The Woman at The Door

by Warwick Deeping

  As she read what he had written that morning she may have wondered whether it was possible for a man to be content with this solitary and reflective life, high on the hillside, with a few peasants and a woman? His words were to reassure her:

  “Let it become ridiculous to us that men should desire the open country, and yet be unable to dwell in it; that people should be hungry when food is piled behind windows; that people should be sick and not have the wherewithal to be healed. Money! Why money at all? The incentive there must be, the passionate urge to accomplish, but why should not the physician heal and the ploughman plough, and the builder build just for life and living? Could we not labour for all and each other without the passing of a penny piece? Yes, if we were other than we are.”

  She paused, chin on hand, reflecting upon these thoughts. Assuredly she had experienced the bitterness of turning muck and meat into money. She read on:

  “I sit here at my window, a man to whom life has given many good and beautiful things, love and understanding, this splendid scene, peace, dear eyes that look at me without guile. Shall I suffer my soul to fret over the insoluble problem of free will? I will, I think—therefore I live. Nor is there any crave in me to slay, to make the earth and sky hideous with speed, to turn knowledge to brutal butchery, or to pile up plunder. I have my head high above the smoke of cities. So should it be for us all.”

  She left his chair and stood again at the open window. She could remember questioning him about this life of theirs, this exile. Might it not cease to satisfy him? And he had stuffed a big hand into a pocket and produced a new pipe and an unopened tin of English tobacco.

  “I can buy this in Cerisy. I have smoked the same brand for twenty years. What a confession to make in the face of this restless world. I don’t get bored with my tobacco. Apparently I am made that way. So, there is a nice piece of symbolism for you!”

  What a mate and what a world were hers! Her life was made of doing simple and gentle things, and in them she did not find the poison of monotony. She stood at his window. The upland meadows were full of flowers; narcissus time was here. To-day the mountains were splendidly serene, the lake a great blue mirror.

  2

  In Cerisy Luce bought tobacco in a shop in the Rue Montparnasse whose windows looked between lime trees across the grey quay to the lake. Cerisy was preparing to be en fête. The tourist season was in flower, and outside the Hôtel Leman two blue charabancs and a little crowd of visitors were waiting.

  To round-headed and bland Monsieur Müller, who sold him tobacco, Luce said cheerfully, “Wonderful weather. And the season begins.”

  But Monsieur Müller was not in a cheerful mood. He, like the rest of the world, was suffering from financial pangs and stresses. Cerisy’s season was no longer a bouquet of flowers. And had not hundreds of residents fled from Switzerland when Great Britain had abandoned the gold standard?

  “Cheap people, monsieur.”

  “Is that so?”

  Monsieur Müller had been standing in his doorway, observing the charabanc and the little crowd outside the Hôtel Leman. Before the war the Hôtel Leman had prided itself upon its patrons and its cuisine, but now in these desperate days it had become a caravanserai catering for “Tavistock Tours,” obscure people who travelled second-class with one suitcase apiece and no spare cash. It was a coupon crowd. It did not smoke cigars, and being largely elderly and feminine it did not enter Monsieur Müller’s shop.

  “Tavistock Tours, monsieur. Picture postcards. No, I have not yet descended to picture postcards.”

  Luce, returning to the sunlit pavement, stood to observe the little crowd outside the Hôtel Leman. As an exile with a secret to cherish he was interested in the vagrant English, though the people waiting to fill the blue charabancs were not of his world. Elderly women of all shapes and sizes predominated, completely obscure and respectable, and obviously sterile so far as poor Monsieur Müller was concerned. None of them would so much as glance at the almost Pompeian emblem hanging from a bracket, a semi-erect and monstrous cigar. One young couple, honeymooners, added a dash of self-conscious youth. There was the inevitable social clown, fat, jocund and facetious, who handed out wit and badinage rather like a butcher slapping down pounds of sausages on a marble slab. Luce strolled along the pavement, filling his pipe as he went, and throwing an artist’s glances at the grey quay, the green lime trees and the lapis of the lake. A white steamer floated in the near distance like some large white bird beyond the pendent foliage of weeping willows.

  He became aware of the fat fellow declaiming:

  “Now then, ladies, what about a little snap before you go charring? Family group, what! Hotel steps. Come on, Mr. and Mrs. Coovey. Bride and bridegroom in the centre.”

  Luce paused on the pavement to watch. A tall woman in black was standing with her back to him, and a little apart from the group as though her angular and uncompromising figure refused to mingle. Possibly she was in no mood to be photographed, or to submit to jocund, male clowning.

  “Now then, Miss Ballard; join the beauty show.”

  “Thank you,” said she; “I have some postcards to buy.”

  She turned, and instantly Luce was confronted by a face out of the past, a peculiarly unpleasant and ominous face with its hard, tense skin and narrow enigmatic eyes. They were like slits emitting gleams of unwelcome recognition. Miss Ballard remembered him, and apparently the recognition aroused in her memories that were like little, sinister, leaping flames.

  Luce gave her one stare, and then, with the air of a man to whom the incident was of no significance, became absorbed in lighting the tobacco in his pipe. His eyes watched the match flame and the smoke. He bit hard on the stem of his pipe. He was conscious of those ominous eyes continuing to observe him. Was the woman going to speak? And if she did, would it matter? He gave deliberate attention to his pipe, and made himself appear unaware of her most disturbing presence. Miss Ballard had diverged to the edge of the path, and he was conscious of her black shape passing by. She moved out of his field of vision, and he remained the meticulous male, intent upon getting his pipe alight, for the business was a ritual.

  Meanwhile, the tourists had grouped themselves on the steps of the Hôtel Leman, and the facetious fellow was holding his camera against his stomach and taking aim. Luce walked on and, passing between the camera and the group upon the steps, turned across the roadway to the quay. Was that damned woman watching him? He forbade himself the impulse that tempted him to turn his head and look. He paused by the railings, and pushing his hat back, stood like a man largely at leisure and enjoying the scene.

  Good God, if Rachel had been with him!

  There was a seat by the jetty towards which the white steamer was gliding, and from the seat you could look from under the hollow shadow of a lime tree at the blue blicker of the lake. Luce sat down there. He was realizing that Rachel must be forbidden the town during the season when the casual English traversed it. Also, a retreat to the mountains would be more than a mere climbing of Olympus.

  He was feeling hot and inwardly ravaged, like a man who had just escaped a shell in the war. Also, he was smoking his pipe as he had smoked it on such an occasion. Was that infernal woman staying at the Hôtel Leman? He had an idea, and rolling himself lazily on the seat, looked carefully over his right shoulder. Damnation, but Miss Ballard was crossing the road towards the quay. She carried a buff-coloured envelope containing her postcards, and the toes of her large black shoes caught the sunlight. He noticed that she had thick ankles.

  Luce left the seat and strolled to the jetty with its green and white kiosk where steamer tickets were purchased. He could pretend that he was waiting for the steamer. The Tavistock Tour party was packing itself into the charabancs under the direction of the company’s courier. Luce watched them, while remaining aware of the approaching figure of Miss Ballard. He had a feeling that the woman was going to speak to him.

  She did.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Luce, I think?�
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  His assumption of surprise was admirable. He stared, smiled, raised a hat.

  “Yes, my name is Luce.”

  “You don’t remember me?”

  “I’m afraid that I cannot say I do.”

  “My name is Ballard.”

  “Ballard? I’m afraid I am still at a loss.”

  “We met at Brandon.”

  Judging by her manner she might have been picking his memory with sinister intent, and again Luce smiled at her.

  “Brandon. O, yes. It comes back to me. You are the lady I once saw at my gate.”

  Her narrow eyes observed him. Was her interference the result of mere casual curiosity, or did she suspect anything? Happening to glance in the direction of the Hôtel Leman he saw that the charabancs were full, and that a man was standing up in one of them, and counting the occupants. Someone was missing.

  “It’s a strangely small world, Miss Ballard.”

  “It is.”

  “And this is a very lovely part of it. Yes, I’m just catching the steamer. I came across from the other side. Just wandering about. I go on to Italy next week.”

  Her grim face still confronted him.

  “I have never been to Italy. Very dear and dirty there, I understand.”

  “O, not universally so. But excuse me, Miss Ballard, are you, by any chance, travelling with that party over there?”

  “I am.”

  “Well, I think they have lost somebody.”

  She withdrew her eyes from his face, and glanced in the direction of the charabancs. The courier in charge had identified the missing traveller. Also, he had spotted Miss Ballard standing on the quay and talking to a man. He waved to her.

  “Miss Ballard, we are due to start.”

  Again Luce smiled at her, and prepared to light a pipe that had gone out.

  “Ships that pass in the night. Bon voyage, Miss Ballard. I suppose you are going on to Guyon?”

  “To-morrow.”

  “Exquisite place, Guyon. Don’t miss the castle. Well, bon voyage. My steamer’s in.”

  He watched her cross the road to meet the ironical glances of certain of her fellow travellers. Now, what exactly had moved her to speak to him? He could postulate no adequate reason, unless——. But were human impulses always adequate and reasonable? Possibly, his apparent failure to recognize her had piqued the woman, and she had insisted upon recognition. Some people are like that.

  He watched the two charabancs move away. So, she was staying at the Hôtel Leman, and to-morrow she would be going on to Guyon, a withered and spiteful woman blown about the world just when this mountain country was in bloom. Had he any reason to doubt the casualness of the coincidence? Miss Ballard had come to see the narcissi! She could not and did not know his secret, for if she had suspected it last year some interfering hand would have groped for them in exile. Should he tell Rachel? He smiled, and stood to watch the steamer discharging its passengers. No, he would keep this most unwelcome incident from Rachel.

  His serenity was assumed, and perhaps he did not expect it wholly to deceive her. She was too subtly part of him, and he of her, for such masks to fool quick eyes.

  “You’re rather late, John.”

  He laughed.

  “Little school-m’arm! But Cerisy is becoming seasonable. I think we will climb the heights to-morrow. Two camp beds and mountain kit. Everything ready?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  She was going to ask him a question. He saw it gathering in her eyes.

  “Did you meet anybody?”

  “Yes, a man I used to know. Just passing through. But I am taking no chances. We don’t want society’s monkey mind picking at our affairs.”

  3

  But the god of Things Trivial had not yet lobbed his last jest at them. Luce woke with a headache. Unusual it might be and ascribable neither to eye nor brain strain, but the back of his head felt sodden with pain, and sitting up caused him nausea.

  Aspirin. O, yes, she had her bottle of aspirin, and there were just seven tablets left in it, a Biblical number.

  “A silly business, Rachel. I never have these things.”

  “We can put off going to the hut.”

  “No need for that. I shall be all right.”

  She felt his forehead.

  “You haven’t a temperature, John?”

  “No.”

  “Sure?”

  “Quite.”

  But she had her thermometer out and took his temperature, to find it consolingly normal. She had never known him ill, and the thought of it frightened her.

  “Do you think you ought to see someone?”

  “No need. I shall be all right in an hour or two.”

  She gave him two aspirin tablets and some coffee, and in half an hour he had fallen asleep. She had left the curtains drawn, and his quiet breathing reassured her. Always she had found qualities of consolation in his sleep, for it was so profound and innocent, and if she could love him for everything, she could love him for the way he slept, so cleanly and quietly, with no stertorous noises or pendulous mouth. She bent down and kissed the hair above his forehead, and with sudden gaiety went out to prepare for the ascent to Olympus.

  Then it was that in checking her stores she found the tea canister nearly empty. How fatuous of her! And no tea that was fit for him could be had without going to Cerisy. Also, her tablets of aspirin had been reduced to five. Why should she not go down to Cerisy while he was asleep? Why not indeed? She could be back in an hour, and he would not even know that she had left him.

  She put on her hat, collected a basket, and listened for a moment outside the bedroom door.

  4

  Luce woke about twenty minutes after she had left the chalet. The ridiculous ache in his head had vanished. He sat up, yawned, and stared at the drawn curtains.

  “Rachel.”

  The silence of the place and its lack of immediate response did not worry him for the moment. He got out of bed, drew the curtains, and after considering the beauty of the day, confronted the business of shaving.

  “Rachel.”

  His calling of her had become so much like the appeal of a child that it was almost a reflex. She was not with him, so he called to her. He was getting into his trousers, and visualizing hot water and soap lather when the silence of the place became as arrestive as a stick thrust into a spinning wheel. Where was she? In the garden? And then an inspired fear seized him. Holding his trousers in place with a large hand, he hurried out into the little hall.

  “Rachel.”

  It took him just thirty seconds to convince himself that she was in neither chalet nor garden. Her hat had gone, the little black hat that sat on her head rather like a French soldier’s helmet. He found himself pulling open the doors of a cupboard. The shopping basket? Yes, it had disappeared. He was suddenly stricken by the significance of her absence. Unshaven chin was forgotten. He jerked himself into his clothes. He was conscious of emitting inward groans as he stooped to lace his shoes.

  Idiot! Why hadn’t he warned her!

  Luce did not cherish an Englishman’s dignity. He ran down the mountain road and through the familiar hamlet where children who were his friends stared to see Monsieur Luce exercising such haste. A yellow dog rushed out of a doorway and followed snarling at his heels. He ignored the beast who was obeying a natural impulse to pursue anything that fled. Luce could and did bless the fact that the hillside was in his favour. Each time the road opened up one of its loops he hoped to see her figure ahead of him between the flowering fields.

  But it was not to be. The upwards and outlying houses of Cerisy came to meet him, and moved to sudden discretion and a sense of dignity he ceased from running. Where would he be most likely to find her? In the épicerie she favoured? But, good god, that too was in the Rue de Parnasse, and within a hundred yards of the Hôtel Leman! Leaving the road, he took to a path and a series of steps which brought him through vineyards and gardens and across the railway line to the main roa
d beside the lake. In a little while this road became the Rue de Parnasse, and he would be able to approach the épicerie without passing the Hôtel Leman. He remembered that he would find a taxi rank under the poplars by the Café de Paris.

  The Rue de Parnasse ran straight before him with its trees and its coloured awnings and its tram lines shimmering in the grey pavé. A blue tram came clanging towards him. Women who had been to the market on the Grand Quai passed him with baskets full of vegetables and fruit. A red object in the distance attracted his attention, the back of a motor-coach waiting outside the Hôtel Leman. He could see luggage being carried out. The Ballard party was preparing to pass on to Guyon.

  Luce blessed God for allowing two taxis to be found on the rank. He crossed the road and hailed the first of them.

  “Suchard’s épicerie. I shall want you to wait there.”

  “Bien, monsieur.”

  The man observed Luce’s unshaven chin. The gentleman appeared hot and in a hurry.

  When the taxi drew up outside the shop, Luce looking through the glass partition saw Tavistock Tours assembling upon the steps of the Hôtel Leman. The risk would have to be taken. He opened the door and bolted across the pavement into Suchard’s, and there by the caisse, paying for her kilo of tea, stood Rachel.

  Her face had the innocence of ignorance.

  “John, I thought you were in bed.”

  Luce said never a word, but putting an arm round her, and keeping his large person between her and the steps of the Hôtel Leman, he hurried her across the pavement and into the taxi.

  “Chalet Paradis. Yes, above St. Pierre.”

  Most ungallantly Luce pulled Rachel’s little chapeau over her eyes, and enveloped her in his corner in a concealing embrace.

  “Lie still.”

  “John, dear!”

  “Lie still.”

  The taxi drew out, and Luce realized that the driver would have to pass the motor-coach, and the crowd on the hotel steps. Well, it could not be helped, and if anyone stared they would see a man embracing a woman.