to break.

Lilian felt as if the entire hotel had trembled under her feet, but she gave no sign of shock; she desired the brandy, if it was to be had. "Us girls"!

"You are French, aren't you? I only ask because you speak English so well."

After a moment the girl replied, her head buried in a drawer:

"You bet I'm French. My mother sent me to a convent in London so as I could learn English properly. It was one of them boarding convents where you're free to do what you like so long as you're in by seven o'clock. They wanted a few French girls for the chorus of a revue at the Pavilion. Soon as I got in there I never went back to the convent, and I've never seen ma since, either. I was in that chorus for a year. Oh!" She produced an ingenious and costly travelling spirit-case, and then searched for the key of it.

"I wish I could speak French half as well as you speak English."

"If I had half your face and your figure I'd give all my English to anybody that cared to have it. Oh! Damn the key! Excuse me. Here you are." She offered the disengaged flask. "Now you go along and take what you want, and bring me the flask back."

She stood in front of Lilian, who rose. She was as flat as Milly Merrislate, and neither tall nor graceful. Every lineament of the pert face so heavily masked in paint and powder, every gesture, the too bright stockings, the gilded shoes, the impudent coiffure, the huge and flashy rings, the square-dialled wrist-watch-all were crudely symptomatic of an ingrained and unalterable vulgarity. Lilian was absolutely unable to understand how any man, however coarse and cynical, could find any charm of any kind in such a girl. But Lilian did not know that intense vulgarity is in itself irresistible to certain amateurs of women, and she was far too young really to appreciate the sorcery of mere lithe youthfulness.

"Why! What is it?" Lilian exclaimed, as she took the flask.

Tears were ravaging the cheeks of the benefactress.

"Oh! Damn!" The benefactress stamped her foot, and raised her thin, loose, bare shoulders. "Gambling's it. I always lose here. It's all shemmy here, and when you win at shemmy you take other people's money, not the bank's, and that puts me off like at the start. And you never win if you don't feel as if you were going to. I was at Monte Carlo last week, and you sh'd've seen me at roulette, taking the casino money. I couldn't do wrong. But I had to come back here, and there you are! Lost it all and a lot more!" She was speaking through her tears. "Cleaned out to-night! Naked! You see, it's like this. Gambling gives you an emotion. It's the only thing there is for that-I mean for me… Did you see that fat beast speak to me to-night in the casino? Well, he said something to me and offered me ten thousand francs, and I slapped his face for him in the entrance-hall. He knew I was stony. I was a fool. Why shouldn't I have done what he wanted? What's it matter? But no! I'm like that, and I slapped his face, and I'd do it again, I would!! He's Scapini, you know, the biggest shareholder in both the big hotels here. I tore it, I did! And, would you believe, I'd no sooner got in here afterwards than the manager told me I must leave to-morrow morning. It was all over the place as quick as that! I've only got to go to Paris to get all the money I want. Yes. But I'd sell myself for a year to be able to pay my bill straight off in the morning and cheek 'em. It'll be near a thousand francs, and I haven't got ten francs, besides having the whole bally town against me." She laughed and threw her head back. "Here! You go along. Don't listen to me. It's not the first time, neither the last. Go along now."

"I'm very sorry," said Lilian. She simply could not conceive that the girl, possibly no older than herself, was standing alone and unaided against what was to her the universe. How could these girls do it? What was the quality in them that enabled them to do it?

She was in the intimidating, silent, mystery-hiding corridor again. She listened at the door, which she had left ajar, between the bathroom and Felix's bedroom. No sound! In the solacing, perfect tidiness of her room, she poured some of the brandy into a glass, and then, taking her bag, returned to the benefactress.

"Here's your flask, thank you very much!" she said. "And here's a thousand francs, if it's any use to you." She produced the note which Felix had given to her. The money was accepted, greedily.

"If you're here in a week's time, in five days, you'll have it back," said the benefactress, looking at her wrist-watch. "No! It's too late to go and play again now!" She giggled. "Tell me your name. You can trust me. I don't believe you're real, though! You couldn't be. There aren't such girls-anyhow at your age." She stopped, and gave a tremendous youthful sigh. "Ah!" she exclaimed, "if only I was dead. I often dream of lying in my grave-eternal peace, eternal peace! No emotions! No men! Quite still! Stretched straight out! Quiet for ever and ever! Eternal peace! D'you know I've been like that all my life? My God!"

Lilian burst into tears, agonized. The original benefactress flung herself at the other benefactress with amazing violence, and they kissed, weeping.

A quarter of an hour later the defier of Scapini murmured:

"I wish to heaven I could do something for you!"

Lilian answered:

"I wish you'd tell me how you stain your skin that lovely Spanish colour."

And she immediately received, not merely the instructions, but the complete materials necessary for the operation.

VII
The Doctor

When she awoke the next morning after a very few hours' sleep, she did so suddenly, to a full consciousness of her situation, and not little by little, passing by gradual stages to realization, as was her wont. She listened; no sound came through the two half-open doors. The brandy had not been needed. Perhaps he was asleep; perhaps he had had a good night and was perfectly restored. She rose, unfastened the window and very quietly pushed back the shutters. It was raining. Just as she was, her hair loose and the delicate and absurd rag of a nightdress all untied, she surveyed herself sternly in the mirror. She was well content with her beauty. Impossible to criticize it! In every way she was far more beautiful than the nameless woman whom she had befriended and who had befriended her.

Partly because she had been generous to her, she felt sympathy for the girl. The phrase "us girls" stung her still, but it was not ill meant; in fact, it was a rather natural phrase, and no doubt already her acquaintance must have perceived how wrong it was. She admired the girl for her fierce defiance and courage, and for the intense passion with which she had desired the grave. "Stretched straight out! Quiet for ever and ever!" Startling and outrageous words, in that harsh young voice; but there was something fine about them! ("I may say the same one day soon," Lilian thought solemnly.) Moreover, she understood better the power of the girl, whose kiss and clasp had communicated to her a most disconcerting physical thrill. Indeed, it seemed to her that she was on the threshold of all sorts of new comprehensions. Finally she had astonished the girl by the grand loan; she had shone; she had pleased; she had satisfied her instinct to give pleasure. She thought:

"She may be stronger than I am, and cleverer; but she is very silly and I am not. And I'm not weak either, even if some people take me for weak."

It was disturbing, though, how that phrase pricked and pricked: "Us girls." Little flames shot up from the ashes of her early and abandoned religion. "The wages of sin-the wages of sin." Was it true about the wages of sin? Was she to be punished? The great, terrible fear of conception still dominated her soul; and it grew hourly. At each disappointing dawn the torture of it increased. She saw the powders and preparations which the courtesan had given her; she recalled the minute directions for the use of them, and smiled painfully. How could the prospective mother employ such devices? Nevertheless, if she escaped, she would employ them as soon as Felix was better. She knew that Felix would delight in the perverse, provocative transformation, and she yearned to gratify him afresh in a novel manner. When the surprise came upon him he would pretend that it was nothing; but he would be delighted, he would revel in it.

Putting on her peignoir she slipped noiselessly into the other bedroom, and crept up to the bed. Needless precaution; Felix was wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Before speaking she tenderly kissed him, and kept her face for a moment on his.

"Better?"

"Had an awful night. Couldn't sleep a wink. I won't get up just yet. Order me tea instead of coffee. We'll go out after lunch, not before."

"Do you think you ought to go out, dearest?"

"Of course I ought to go out," he snapped peevishly.

"It's raining."

"Oh, well, if it's raining I dare say I shan't want to go out." He placed his hand nervously on his right breast.

"Does it hurt you?"

"Not at all. Can't I touch myself?"

She kissed him again. Then he gazed at her with love, as she moved over him to ring the bell.

"You all right?"

"Oh, splendid! I listened once or twice at the door, but as I didn't hear anything I made sure you were asleep."

She kept silence about her awful, persistent fear, knowing that any reference to it would only irritate him. He was more than ever like a child-and a captious child. She realized the attitude of his sister towards him. Thank God he was better! If he had fallen ill she would have condemned herself as a criminal for life, for her insane, selfish suggestion of an excursion to the hills at night. Not he, but she, was the child.

After his tea he did get up and dress; but he would not descend to lunch; nor eat in the bedroom. At three o'clock he said that when it rained on the Riviera the climate was the most damnable on earth, and that he preferred to be in bed. And to bed he returned. Then Lilian noticed him fingering his breast again.

"Any pain there?"

"Oh! Nothing. Nothing. Only a sort of sensation."

Soon afterwards he gave a few very faint, short, dry coughs-scarcely perceptible efforts to clear the throat. And at the same Lilian went cold. She knew that cough. She had helped to nurse her father. It was the affrighting pneumonia cough. Almost simultaneously it occurred to her that Felix was trying to hide from her a difficulty in breathing. She had not dreamed of anything so bad as pneumonia, which for her was the direst of all diseases. And she with a plan for dyeing her skin to amuse and excite him! … She had thought of a severe chill at the worst.

She hurried downstairs to see the concierge. The lift was too slow in coming up for her; she had to run down the flights of carpeted steps one after another. The main question on her mind was: "Ought I to telegraph to his sister?" If Miss Grig arrived, what would, what could happen to herself? The concierge-a dark, haughty, long-moustached, somewhat consumptive subject-adored Lilian for her beauty, and she had rewarded his worship with exquisite smiles and tones.

"Would you like the English doctor, madam?" said he.

"Is there an English doctor here?" She was immensely relieved. She would be able to talk to an English doctor, whereas a French doctor with his shrugs and science, and understanding nothing you said…

"Surely, madam! I will telephone at once, madam. He shall be here in one quarter hour. I know where he is. He is a very good doctor."

"Oh, thank you!" Concierges were marvellous persons.

As soon as she had gone again the concierge made all the pages tremble. It was the thwarted desire to kneel at Lilian's feet and kiss her divine shoes that caused him to terrorize the pages.

As for telegraphing to Miss Grig, she decided that obviously she could send no message till the doctor had examined and reported. In regard to the hotel authorities and servants she now had no shame. She alone was responsible for Felix's welfare, and she would be responsible, and they must all think what they liked about her relations with him. She did not care.

The concierge was indeed marvellous, for in less than twenty minutes there was a knock at Felix's door. Lilian opened, saw a professional face with hair half sandy, half grey, and, turning to Felix, murmured:

"It's the doctor, darling."

Felix, to whom she had audaciously said not a word about sending for a doctor, actually sat up, furious.

"I'm not going to see a doctor," he gasped. "I'm not going to see any doctor."

"Come in, doctor, please."

The moment was dramatic. Felix of course was beaten.

"You'll find me in the next room, doctor," she said, after a minute, and the doctor bowed. In another ten minutes the doctor entered her bedroom.

"It's a mild attack of pneumonia," said he, standing in front of her. "Very mild. I can see no cause for anxiety. You'd better have a nurse for the night."

"I would sooner sit up myself," Lilian answered. "I've nursed pneumonia before."

"Then have a nurse for the day," the doctor suggested. "I can get an English one from the Alexandra Hospital-a very good one. She might come in at once and stay till ten o'clock, say." Then he proceeded to the treatment, prescriptions, and so on… An English nurse!

Lilian felt extraordinarily grateful and reassured. She knew where she was now. She was in England again.

"Ought I to telegraph home?" she asked.

"I shouldn't if I were you," the doctor replied. "Better to wait for a day or two. Telegrams are so disturbing, aren't they?"

His gentle manner was inexpressibly soothing. It was so soothing that just as he was leaving she kept him back with a gesture.

"Doctor, before you go, I wish you would do something for me." And she sat down, her face positively burning and shed tears.

In the night, as she sat with Felix, the patient's condition unquestionably improved. He even grew cheerful and laudatory.

"You're a great girl," he muttered weakly but firmly. "I know I was most absurdly cross, but I'm a rotten invalid."

She looked at him steadily, and, her secret resolve enfeebled by his surprising and ravishing appreciation, she let forth, against the dictates of discretion, the terrific fact which was overwhelming her and causing every fibre in her to creep.

"It's true what I told you."

"What?"

"You know-" (A pause.)

"How do you know it's true?"

"The doctor-"

His reception of the tidings falsified every expectation. He waited a moment, and then said calmly:

"That's all right. I'll see to that."

She did not kiss him, but, sitting on the bed, put her head beside his on the pillow. Seen close, his eyelashes appeared as big as horsehairs and transcendently masculine. She tasted the full, deep savour of life then, moveless, in an awkward posture, in the midst of the huge sleeping hotel. She had no regrets, no past, only a future.