by Hugh Walpole
“I’d better go back to Hawkesworth!” Lucy cried, more defiant than she would ever have suspected she could be. However, this was not at all what Aunt Harriet wanted; Lucy was making herself extremely useful. Lucy did not want it either. So peace was made. One result of this snipping up of society was that Lucy began to be strangely conscious of the world that was beating up around her.
A strange, queer, confused, dramatic world! For positively the first time she was aware of some of the things that the war had done, of what it had meant to many people, of the chasms that it had made in relationships, the ruins in homes, and also of the heroisms that it had emphasised — and, beyond all these individual things, she had a sense of a new world rising painfully and slowly from the chaos of the old — but rising! Yes, even through these ridiculous papers of her aunt’s, she could feel the first stirrings, the first trumpetings to battle, voices sounding, only a little distance from her, wonderful new messages of hope and ambition.
This affected her; she began to wonder how she could, through all these four years of war, have stayed so quietly in her remote Hawkesworth. She began to despise herself because she had stayed.
This excitement developed quickly into the same kind of premonition that she had had before leaving Hawkesworth. Something was about to happen to her! What would it be? She awoke every morning with a strange, burning excitement in her throat, a confused, thick beating of the heart.
Meanwhile, her month was drawing to its close, the days speeding on through a glittering pageant of wonderful May weather, when the town sparkled and quivered like a heap of quartz.
Simon Laud wrote that he was coming up to London to fetch her, to take her hack with him to Hawkesworth— “that he could not wait any longer without seeing his pet.”
When Lucy read those words she was strangely tranquillised. She did not know what it was that, during these days, she had been wanting. What so strangely had she been expecting? Whom?...
Her inexperience cried out to Simon Laud to come and defend her. She had a time of true terror, frightened by Aunt Harriet, by London, by strikes and wars and turbulences, above all, by her own self, and by the discontents and longings and desires to which some influence seemed to be urging her.
She wrote her first loving letter to Simon. She told him that she hoped that they would be married very soon, and that indeed he was to come and fetch her. It would be lovely to go back to Hawkesworth with him. And when she had posted her letter, she sat on her bed in her little room in Hörtons with her face in her hands and cried bitterly, desperately — why, she did not know. Mrs. Comstock saw that she had been crying, and was moved by the child-like simplicity and innocence of “poor stupid Lucy,” as she called her to herself. She was moved to unusual generosity, and suggested that they should go that night to a symphony concert at the Queen’s Hall— “Although they are going to play Brahms, which I can’t say that I approve of, because he was surely a German, if anyone ever was, and haven’t we got plenty of good music of our own, I wonder! Anyway, you needn’t listen to the Brahms, Lucy, if you don’t want to. You won’t understand him, anyway. I expect he’s one of the most difficult of the composers, although he is dead.”
Lucy paid small attention. She had been out only twice with her aunt in the evening during her London stay, once to a lecture on “Y.M.C.A. Work at the Front,” and once to a musical play, Monsieur Beaucaire. She had liked the lecture, but she had adored Beaucaire, and she thought that perhaps the Queen’s Hall would be something of the same kind.
She had never in all her life been to a “Symphony Concert.”
Aunt Harriet, armour-plated with jewellery, made an exciting contrast with Lucy, whose blazing red-gold hair, large, rather puzzled eyes, and plain white dress, needed exotic surroundings to emphasise their true colour.
“You look very pretty, dear,” said Aunt Harriet, who had made that evening a little money on the Stock Exchange, and was happy accordingly, “and quite excited, just as though you were expecting to see your Simon.”
“I wish he could have arrived to-night instead of to-morrow,” said Lucy.
But did she? As they drove through the streets scattered with star-dust, watched by a crimson moon, she sighed with that strange confusion of happiness and unhappiness that seemed always to be hers now. What was going to happen? Who was coming? Only Simon?
She felt a return of her earlier breathless excitement as they pushed their way through the crowd in the lobby. “Stalls this way.... Downstairs to the stalls.”
“To your right, madam. Second on your right!”
“Tickets, please... tickets, please!”
Mrs. Comstock was a redoubtable general on these occasions, and pushed people aside with her sharp elbows, and flashed indignant glances with her fine eyes, and spread back her shoulders, and sparkled her rings.
Lucy wished that her aunt would not figure so prominently. She had perhaps never before disliked her so thoroughly as she did to-night. Then, out of the confusion and noise, there came peace. They were settling down into their seats, and on every side of them were space and light and colour, and a whispering murmur like the distant echo of the sea on Scarborough beach. Lucy was suddenly happy. Her eyes sparkled, her heart beat high. She looked about her and was pleasantly stirred by file size of the building. “Not so large as the Albert Hall,” she had heard someone say. Why, then, how truly enormous the Albert Hall must be — and she thought suddenly, with a little kindly contempt, of Simon, and how very small he would seem placed in the middle of the stalls all by himself.
The musicians began to file into their seats; the lights turned up; the strangest discordances, like the voices of spirits in a lost world, filled the air; everywhere clumps of empty seats vanished... people, people from the ceiling to the floor.... A little man stepped forward, stood upon his platform, bowed to the applause, held with uplifted baton a moment’s silence, then released upon the air the accustomed harmonies of Buy Blas.
To Lucy, who knew so little of life, that flooding melody of sound was the loveliest discovery. She sat back very straight, eyes staring, drinking it in, forgetting at once the lighted hall, her aunt, everything. Only Simon Laud persisted with her. It seemed as though to-night his figure refused to leave her.
He did not — oh! how instantly she knew it — fit in at all with the music. It was as though he were trying to draw her away from it, trying to persuade her that she did not really like it. He was interfering with her happiness, buzzing at her ear like an insect. She shook her head as though to drive this something away, and, even as she did so, she was aware that something else was happening to her.
Someone was looking at her. She felt a truly desperate impatience at this second interruption. Someone was trying to force her to turn her head — yes, to the right She was looking straight in front of her, down to where the hard, thick back of the little conductor seemed to centralise into itself, and again to distribute all the separate streams of the music. Lucy was staring at that back as though her maintaining her connection with it was her only link with the music. How tiresome that she should not be allowed to concentrate on her happiness! She violently dismissed the shadowy Simon; but he was there, just behind her left shoulder. Then, with another effort of will, she forced away from her that attraction on the right. She would not look! In all probability, it was imagination. She had known in Hawkesworth, in church, at the Fenny Readings, that sensation that people were staring at her; simply her self-consciousness. She drove it off; it came closer to her. It was as though a voice were saying in her ear: “You shall look to the right.... You shall look to the right....”
“I won’t!... I won’t!” she replied, setting her teeth. Then, to her own pain and distress, she began to blush. She had always detested her inevitable blushing, despised herself for her weakness; she could not fight it; it was stronger than she. Surely all the hall was looking at her. She felt as though soon she would be forced to run away and hide in the comforting darkness of t
he street.
The music ceased; the little man was bowing; the tension was lifted; everywhere a buzz of talk rose;, as though everyone for the last ten minutes had been hidden beneath a glass cover that was suddenly raised. Late comers, with anxious glances, peered about for their seats. Lucy turned around.
She saw at once that indeed it was true that someone had been staring at her. Someone was staring at her now. She stared in return. She knew that she should not. Her mother had always taught her that to stare at a stranger was almost the worst thing that you could do. Nevertheless, Lucy glanced. She could not help herself. He was looking at her as though he knew her.
When she looked in her turn the start that he gave, the way that a half-smile hovered about his lips, was almost an acknowledgment of recognition. And had she not known him before? He seemed so familiar to her — and yet, of course, he could not be. The conviction that she had been staring suddenly overwhelmed her with shame, and she turned away. But now he was impressed upon her brain as though she were looking at a picture of him — his large, rather ugly, but extremely good-humoured face, his fair, rather untidy hair, his fair eyebrows, his short, closely-clipped moustache, his black dinner-jacket, and black bow tie — above all, that charming, doubtful, half-questioning smile.
But why, if they had never met before, did he stare like that? Why did...?
The applause had broken out again. A tall man holding a violin was bowing. The Brahms violin concerto began.
She sat there in a puzzled and bewildered state. What had happened to her? Who had come to her, lifting her, it seemed, out of her own body, transforming her into some other creature? Was she feeling this merely because a man had stared at her? She felt, as she sat there, the blush still tingling in her cheeks, as though some precious part of her that had left her many years ago had now suddenly returned to her.
She was Lucy Moon, the whole, complete Lucy Moon, for the first time....
The first movement of the symphony ended. She looked at once to her right. His eyes were resting on her. She smiled.
How could she? Did she not know, had she not been told ever since she could remember, that the most terrible thing that a girl could do was to smile at a stranger? But he was not a stranger. She knew everything about him. She knew, although she had never heard him speak, just what the tone of his voice would be, rough, a little Scotch, and north country mixed... not many words; he would be shy and would stammer a little. At the end of the second movement she smiled again. He smiled back and raised his eyebrows in a laughing question.
At the end of the symphony the air crackled with applause. The violinist returned again and again, bowing. He seemed so small, and his magnificent evening dress did not suit him. Evening dress did not suit Simon either. The applause died away. The orchestra disappeared through the back of the hall.
“So hot,” said Aunt Comstock, whom, until now, Lucy had utterly forgotten. “A breath of air outside..
They went into the passage. People were walking up and down. They halted beside a swaying door. Mrs. Comstock stood there, her purple bosom heaving up and down. “No air.... Can’t think why they don’t...”
Her fine eyes flashed. She had seen Mrs. Norris. Are not those things arranged by God? Mrs. Norris, whom she had not seen for so many months. Are not these things arranged by God? Lucy’s friend was at her elbow. He was as she had known that he would be; kind-eyed, clumsy perhaps, his voice rough and hesitating.... He was alone. He stood turned a little away from her, and she, as though she had been practising these arts all her life, looked at the pea-green Mrs. Norris, and the pearls that danced on her bony neck. The voices crept towards one another. No one would have known that Lucy’s mouth moved at al. “Can’t we get away somewhere?”
“I’m with my aunt.”
“I must see you.”
“Yes.”
“I must.”
“I’m with my—”
“I know.”
“Perhaps at the end—”
“No, give me somewhere to write to.”
“It’s—”
Aunt Comstock’s voice came sailing like a pirate’s ship.
“Amy, this is my niece, Lucy.”
“How do you do? Are you enjoying London, dear?” He was gone. Oh, he was gone! And no address. She could have slain those two women, one so fat, end one so thin — willingly, stabbed them. Perhaps she would lose him now.
They returned. “Something of Bizet’s. He was French, Lucy. French or a Spaniard.... Fancy Amy Norris — lost her looks, poor dear. Ah! I ball like this. Better than that German.”
Lucy heard no more music. Her heart beat in her throat, choking it. Life had rushed towards her and filled her, or was it that she had entered into life? She did not know. She only felt intensely proud, like a queen entering her capital for the first time.... The concert was over. Her aunt was a long time putting on her cloak; people stood in their way, stupid, heavy, idiotic people. When they came into the hall he was not there.... Yes.... he was close to them. For a moment, in the thick crowd, he caught her hand. At the touch of his fingers, rough and strong, upon hers, she seemed to soar above the crowd and to look down upon them all with scornful happiness. He said something that she could not catch, and then Aunt Comstock had hatefully enveloped her. They were in a taxi, and all the world that had been roaring around her was suddenly hushed. They reached Hortons. Lucy drank her hot milk. Her aunt said:
“I do hope you enjoyed your concert, darling.... The Bizet was best.”
She had undressed, and was lying on her bed, flat on her back, staring up at the white ceiling, upon whose surface circles, flung from the lights beyond the window, ran and quivered. She watched the circles, but she was not thinking at all. She seemed to be lapped about by a sea of warm happiness. She floated on this; she neither slept nor thought. Early in the morning she sank into dreamless slumber.
She came down to breakfast tired with happy weariness. She found Simon Laud waiting for her. She stared at him at first as though she had never seen him before. He was not looking his best. He explained that he had caught the night train at York. He was afraid that he had not shaved nor washed, but that Mrs. Comstock had kindly said: “Have your breakfast first... with us. Lucy has just been longing for you.”
Lucy took all this in at last She saw the bright little room with the sun pouring in, the breakfast things with the silver tea-pot and the porridge, and Aunt Comstock in her pink tea-gown. She saw these things, and then Simon Laud took a step towards her.
“Dear Lucy!” he said. That step showed her that there was no time to be lost. Simon Laud must never touch her again. Never!
“Simon, I wasn’t expecting you. But it’s just as well, really. It will get it over more quickly. I must tell you at once that I can’t marry you!”
Her first feeling after her little speech, which seemed in a strange way not to have been made by herself at all, was that it was a great shame to say such a thing to him when he was looking so dirty and so unwashed. She broke out with a little cry:
“Oh, Simon, I’m sorry!”
“Lucy!” she heard Aunt Comstock exclaim.
Mr. Laud had no words. He looked truly pitiful as his long, rather dirty fingers sought the tablecloth. Then he laughed.
“Why, Lucy, dear,” he said. “What do you mean?”
“I mean just what I’ve said,” she answered. “We mustn’t marry. It would be wicked, because I don’t love you. I knew from the first that I didn’t, but I had had no experience. I thought you must all know better. I don’t love you, and I never, never will.”
“Lucy!” Aunt Comstock had risen. Lucy had the odd feeling that her aunt had known that this moment would come, and had been waiting with eager anticipation for it. “Do you know what you’ve said? But you can’t know. You’re out of your mind, you wicked girl. Here’s Mr. Laud come all the way from Yorkshire, by night too, just to he with you for a day or two, and you receive him like this. Why, it was only last night tha
t you told me that you wished he would come — and now! You must be out of your mind!”
“I’m not out of my mind,” said Lucy, “and I’m sure Simon wouldn’t wish me to marry him if I didn’t love him.”
“Did she really say that last night, Mrs. Comstock?” said Mr. Laud.
“Indeed she did.”
“Only last night?”
“Only last night.”
“Ah well, then,” he heaved a sigh of relief, “it’s all right! I surprised her this morning. I was too sudden. I frightened you, Lucy darling. Have some breakfast, and you’ll feel quite differently.”
“She’d better feel differently,” said Mrs. Comstock, now trembling with happy temper. “I don’t know what she’s said this mad thing for, I’m sure, Mr. Laud, considering how she’s been talking about you and wanting you all this month; but a little consideration will soon teach her.
“Do you know, Lucy, what they say of girls who try to behave as you’re behaving? Do you know the name the world has for what you’re doing? Have you thought for a moment of your father and mother, and what they’ll say?”
“No, I haven’t,” said Lucy. “But no thinking will make any difference. Nothing will.”
Nevertheless, there did flash through her mind then a picture of what would happen at Hawkesworth. She had not thought of Hawkesworth; she saw now the straggling street, the church, the high downs; she saw the people who had known her since she was a baby, she saw her parents and relations. Yes, there would be a bad time to go through. And for what? Because for a moment a man whom she did not know, a man whom she would never see again, had taken her hand in his! Perhaps she was mad. She did not know. She only knew that she would never marry Simon Laud.
“Oh, Simon, I’m so sorry! I know I’m behaving very badly. But it’s better to behave like that now than for us to be unhappy always.”