Kitabı oku: «Beyond», sayfa 8

No one in that house was half so calm to look at in those days as Gyp. Betty was not guiltless of sitting on the stairs and crying at odd moments. Mrs. Markey had never made such bad soups. Markey so far forgot himself as frequently to talk. Winton lamed a horse trying an impossible jump that he might get home the quicker, and, once back, was like an unquiet spirit. If Gyp were in the room, he would make the pretence of wanting to warm his feet or hand, just to stroke her shoulder as he went back to his chair. His voice, so measured and dry, had a ring in it, that too plainly disclosed the anxiety of his heart. Gyp, always sensitive to atmosphere, felt cradled in all the love about her. Wonderful that they should all care so much! What had she done for anyone, that people should be so sweet – he especially, whom she had so grievously distressed by her wretched marriage? She would sit staring into the fire with her wide, dark eyes, unblinking as an owl’s at night – wondering what she could do to make up to her father, whom already once she had nearly killed by coming into life. And she began to practise the bearing of the coming pain, trying to project herself into this unknown suffering, so that it should not surprise from her cries and contortions.

She had one dream, over and over again, of sinking and sinking into a feather bed, growing hotter and more deeply walled in by that which had no stay in it, yet through which her body could not fall and reach anything more solid. Once, after this dream, she got up and spent the rest of the night wrapped in a blanket and the eider-down, on the old sofa, where, as a child, they had made her lie flat on her back from twelve to one every day. Betty was aghast at finding her there asleep in the morning. Gyp’s face was so like the child-face she had seen lying there in the old days, that she bundled out of the room and cried bitterly into the cup of tea. It did her good. Going back with the tea, she scolded her “pretty” for sleeping out there, with the fire out, too!

But Gyp only said:

“Betty, darling, the tea’s awfully cold! Please get me some more!”

X

From the day of the nurse’s arrival, Winton gave up hunting. He could not bring himself to be out of doors for more than half an hour at a time. Distrust of doctors did not prevent him having ten minutes every morning with the old practitioner who had treated Gyp for mumps, measles, and the other blessings of childhood. The old fellow – his name was Rivershaw – was a most peculiar survival. He smelled of mackintosh, had round purplish cheeks, a rim of hair which people said he dyed, and bulging grey eyes slightly bloodshot. He was short in body and wind, drank port wine, was suspected of taking snuff, read The Times, spoke always in a husky voice, and used a very small brougham with a very old black horse. But he had a certain low cunning, which had defeated many ailments, and his reputation for assisting people into the world stood extremely high. Every morning punctually at twelve, the crunch of his little brougham’s wheels would be heard. Winton would get up, and, taking a deep breath, cross the hall to the dining-room, extract from a sideboard a decanter of port, a biscuit-canister, and one glass. He would then stand with his eyes fixed on the door, till, in due time, the doctor would appear, and he could say:

“Well, doctor? How is she?”

“Nicely; quite nicely.”

“Nothing to make one anxious?”

The doctor, puffing out his cheeks, with eyes straying to the decanter, would murmur:

“Cardiac condition, capital – a little – um – not to matter. Taking its course. These things!”

And Winton, with another deep breath, would say:

“Glass of port, doctor?”

An expression of surprise would pass over the doctor’s face.

“Cold day – ah, perhaps – ” And he would blow his nose on his purple-and-red bandanna.

Watching him drink his port, Winton would mark:

“We can get you at any time, can’t we?”

And the doctor, sucking his lips, would answer:

“Never fear, my dear sir! Little Miss Gyp – old friend of mine. At her service day and night. Never fear!”

A sensation of comfort would pass through Winton, which would last quite twenty minutes after the crunching of the wheels and the mingled perfumes of him had died away.

In these days, his greatest friend was an old watch that had been his father’s before him; a gold repeater from Switzerland, with a chipped dial-plate, and a case worn wondrous thin and smooth – a favourite of Gyp’s childhood. He would take it out about every quarter of an hour, look at its face without discovering the time, finger it, all smooth and warm from contact with his body, and put it back. Then he would listen. There was nothing whatever to listen to, but he could not help it. Apart from this, his chief distraction was to take a foil and make passes at a leather cushion, set up on the top of a low bookshelf. In these occupations, varied by constant visits to the room next the nursery, where – to save her the stairs – Gyp was now established, and by excursions to the conservatory to see if he could not find some new flower to take her, he passed all his time, save when he was eating, sleeping, or smoking cigars, which he had constantly to be relighting.

By Gyp’s request, they kept from him knowledge of when her pains began. After that first bout was over and she was lying half asleep in the old nursery, he happened to go up. The nurse – a bonny creature – one of those free, independent, economic agents that now abound – met him in the sitting-room. Accustomed to the “fuss and botheration of men” at such times, she was prepared to deliver him a little lecture. But, in approaching, she became affected by the look on his face, and, realizing somehow that she was in the presence of one whose self-control was proof, she simply whispered:

“It’s beginning; but don’t be anxious – she’s not suffering just now. We shall send for the doctor soon. She’s very plucky”; and with an unaccustomed sensation of respect and pity she repeated: “Don’t be anxious, sir.”

“If she wants to see me at any time, I shall be in my study. Save her all you can, nurse.”

The nurse was left with a feeling of surprise at having used the word “Sir”; she had not done such a thing since – since – ! And, pensive, she returned to the nursery, where Gyp said at once:

“Was that my father? I didn’t want him to know.”

The nurse answered mechanically:

“That’s all right, my dear.”

“How long do you think before – before it’ll begin again, nurse? I’d like to see him.”

The nurse stroked her hair.

“Soon enough when it’s all over and comfy. Men are always fidgety.”

Gyp looked at her, and said quietly:

“Yes. You see, my mother died when I was born.”

The nurse, watching those lips, still pale with pain, felt a queer pang. She smoothed the bed-clothes and said:

“That’s nothing – it often happens – that is, I mean, – you know it has no connection whatever.”

And seeing Gyp smile, she thought: ‘Well, I am a fool.’

“If by any chance I don’t get through, I want to be cremated; I want to go back as quick as I can. I can’t bear the thought of the other thing. Will you remember, nurse? I can’t tell my father that just now; it might upset him. But promise me.”

And the nurse thought: ‘That can’t be done without a will or something, but I’d better promise. It’s a morbid fancy, and yet she’s not a morbid subject, either.’ And she said:

“Very well, my dear; only, you’re not going to do anything of the sort. That’s flat.”

Gyp smiled again, and there was silence, till she said:

“I’m awfully ashamed, wanting all this attention, and making people miserable. I’ve read that Japanese women quietly go out somewhere by themselves and sit on a gate.”

The nurse, still busy with the bedclothes, murmured abstractedly:

“Yes, that’s a very good way. But don’t you fancy you’re half the trouble most of them are. You’re very good, and you’re going to get on splendidly.” And she thought: ‘Odd! She’s never once spoken of her husband. I don’t like it for this sort – too perfect, too sensitive; her face touches you so!’

Gyp murmured again:

“I’d like to see my father, please; and rather quick.”

The nurse, after one swift look, went out.

Gyp, who had clinched her hands under the bedclothes, fixed her eyes on the window. November! Acorns and the leaves – the nice, damp, earthy smell! Acorns all over the grass. She used to drive the old retriever in harness on the lawn covered with acorns and the dead leaves, and the wind still blowing them off the trees – in her brown velvet – that was a ducky dress! Who was it had called her once “a wise little owl,” in that dress? And, suddenly, her heart sank. The pain was coming again. Winton’s voice from the door said:

“Well, my pet?”

“It was only to see how you are. I’m all right. What sort of a day is it? You’ll go riding, won’t you? Give my love to the horses. Good-bye, Dad; just for now.”

Her forehead was wet to his lips.

Outside, in the passage, her smile, like something actual on the air, preceded him – the smile that had just lasted out. But when he was back in the study, he suffered – suffered! Why could he not have that pain to bear instead?

The crunch of the brougham brought his ceaseless march over the carpet to an end. He went out into the hall and looked into the doctor’s face – he had forgotten that this old fellow knew nothing of his special reason for deadly fear. Then he turned back into his study. The wild south wind brought wet drift-leaves whirling against the panes. It was here that he had stood looking out into the dark, when Fiorsen came down to ask for Gyp a year ago. Why had he not bundled the fellow out neck and crop, and taken her away? – India, Japan – anywhere would have done! She had not loved that fiddler, never really loved him. Monstrous – monstrous! The full bitterness of having missed right action swept over Winton, and he positively groaned aloud. He moved from the window and went over to the bookcase; there in one row were the few books he ever read, and he took one out. “Life of General Lee.” He put it back and took another, a novel of Whyte Melville’s: “Good for Nothing.” Sad book – sad ending! The book dropped from his hand and fell with a flump on the floor. In a sort of icy discovery, he had seen his life as it would be if for a second time he had to bear such loss. She must not – could not die! If she did – then, for him – ! In old times they buried a man with his horse and his dog, as if at the end of a good run. There was always that! The extremity of this thought brought relief. He sat down, and, for a long time, stayed staring into the fire in a sort of coma. Then his feverish fears began again. Why the devil didn’t they come and tell him something, anything – rather than this silence, this deadly solitude and waiting? What was that? The front door shutting. Wheels? Had that hell-hound of an old doctor sneaked off? He started up. There at the door was Markey, holding in his hand some cards. Winton scanned them.

“Lady Summerhay; Mr. Bryan Summerhay. I said, ‘Not at home,’ sir.”

Winton nodded.

“Well?”

“Nothing at present. You have had no lunch, sir.”

“What time is it?”

“Four o’clock.”

“Bring in my fur coat and the port, and make the fire up. I want any news there is.”

Markey nodded.

Odd to sit in a fur coat before a fire, and the day not cold! They said you lived on after death. He had never been able to feel that SHE was living on. SHE lived in Gyp. And now if Gyp – ! Death – your own – no great matter! But – for her! The wind was dropping with the darkness. He got up and drew the curtains.

It was seven o’clock when the doctor came down into the hall, and stood rubbing his freshly washed hands before opening the study door. Winton was still sitting before the fire, motionless, shrunk into his fur coat. He raised himself a little and looked round dully.

The doctor’s face puckered, his eyelids drooped half-way across his bulging eyes; it was his way of smiling. “Nicely,” he said; “nicely – a girl. No complications.”

Winton’s whole body seemed to swell, his lips opened, he raised his hand. Then, the habit of a lifetime catching him by the throat, he stayed motionless. At last he got up and said:

“Glass of port, doctor?”

The doctor spying at him above the glass thought: ‘This is “the fifty-two.” Give me “the sixty-eight” – more body.’

After a time, Winton went upstairs. Waiting in the outer room he had a return of his cold dread. “Perfectly successful – the patient died from exhaustion!” The tiny squawking noise that fell on his ears entirely failed to reassure him. He cared nothing for that new being. Suddenly he found Betty just behind him, her bosom heaving horribly.

“What is it, woman? Don’t!”

She had leaned against his shoulder, appearing to have lost all sense of right and wrong, and, out of her sobbing, gurgled:

“She looks so lovely – oh dear, she looks so lovely!”

Pushing her abruptly from him, Winton peered in through the just-opened door. Gyp was lying extremely still, and very white; her eyes, very large, very dark, were fastened on her baby. Her face wore a kind of wonder. She did not see Winton, who stood stone-quiet, watching, while the nurse moved about her business behind a screen. This was the first time in his life that he had seen a mother with her just-born baby. That look on her face – gone right away somewhere, right away – amazed him. She had never seemed to like children, had said she did not want a child. She turned her head and saw him. He went in. She made a faint motion toward the baby, and her eyes smiled. Winton looked at that swaddled speckled mite; then, bending down, he kissed her hand and tiptoed away.

At dinner he drank champagne, and benevolence towards all the world spread in his being. Watching the smoke of his cigar wreathe about him, he thought: ‘Must send that chap a wire.’ After all, he was a fellow being – might be suffering, as he himself had suffered only two hours ago. To keep him in ignorance – it wouldn’t do! And he wrote out the form —

 
     “All well, a daughter. – WINTON,”
 

and sent it out with the order that a groom should take it in that night.

Gyp was sleeping when he stole up at ten o’clock.

He, too, turned in, and slept like a child.

XI

Returning the next afternoon from the first ride for several days, Winton passed the station fly rolling away from the drive-gate with the light-hearted disillusionment peculiar to quite empty vehicles.

The sight of a fur coat and broad-brimmed hat in the hall warned him of what had happened.

“Mr. Fiorsen, sir; gone up to Mrs. Fiorsen.”

Natural, but a d – d bore! And bad, perhaps, for Gyp. He asked:

“Did he bring things?”

“A bag, sir.”

“Get a room ready, then.”

To dine tete-a-tete with that fellow!

Gyp had passed the strangest morning in her life, so far. Her baby fascinated her, also the tug of its lips, giving her the queerest sensation, almost sensual; a sort of meltedness, an infinite warmth, a desire to grip the little creature right into her – which, of course, one must not do. And yet, neither her sense of humour nor her sense of beauty were deceived. It was a queer little affair with a tuft of black hair, in grace greatly inferior to a kitten. Its tiny, pink, crisped fingers with their infinitesimal nails, its microscopic curly toes, and solemn black eyes – when they showed, its inimitable stillness when it slept, its incredible vigour when it fed, were all, as it were, miraculous. Withal, she had a feeling of gratitude to one that had not killed nor even hurt her so very desperately – gratitude because she had succeeded, performed her part of mother perfectly – the nurse had said so – she, so distrustful of herself! Instinctively she knew, too, that this was HER baby, not his, going “to take after her,” as they called it. How it succeeded in giving that impression she could not tell, unless it were the passivity, and dark eyes of the little creature. Then from one till three they had slept together with perfect soundness and unanimity. She awoke to find the nurse standing by the bed, looking as if she wanted to tell her something.

“Someone to see you, my dear.”

And Gyp thought: ‘He! I can’t think quickly; I ought to think quickly – I want to, but I can’t.’ Her face expressed this, for the nurse said at once:

“I don’t think you’re quite up to it yet.”

Gyp answered:

“Yes. Only, not for five minutes, please.”

Her spirit had been very far away, she wanted time to get it back before she saw him – time to know in some sort what she felt now; what this mite lying beside her had done for her and him. The thought that it was his, too – this tiny, helpless being – seemed unreal. No, it was not his! He had not wanted it, and now that she had been through the torture it was hers, not his – never his. The memory of the night when she first yielded to the certainty that the child was coming, and he had come home drunk, swooped on her, and made her shrink and shudder and put her arm round her baby. It had not made any difference. Only – Back came the old accusing thought, from which these last days she had been free: ‘But I married him – I chose to marry him. I can’t get out of that!’ And she felt as if she must cry out to the nurse: “Keep him away; I don’t want to see him. Oh, please, I’m tired.” She bit the words back. And presently, with a very faint smile, said:

“Now, I’m ready.”

She noticed first what clothes he had on – his newest suit, dark grey, with little lighter lines – she had chosen it herself; that his tie was in a bow, not a sailor’s knot, and his hair brighter than usual – as always just after being cut; and surely the hair was growing down again in front of his ears. Then, gratefully, almost with emotion, she realized that his lips were quivering, his whole face quivering. He came in on tiptoe, stood looking at her a minute, then crossed very swiftly to the bed, very swiftly knelt down, and, taking her hand, turned it over and put his face to it. The bristles of his moustache tickled her palm; his nose flattened itself against her fingers, and his lips kept murmuring words into the hand, with the moist warm touch of his lips. Gyp knew he was burying there all his remorse, perhaps the excesses he had committed while she had been away from him, burying the fears he had felt, and the emotion at seeing her so white and still. She felt that in a minute he would raise a quite different face. And it flashed through her: “If I loved him I wouldn’t mind what he did – ever! Why don’t I love him? There’s something loveable. Why don’t I?”

He did raise his face; his eyes lighted on the baby, and he grinned.

“Look at this!” he said. “Is it possible? Oh, my Gyp, what a funny one! Oh, oh, oh!” He went off into an ecstasy of smothered laughter; then his face grew grave, and slowly puckered into a sort of comic disgust. Gyp too had seen the humours of her baby, of its queer little reddish pudge of a face, of its twenty-seven black hairs, and the dribble at its almost invisible mouth; but she had also seen it as a miracle; she had felt it, and there surged up from her all the old revolt and more against his lack of consideration. It was not a funny one – her baby! It was not ugly! Or, if it were, she was not fit to be told of it. Her arm tightened round the warm bundled thing against her. Fiorsen put his finger out and touched its cheek.

“It IS real – so it is. Mademoiselle Fiorsen. Tk, tk!”

The baby stirred. And Gyp thought: ‘If I loved I wouldn’t even mind his laughing at my baby. It would be different.’

“Don’t wake her!” she whispered. She felt his eyes on her, knew that his interest in the baby had ceased as suddenly as it came, that he was thinking, “How long before I have you in my arms again?” He touched her hair. And, suddenly, she had a fainting, sinking sensation that she had never yet known. When she opened her eyes again, the economic agent was holding something beneath her nose and making sounds that seemed to be the words: “Well, I am a d – d fool!” repeatedly expressed. Fiorsen was gone.

Seeing Gyp’s eyes once more open, the nurse withdrew the ammonia, replaced the baby, and saying: “Now go to sleep!” withdrew behind the screen. Like all robust personalities, she visited on others her vexations with herself. But Gyp did not go to sleep; she gazed now at her sleeping baby, now at the pattern of the wall-paper, trying mechanically to find the bird caught at intervals amongst its brown-and-green foliage – one bird in each alternate square of the pattern, so that there was always a bird in the centre of four other birds. And the bird was of green and yellow with a red beak.

On being turned out of the nursery with the assurance that it was “all right – only a little faint,” Fiorsen went down-stairs disconsolate. The atmosphere of this dark house where he was a stranger, an unwelcome stranger, was insupportable. He wanted nothing in it but Gyp, and Gyp had fainted at his touch. No wonder he felt miserable. He opened a door. What room was this? A piano! The drawing-room. Ugh! No fire – what misery! He recoiled to the doorway and stood listening. Not a sound. Grey light in the cheerless room; almost dark already in the hall behind him. What a life these English lived – worse than the winter in his old country home in Sweden, where, at all events, they kept good fires. And, suddenly, all his being revolted. Stay here and face that father – and that image of a servant! Stay here for a night of this! Gyp was not his Gyp, lying there with that baby beside her, in this hostile house. Smothering his footsteps, he made for the outer hall. There were his coat and hat. He put them on. His bag? He could not see it. No matter! They could send it after him. He would write to her – say that her fainting had upset him – that he could not risk making her faint again – could not stay in the house so near her, yet so far. She would understand. And there came over him a sudden wave of longing. Gyp! He wanted her. To be with her! To look at her and kiss her, and feel her his own again! And, opening the door, he passed out on to the drive and strode away, miserable and sick at heart. All the way to the station through the darkening lanes, and in the railway carriage going up, he felt that aching wretchedness. Only in the lighted street, driving back to Rosek’s, did he shake it off a little. At dinner and after, drinking that special brandy he nearly lost it; but it came back when he went to bed, till sleep relieved him with its darkness and dreams.

XII

Gyp’s recovery proceeded at first with a sure rapidity which delighted Winton. As the economic agent pointed out, she was beautifully made, and that had a lot to do with it!

Before Christmas Day, she was already out, and on Christmas morning the old doctor, by way of present, pronounced her fit and ready to go home when she liked. That afternoon, she was not so well, and next day back again upstairs. Nothing seemed definitely wrong, only a sort of desperate lassitude; as if the knowledge that to go back was within her power, only needing her decision, had been too much for her. And since no one knew her inward feelings, all were puzzled except Winton. The nursing of her child was promptly stopped.

It was not till the middle of January that she said to him.

“I must go home, Dad.”

The word “home” hurt him, and he only answered:

“Very well, Gyp; when?”

“The house is quite ready. I think I had better go to-morrow. He’s still at Rosek’s. I won’t let him know. Two or three days there by myself first would be better for settling baby in.”

“Very well; I’ll take you up.”

He made no effort to ascertain her feelings toward Fiorsen. He knew too well.

They travelled next day, reaching London at half-past two. Betty had gone up in the early morning to prepare the way. The dogs had been with Aunt Rosamund all this time. Gyp missed their greeting; but the installation of Betty and the baby in the spare room that was now to be the nursery, absorbed all her first energies. Light was just beginning to fail when, still in her fur, she took a key of the music-room and crossed the garden, to see how all had fared during her ten weeks’ absence. What a wintry garden! How different from that languorous, warm, moonlit night when Daphne Wing had come dancing out of the shadow of the dark trees. How bare and sharp the boughs against the grey, darkening sky – and not a song of any bird, not a flower! She glanced back at the house. Cold and white it looked, but there were lights in her room and in the nursery, and someone just drawing the curtains. Now that the leaves were off, one could see the other houses of the road, each different in shape and colour, as is the habit of London houses. It was cold, frosty; Gyp hurried down the path. Four little icicles had formed beneath the window of the music-room. They caught her eye, and, passing round to the side, she broke one off. There must be a fire in there, for she could see the flicker through the curtains not quite drawn. Thoughtful Ellen had been airing it! But, suddenly, she stood still. There was more than a fire in there! Through the chink in the drawn curtains she had seen two figures seated on the divan. Something seemed to spin round in her head. She turned to rush away. Then a kind of superhuman coolness came to her, and she deliberately looked in. He and Daphne Wing! His arm was round her neck. The girl’s face riveted her eyes. It was turned a little back and up, gazing at him, the lips parted, the eyes hypnotized, adoring; and her arm round him seemed to shiver – with cold, with ecstasy?

Again that something went spinning through Gyp’s head. She raised her hand. For a second it hovered close to the glass. Then, with a sick feeling, she dropped it and turned away.

Never! Never would she show him or that girl that they could hurt her! Never! They were safe from any scene she would make – safe in their nest! And blindly, across the frosty grass, through the unlighted drawing-room, she went upstairs to her room, locked the door, and sat down before the fire. Pride raged within her. She stuffed her handkerchief between her teeth and lips; she did it unconsciously. Her eyes felt scorched from the fire-flames, but she did not trouble to hold her hand before them.

Suddenly she thought: ‘Suppose I HAD loved him?’ and laughed. The handkerchief dropped to her lap, and she looked at it with wonder – it was blood-stained. She drew back in the chair, away from the scorching of the fire, and sat quite still, a smile on her lips. That girl’s eyes, like a little adoring dog’s – that girl, who had fawned on her so! She had got her “distinguished man”! She sprang up and looked at herself in the glass; shuddered, turned her back on herself, and sat down again. In her own house! Why not here – in this room? Why not before her eyes? Not yet a year married! It was almost funny – almost funny! And she had her first calm thought: ‘I am free.’

But it did not seem to mean anything, had no value to a spirit so bitterly stricken in its pride. She moved her chair closer to the fire again. Why had she not tapped on the window? To have seen that girl’s face ashy with fright! To have seen him – caught – caught in the room she had made beautiful for him, the room where she had played for him so many hours, the room that was part of the house that she paid for! How long had they used it for their meetings – sneaking in by that door from the back lane? Perhaps even before she went away – to bear his child! And there began in her a struggle between mother instinct and her sense of outrage – a spiritual tug-of-war so deep that it was dumb, unconscious – to decide whether her baby would be all hers, or would have slipped away from her heart, and be a thing almost abhorrent.

She huddled nearer the fire, feeling cold and physically sick. And suddenly the thought came to her: ‘If I don’t let the servants know I’m here, they might go out and see what I saw!’ Had she shut the drawing-room window when she returned so blindly? Perhaps already – ! In a fever, she rang the bell, and unlocked the door. The maid came up.

“Please shut the drawing-room, window, Ellen; and tell Betty I’m afraid I got a little chill travelling. I’m going to bed. Ask her if she can manage with baby.” And she looked straight into the girl’s face. It wore an expression of concern, even of commiseration, but not that fluttered look which must have been there if she had known.

“Yes, m’m; I’ll get you a hot-water bottle, m’m. Would you like a hot bath and a cup of hot tea at once?”

Gyp nodded. Anything – anything! And when the maid was gone, she thought mechanically: ‘A cup of hot tea! How quaint! What should it be but hot?’

The maid came back with the tea; she was an affectionate girl, full of that admiring love servants and dogs always felt for Gyp, imbued, too, with the instinctive partisanship which stores itself one way or the other in the hearts of those who live in houses where the atmosphere lacks unity. To her mind, the mistress was much too good for him – a foreigner – and such ‘abits! Manners – he hadn’t any! And no good would come of it. Not if you took her opinion!

“And I’ve turned the water in, m’m. Will you have a little mustard in it?”

Again Gyp nodded. And the girl, going downstairs for the mustard, told cook there was “that about the mistress that makes you quite pathetic.” The cook, who was fingering her concertina, for which she had a passion, answered:

“She ‘ides up her feelin’s, same as they all does. Thank ‘eaven she haven’t got that drawl, though, that ‘er old aunt ‘as – always makes me feel to want to say, ‘Buck up, old dear, you ain’t ‘alf so precious as all that!’”

And when the maid Ellen had taken the mustard and gone, she drew out her concertina to its full length and, with cautionary softness, began to practise “Home, Sweet Home!”

To Gyp, lying in her hot bath, those muffled strains just mounted, not quite as a tune, rather as some far-away humming of large flies. The heat of the water, the pungent smell of the mustard, and that droning hum slowly soothed and drowsed away the vehemence of feeling. She looked at her body, silver-white in the yellowish water, with a dreamy sensation. Some day she, too, would love! Strange feeling she had never had before! Strange, indeed, that it should come at such a moment, breaking through the old instinctive shrinking. Yes; some day love would come to her. There floated before her brain the adoring look on Daphne Wing’s face, the shiver that had passed along her arm, and pitifulness crept into her heart – a half-bitter, half-admiring pitifulness. Why should she grudge – she who did not love? The sounds, like the humming of large flies, grew deeper, more vibrating. It was the cook, in her passion swelling out her music on the phrase,