Kitabı oku: «A Girl of the North. A Story of London and Canada», sayfa 5
CHAPTER IX
Launa and Mr. Wainbridge drove to the concert – a private one – where Herr Donau was going to play the piano for his hostess – Lady Blake, Launa, and a friend.
The day was hot, terribly so. The heat rose from the ground, the houses, and the pavement; it struck one like a fiery draught from a furnace. Launa and Mr. Wainbridge were silent; they knew each other well enough to be so. He was pondering. Though he found her interesting he did not agree with her at all about many things, but therein lay her power of attracting him, for she did not care whether she did or not. She did not pretend this as many women do, when men always are aware of it.
“I am hot,” she said.
“And you look cool.”
“I am wishing to be where I could hear the river ripple, and hear the sound of the water as it curls over the rocks. I wish I could see the big lake where it widens, where the pines and the maples grow. Oh, the smell of the wind there!”
“Why won’t you come and sit in the park instead of going to hear Donau?”
“Because I can imagine myself in that far-off land when Donau is playing,” she answered. “I can shut my eyes and feel the wind; I see the water just rippled and then still. In the park it is civilised and hot; the trees are beautiful, but not like those I love. The grass is green, but the wind is parching, and it is town-laden; it is – ” She stopped. “Who is that?”
He started at the tone of her voice. It was full of apprehension, of a sort of cold joy, as if she had fought, and was glad to be beaten.
He asked, “Where?”
“I thought I saw someone – someone I knew – someone – Oh, I want to stop, to get out. It is stifling here.”
“There are so many people,” he replied. “I did not notice anyone. Was it a woman? We are nearly there now. Do not get out.”
“No – never mind. It was imagination. I thought I saw – it could not have been really.”
“Ah,” he said, “imagination is deceiving and becoming. You have grown most beautifully flushed. You are very good to look at, Miss Archer.”
“You must talk to Lady Blake,” said Launa. “I am tired.”
The room into which they were shown was dark, cool, and flower-scented. Lady Blake was dressed in black. She was a woman men loved for an hour, a dance, or a day. Sir Godfrey Blake had married her after a short acquaintance. Immediately afterwards he went into Parliament, and now sat out all the debates, and was seldom at home. Men pitied her, women shook their heads, while she loudly lamented a cold husband, and was consoled by other men.
“We have been waiting for you,” she said. “Herr Donau is ready to begin.”
She gloried in her riches, and she was musical, though in the days of her poverty she had not been. Shilling seats and deprivations did not suit her; but to be able to pay the most expensive successful pianist in London for a whole afternoon to play to her and one or two chosen ones, what a triumph! That was success. And if she did not enjoy the music she did derive great satisfaction from saying, “Donau played for us on Sunday; he played marvellously. Of course we paid him.”
“Miss Archer’s imagination has been causing her to see people – a person,” said Mr. Wainbridge, as he shook hands with Lady Blake.
He wanted to see Launa grow red again, as well as to discover who she thought she had seen.
She laughed.
“Was it a ghost?” asked Lady Blake.
She looked uncomfortable. She had some ghosts behind her – a brother and sister who were poor, and who lived at Clapham. They worked, and she ignored them.
“A ghost!” repeated Wainbridge. “Do you believe in ghosts, Miss Archer?”
“Do I? Souls of the dead! I wish I could see them.”
“Don’t!” exclaimed Lady Blake. I believe in premonitory warnings. You did not see me walking, did you, Miss Archer? I hope not.”
“No, I only saw an old friend – an old Canadian friend. But it was only in fancy, for the next moment it was gone.”
There was a slight pause when she said “it was gone.” Mr. Wainbridge noticed she used “it.”
Lady Blake said “Oh” sadly, and then continued: “Premonitory warnings are so interesting. Was the friend an old, I mean an ancient grey-headed friend, or only old as regards the time of friendship? Was it a woman?”
“It was a spirit,” said Launa.
“You will hear of a death,” said Lady Blake with solemnity.
“It is already dead,” replied Launa.
“To you?” asked Mr. Wainbridge.
“Are we not going to hear Herr Donau play?” inquired Launa. “You have not forgotten you are to play the Waldstein Sonata for me?” she said to Herr Donau.
“I have not forgotten. Shall I begin?”
“Do,” said Lady Blake, seating herself in a chair covered with cream-coloured material.
Her black dress, yellow hair, and white skin had an ideal, an arranged background. Ideals have to be well arranged, otherwise they are deficient. Launa sat in a dim corner; Mr. Wainbridge chose a chair from which he could observe her.
She was listening intently; she had often played the Waldstein to Paul, and she wanted to see how Donau would play the octave run. Through it all she could think of Paul. Had she really seen him? No, he was not in England. Could he be dead?.. Donau played the run beautifully… Could Paul be dead? Donau played the octaves with one hand – glïssando. Wonderful! Launa glanced round her; no one appeared to have noticed. Lady Blake was keeping time with her head and her foot. Time in the Waldstein! Launa felt a great wave of longing, of desire for the woods, lakes, and the vastness of the real forest, and for the air. Oh! that air! Keen sometimes, sweet, full of the smell of wild flowers, of the pine woods – and where was Paul?
The Waldstein went on and on. To her it meant spring days, movement, hope, but not in the overcrowded old land. To the others it meant different things – music always does – and Launa’s mind returned to the impression of the afternoon. It could not have been Paul alive that she had seen? Could it be that he was dead, and because she loved him, he came to her? Did she love him? She heard the wailing of the Indian child. But if Paul were dead, he was hers – hers – hers —
Her thoughts were interrupted by the ceasing of the piano and the compliments of Lady Blake and Mr. Wainbridge.
“You were asleep,” said Mr. Wainbridge to Launa.
“No. My thoughts were wandering.”
“With more spirits?”
“Mr. Wainbridge, come here,” said Lady Blake. “Come and see this; it is by Herr Donau. Play it, do, Herr Donau, and then Miss Archer has promised to play ‘Warum.’ ”
“There is a history in that,” said Launa, when the great man had finished. “There is an unravelled thread in it.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, “there is. You have understanding, Miss Archer.”
“And now, will you play ‘Warum?’ ” asked Lady Blake.
“To hear Miss Archer play ‘Warum’ is one of the world’s desires,” said Mr. Wainbridge, “because you puzzle it – the world, I mean.”
She did not answer. Lady Blake rehearsed speeches to all her dear and jealous friends while the music lasted. She would say “Donau and Miss Archer played for us during a whole afternoon.” She had triumphed.
Launa drove home alone. Mr. Wainbridge to his regret had an engagement. He said good-bye to her with sorrow, while she was indifferent. There was something in the spirit theory after all.
Mrs. Phillips and Mr. Herbert were still sitting at Victoria Mansions. She had changed her dress for a tea-gown and invited him to dinner. The evening was hot. Launa dressed in white and went to the music-room. Conversation did not appeal to her. She began to play, to work hard at an impossible sonata. The hard work was taking away her weariness, the feeling of misery and longing when the door was opened and Captain Carden came in.
“I did not let your maid announce me. I wanted to surprise you, Launa,” he said, advancing with an air of expectation. “She said you were not at home, but I heard the piano, and I knew you would see me.”
He held out his hand.
“I will finish this page,” she said, not taking the hand thus affably extended, and playing on.
Captain Carden seated himself near and stared at her. She could feel his eyes taking her in, all over, gloating over her, but she finished and sat on the music-stool, turning herself round until she faced him.
“Your mother was here to lunch.”
“Yes, Launa, she told me so.”
“Did you want to see me particularly?” she asked. “I suppose you did, because I said ‘not at home.’ I am very tired and in a musical mood.”
He smiled languidly and leaned back.
“You don’t mean that, Launa.”
His detestable habit of repeating her name irritated her. She looked at him.
“Why do you never call me Charlie? We are relations.”
“Are we?” she asked.
“Yes. That is one reason why I came, and then my mother asked me to come and see you. She and I are both worried. Mother thinks – ”
“Do think yourself; you remind me of Uriah Heep.”
“My mother thinks,” he continued with a sort of leer, “that you are lonely. She fears the friends you have, the contamination of their talk about no morals – she says – ”
Launa got up.
“You will either go away or else you will talk of something else. Speak for yourself, pray. I do not care what your mother thinks.”
Captain Carden looked at her.
“Don’t get cross. You know I am in love with you, and I want to marry you. It will be such an advantage to you, an unknown Canadian, to marry into a good old English family, and to be well looked after.”
She was silent, first from surprise, then from anger. It was as if the words would not come rapidly enough.
“Thank you,” she said. “I decline your insulting offer. Now will you go?”
“Now, Launa, you know it is the best thing you can do. I am really in love with you. You will have some of your own money settled on you, of course, and you will have an excellent position and be thought a great deal of as my wife.”
“I will never be your wife,” she answered. “Never.”
“All girls want to marry; you do. They all do. I like a girl who pretends to be backward, but this is enough, Launa. Give in now, you know how I love you, you – ”
Launa’s cheeks were blazing, she got up and rang the bell violently. He followed, unseen by her, until she felt his arm on her waist; his face was detestably close, his eyes staring into hers, glaring like an animal’s, and his breath was hot against her face. She gave him one firm push; she had not paddled so much in vain; her arms were very strong, and he did not expect it. He staggered across the room, upsetting a little table and breaking some china ornaments which fell with a crash as he sprawled on the floor. Just then the maid opened the door, and Mr. Wainbridge walked in.
“Curtis, show Captain Carden out,” said Launa, apparently with calm indifference.
She looked very tall, slight, and angry, as she stood waiting. Captain Carden gathered himself together with a sheepish look, and advanced towards her.
“Good-bye, Launa.”
“Go,” she said.
“Launa, say good-bye.”
And as the door closed she threw herself into a big chair and laughed. Captain Carden heard it as he left the flat and detected nothing but ridicule in it. Mr. Wainbridge went over to her; he saw she would have cried had she not laughed, and that her nerves were all unstrung.
“Why didn’t you tell me to kick him out? He deserved it.”
“Why didn’t you do it?”
She put her hands over her face, and began to sob. He stroked her hair gently, tenderly, and she liked it.
“I am an idiot! I am an idiot!” she said at last.
“What did he do?”
“How did you come? You were dining at the Grays’, I thought you said?”
“I came because I wanted to see you.”
She dried her eyes and leaned back in her chair and looked out at the night, feeling the curious rest of exhaustion. The greyness of twilight crept into the room, it was peaceful though still sultry. He took her hand and said:
“I am glad I came.”
“So am I,” she said, cheerfully. Her mood had changed. “You saved me from unknown bother. He was most impertinent.”
In the other room Mrs. Phillips was becoming impatient. She was hungry. At tea-time Herbert’s conversation engrossed her, and now where was dinner?
She was also anxious to create a sensation, to surprise Launa and everyone by telling of her speedy marriage, which was to take place in one month exactly. And so she went into the music-room.
“Has that awful Carden man gone? I am so hungry, Launa dear. Do say you are hungry too, Mr. Wainbridge. I am going to be married in a month.”
She sighed.
“No wonder, then, that you are hungry,” said Mr. Wainbridge, “with that awful prospect you need restoratives of all sorts.”
“Lucky Mr. Herbert,” said Launa. “I congratulate him.”
“How nice of you,” said Mrs. Phillips. “I feared you might be small minded enough to congratulate me. He is in the drawing-room – starving too.”
“Let us go, then, to dinner,” said Launa. “Mr. Herbert, you are so lucky.”
“That is good of you,” he answered.
“Merely decent of her,” said Mrs. Phillips. “She knows my worth.”
“How are the spirits?” asked Wainbridge, as Launa and he followed the other two into the dining-room.
“Good. Look at my eyes. Are they red?”
“They are beautiful.”
He took her hand for one moment; it was an involuntary caress.
And they drank to the perfect happiness of Mrs. Phillips and Mr. Herbert.
CHAPTER X
The wedding was over. Mrs. Phillips had become Mrs. Herbert. The accounts were in all the papers, the guests were mentioned, and the bride’s attire was described. She wore mauve, a bonnet, and what was not mentioned, a nervous air. The known dangers of matrimony are worse in anticipation, and more true, than the maiden bride’s assurance of eternal bliss.
“Miss Archer, an American beauty,” said the Chronicler, “accompanied her to the altar, and handed her a smelling-bottle.”
Mr. and Mrs. Herbert departed amid no rice and no old slippers. Lily would not have them. They went to hear the nightingales, and to remember Rubinstein’s song:
“The nightingale with fervent song
Doth woo the rose the whole night long.”
For one whole week the weather was glorious and unchangeable.
Launa was alone in Victoria Mansions. Mr. George visited her with frequency, and so did Mr. Wainbridge.
Mr. George often came in the morning.
“I am at my worst early, Launa,” he said, “and then I long for strong measures. You are a strong measure. Your name is so perfect, I could not spoil it with a Miss,” he added apologetically.
All the old women would have called her a bold Canadian had they not remembered her money and success. England conquered and annexed her Colonies; do not their maidens annex her young men?
Launa missed her father; between them there was a perfect relationship; their minds were in tune; she was so certain of his love and care that she feared no diminution thereof. He wrote to her often, and she thought of shutting up the flat and going to join him.
On Lily’s wedding day, Mr. Wainbridge told her he was obliged to travel with his uncle for six weeks. The uncle, Lord Wainbridge, had just constructed a novel; it contained a pinch of all the crazes of the day, and was clever, but not moral. Lord Wainbridge became uneasy, and Lady Wainbridge rampant with rage (designated in this case Christian solicitude about his fall) when she read it. She said the want of morals was his own. She said many things which he did not mind when she only gave utterance to them; but he feared ridicule as he feared nothing else; she said he would be laughed at, so he fled to his nephew, who always had sympathy for him.
Launa received the tidings of Mr. Wainbridge’s departure with indifference, though she did feel it. And he decided that her lack of vanity was her one fault. She really appeared as if she did not care whether she attracted him or not. But she thought very much about him. His interest in her was pleasant. It was more. It was necessary to her, as much as anything can be necessary over which we have no control, and without which we must live if it is withdrawn.
The day of his last visit they spent in reading, when he would have much rather talked. But she had a new book.
“How queer it is that the charm of so few poems lasts,” she said. “What I loved at sixteen I loathe now, and I suppose what I love now I shall hate at thirty-five.”
“We change. You do not love a comic song when your heart aches.”
“I have no heart.”
“Because I said that, you think I meant your heart,” he replied. “I did not.”
“Your own then?”
“Perhaps. Do you believe we are responsible for evil?”
“I do not know. Are we responsible for what we cannot help? I could not condemn any one but myself. The existence of evil is true, but how horrible! And how it spoils our lives.”
“Spoils our lives,” he repeated. “You are quite right! Tell me, can a man or a woman love two people at once? Is it possible to love evil and good?”
Launa grew pale.
“No one can love evil.”
“You are right,” he said, with triumph. “It is not love then. To do right, one should love something, someone.”
“Yes,” she half whispered, “love someone, even if they are beyond one’s reach.”
“You have comforted me. I must say good-bye, now. No, I will see you once again, to-night. In six weeks I shall come back, and I shall be glad – glad. What shall you be?”
She did not answer, but stood up and walked across the room to look at a photograph. She would never go back to Canada, never.
“Where did you get that photograph?” he asked. “Is it new? Who is it?”
It was Paul. She had kept it locked up until now.
“It is no one you know. It is only a picture which reminds me of evil.”
“Take it down – shall I?”
“No, no,” she said sharply. “We are terribly in earnest,” she added, and gave a little laugh.
She went to the window and looked out. The lights were flashing, and the roar of the city came up to her.
“Good-bye,” he said, taking her hand. “Good-bye —Behüt dich Gott.”
That night Launa went to a dance, which lasted until three in the morning. She wore pink, and looked beautiful. The lust for slaughter, for conquest, for admiration entered into her. She could not love any man, she assured herself, while she knew that she thought only of Paul. But she possessed power. She could hurt, and for that one night she gloried in it. This was what the man on the steamer had meant; this was deadening; this was life and din; there was no time to think.
Mr. Wainbridge was there; she gave him one dance only, and he was angry, though he rejoiced when Mr. George said to him: —
“Launa is miserable. Her eyes are unhappy; she is feeling something.”
She had expressed herself as yearning for Norway, and that was all; but Mr. Wainbridge thought she wanted him.
The next morning she slept until it was late; she was very tired; When her letters were brought to her she did not open them. She lazily drank her tea and looked at the post-marks, wondering from whom they were. She sent a wire to her father, saying she would like to join him at once.
While she was dressing her maid brought her a telegram. It might be about her new dress, or Lady Blake’s picnic, or the concert at which she was to play.
This was what she read: —
“Your father accidentally shot. Dying.
Come.
“Stevens.”
Stevens was a friend who had joined her father.
Launa looked at it; dying – not dead. She drank her tea. It was, it must be some detestable, horrible dream.
By twelve o’clock her boxes were packed; and Launa and her maid started on their long, almost useless, journey. To sit still and wait was impossible, it was like watching for someone who never came. The train tore along, and the trees seemed to wave their branches like hungry, relentless demons, as if they would clutch all men; the sea was cruel, and the steamer outrageously slow.
And Launa was too late.
After an absence of one week she came back to London, crushed, weary, and heart-sick. Her life seemed to be over. She had seen him again, but he was dead. There was nothing she could do, it was all over. If only she had Paul! She could have screamed with the torture of fate. She realised the disappointment of life, that nothing could be as it had been. A new life might come to her, but she could never gather the old one together again. Perhaps some day she would be reminded of the past when she had forgotten. To be reminded it is necessary to have forgotten. But now she suffered – now she wanted everything she had not. She felt the torture of the vain longing for the impossible; a blister on her body would have been a relief; there was one on her soul. She wished she had told her father about Paul; she wished she could forget Paul; she wished he were there with her, and then she resolved again to forget him.
She wrote to Mr. Wainbridge and told him of her terrible trouble. It was a relief to pour out her mind to someone who understood, and to whom she could say mad things – whether he sympathised or not she did not care.
She was rich, and inundated with letters of sympathy. Each writer considered herself the one consoler Launa required. Men do not write that kind of letter; they merely leave cards.
Mrs. Carden sent pages of lamentation and exhortation, interspersed with demands for one interview, just one, with her dearest Launa.
Lily Herbert came up to town for the day. She was sorry for Launa when she could remember to be so. It was with great difficulty she could disguise the cheerful grin her countenance had assumed since her marriage. She could not understand Launa’s abandonment to grief. If Sir John had died Lily would have wept, when reflecting on her lonely position, and then have smiled over the patterns of new mourning.
Launa remained dumb to her and with her; Lily realised at last, with a certain sort of awe, that Launa was stricken; that she was full of sorrow which was not easily ended, and that she could not bear attempts at consolation, which were merely, and only could be, attempts. Who can raise the dead? Launa passed through the lonely dark valley of nevermore – of hunger for one face, for one word, which is so intense as to be torture, and to which was added the desire for the presence of a man whom she felt was unfaithful to her. Could she bear another man’s kisses? How could he then kiss another woman?
To stay in London was impossible for her, and so she chose to go to a little village in Derbyshire which her father had loved as a boy. The Black Country, with its barren moors and lonely stonewalled hills, attracted her; the warm valleys full of bracken and alder bushes, through which the rushing mountain streams tore, had a wild beauty and a lulling power. It was very lonely and bleak. She could walk for miles without seeing anyone, and the people she did meet were for the most part only villagers. Much as she longed to see “Solitude” again, she felt the impossibility of going there.
During all these long, long days of sorrow and direful longing, Mr. Wainbridge wrote to her. Almost every day a letter came, and she began to look for them and to answer them. At first she had only sent him scrawls, but he had gradually drifted into an intimate – a most intimate friend.
She often re-read his letters, and there was more in them than the actual words said. She gave him credit for an intuition which he did not possess. He loved her, and he divined that she did not love him; she could almost love him for that. Women usually love men for imaginary qualities. She thought him brave and pure; she fancied he loved what she did, instead of which he loved her. Her personality made life interesting; her playing made music an everlasting joy.
The day after she was settled at Fair View she had a long letter from him in answer to her first coherent one.
“Schweitzerhof, Lucerne,
“July 3rd.
“At last! I was so glad to get your letter this morning. First, I am going to thank you from my heart for telling me everything, and please remember that I can never be bored by anything that concerns you. Just believe that, and you will trust me, and I may be able to help you with my sympathy at any rate. Dear, I do sympathise, and it is as if the trouble were my own. I can dimly guess what a terrible loss you have had, and I know that your relationship with him was a perfect one. I am so sorry that the letters I have written since I left London have been so selfish and full of my own feelings, while you are in such grief; forgive them. I should love to hear that the knowledge of my sympathy and care is something to you. I need not tell you that I would spare no trouble and no thought if I could help you in the smallest degree, or if I could save you one ounce of care or pain. I know the hardness of it appals you. Can I say or do anything to make you happier?
“I have just been reading for the tenth time ‘Andrea del Sarto.’ It is wonderful; but how he longed for a soul in his wife, and yet he loved her for her beauty, and she – ‘again the cousin’s whistle.’ It is so sad, but how could she love him when she did not understand him? And I suppose it bored her to sit by the window with him while he talked to her, and all the time she was listening for the cousin’s whistle, and wishing her husband would begin to paint again. Surely ‘a man’s reach does always exceed his grasp.’ If it did not, we should not want a Heaven at all. Browning knew things, didn’t he?
“We are not coming back for some weeks yet, and it makes me sad, for I long to hear your voice again. I love your voice. —
“Yours,
“C. H. W.”
A course of these letters was very comforting. To be necessary to someone is what many women are obliged to be, instead of being loved.
The days were long and full of pain. She did not grow accustomed to it. The wound was as open and sore as at first. It was a relief to be alone, and to be allowed to be sorrowful. There was no peace, no joy anywhere.
