Miss Entwhistle started. ‘Tomorrow?’ she repeated. ‘Really? Does he? I mean, ought he? Somehow I had supposed Saturday. The week-end somehow suggests Saturdays to me.’
‘No. He—we,’ Lucy corrected herself, ‘come down on Fridays. He’s sure to be down in time for lunch.’
‘Oh is he?’ said Miss Entwhistle, thinking a great many things very quickly. ‘Well, if it is his habit,’ she went on. ‘I am sure too that he will. Do you remember how we set our clocks by him when he came to tea in Eaton Terrace?’
Lucy smiled, and the remembrance of those days of love, and of all his dear, funny ways, flooded her heart and washed out for a moment the honeymoon, the birthday, everything that had happened since.
Miss Entwhistle couldn’t but notice the unmistakable love-look. ‘Oh I’m so glad you love each other, so much,’ she said with all her heart. ‘You know, Lucy, I was afraid that perhaps this house——’
She stopped, because adequately to discuss The Willows in all its aspects needed, she felt, perfect health on both sides.
‘Yes, I don’t think a house matters when people love each other,’ said Lucy.
‘Not a bit. Not a bit,’ agreed Miss Entwhistle. Not even, she thought robustly, when it was a house with a recent dreadful history. Love—she hadn’t herself experienced it, but what was an imagination for except to imagine with?—love was so strong an armour that nothing could reach one and hurt one through it. That was why lovers were so selfish. They sat together inside their armour perfectly safe, entirely untouchable, completely uninterested in what happened to the rest of the world. ‘Besides,’ she went on aloud, ‘you’ll alter it.’
Lucy’s smile at that was a little sickly. Aunt Dot’s optimism seemed to her extravagant. She was unable to see herself altering The Willows.
‘You’ll have all your father’s furniture and books to put about,’ said Aunt Dot, continuing in optimism. ‘Why, you’ll be able to make the place really quite—quite——’
She was going to say habitable, but ate another piece of toast instead.
‘Yes, I expect I’ll have the books here, anyhow,’ said Lucy. ‘There’s a sitting-room upstairs with room in it.’
‘Is there?’ said Miss Entwhistle, suddenly very attentive.
‘Lots of room. It’s to be my sitting-room, and the books could go there. Except that—except that——’
‘Except what?’ asked Miss Entwhistle.
‘I don’t know. I don’t much want to alter that room. It was Vera’s.’
‘I should alter it beyond recognition,’ said Miss Entwhistle firmly.
Lucy was silent. She felt too flabby, after her three days with a temperature, to engage in discussion with anybody firm.
‘That’s to say,’ said Miss Entwhistle, ‘if you like having the room at all. I should have thought——’
‘Oh yes, I like having the room,’ said Lucy flushing.
Then it was Miss Entwhistle who was silent; and she was silent because she didn’t believe Lucy really could like having the actual room from which that unfortunate Vera met her death. It wasn’t natural. The child couldn’t mean it. She needed feeding up. Perhaps they had better not talk about rooms; not till Lucy was stronger. Perhaps they had better not talk at all, because everything they said was bound in the circumstances to lead either to Everard or Vera.
‘Wouldn’t you like me to read aloud to you a little while before you go back to bed?’ she asked, when Lizzie came in to clear away the tea-things.
Lucy thought this a very good idea. ‘Oh do, Aunt Dot,’ she said; for she too was afraid of what talking might lead to. Aunt Dot was phenomenally quick. Lucy felt she couldn’t bear it, she simply couldn’t bear it, if Aunt Dot were to think that perhaps Everard …. So she said quite eagerly, ‘Oh do, Aunt Dot,’ and not until she had said it did she remember that the books were locked up, and the key was on Everard’s watch-chain. Then she sat looking up at Aunt Dot with a startled, conscience-stricken face.
‘What is it, Lucy?’ asked Miss Entwhistle, wondering why she had turned red.
Just in time Lucy remembered that there were Vera’s books. ‘Do you mind very much going up to the sitting-room?’ she asked. ‘Vera’s books——’
Miss Entwhistle did mind very much going up to the sitting-room, and saw no reason why Vera’s books should be chosen. Why should she have to read Vera’s books? Why did Lucy want just those, and look so odd and guilty about it? Certainly the child needed feeding up. It wasn’t natural, it was unwholesome, this queer attraction she appeared to feel towards Vera.
She didn’t say anything of this, but remarked that there was a room called the library in the house which suggested books, and hadn’t she better choose something from out of that,—go down, instead of go up.
Lucy, painfully flushed, looked at her. Nothing would induce her to tell her about the key. Aunt Dot would think it so—ridiculous.
‘Yes, but Everard——’ she stammered. ‘They’re rather special books—he doesn’t like them taken out of the room——’
‘Oh,’ said Miss Entwhistle, trying hard to avoid any opinion of any sort.
‘But I don’t see why you should go up all those stairs, Aunt Dot darling,’ Lucy went on. ‘Lizzie will, won’t you, Lizzie? Bring down some of the books—any of them. An armful.’
Lizzie, thus given carte blanche, brought down the six first books from the top shelf, and set them on the table beside Lucy.
Lucy recognised the cover of one of them at once,—it was Wuthering Heights.
Miss Entwhistle took it up, read its title in silence, and put it down again.
The next one was Emily Brontë’s collected poems.
Miss Entwhistle took it up, read its title in silence, and put it down again.
The third one was Thomas Hardy’s Time’s Laughing-Stocks.
Miss Entwhistle took it up, read its title in silence, and put it down again.
The other three were Baedekers.
‘Well, I don’t think there’s anything I want to read here,’ she said.
Lizzie asked if she should take them away then, and bring some more; and presently she reappeared with another armful.
These were all Baedekers.
‘Curious,’ said Miss Entwhistle.
Then Lucy remembered that she, too, beneath her distress on Saturday when she pulled out one after the other of Vera’s books in her haste to understand her, to get comfort, to get, almost she hoped, counsel, had felt surprised at the number of Baedekers. The greater proportion of the books in Vera’s shelves were guide-books and time-tables. But there had been other things,—‘If you were to bring some out of a different part of the bookcase,’ she suggested to Lizzie; who thereupon removed the Baedekers, and presently reappeared with more books.
This time they were miscellaneous, and Miss Entwhistle turned them over with a kind of reverential reluctance. That poor thing; this day last year she was probably reading them herself. It seemed sacrilege for two strangers …. Merciful that one couldn’t see into the future. What would the poor creature have thought of the picture presented at that moment,—the figure in the blue dressing-gown, sitting in the middle of all the things that had been hers such a very little while before? Well, perhaps she would have been glad they weren’t hers any longer, glad that she had finished, was done with them. These books suggested such tiredness, such a—yes, such a wish for escape …. There was more Hardy,—all the poems this time in one volume. There was Pater—The Child in the House and Emerald Uthwart—Miss Entwhistle, familiar with these, shook her head: that peculiar dwelling on death in them, that queer, fascinated inability to get away from it, that beautiful but sick wistfulness—no, she certainly wouldn’t read these. There was a book called In the Strange South Seas; and another about some island in the Pacific; and another about life in the desert; and one or two others, more of the flamboyant guide-book order, describing remote, glowing places ….
Suddenly Miss Entwhistle felt uncomf
ortable. She put down the book she was holding, and folded her hands in her lap and gazed out of the window at the hills on the other side of the river. She felt as if she had been prying, and prying unpardonably. The books people read,—was there ever anything more revealing? No, she refused to examine Vera’s books further. And apart from that horrible feeling of prying upon somebody defenceless, upon somebody pitiful, she didn’t wish to allow the thought these books suggested to get any sort of hold on her mind. It was essential, absolutely essential, that it shouldn’t. And if Lucy ever——
She got up and went to the window. Lucy’s eyes followed her, puzzled. The gardener was still mowing the lawn, working very hard at it as though he were working against time. She watched his back, bent with hurry as he and the boy laboriously pushed and pulled the machine up and down; and then she caught sight of the terrace just below, and the flags.
This was a dreadful house. Whichever way one looked one was entangled in a reminder. She turned away quickly, and there was that little loved thing in her blue wrapper, propped up on Vera’s pillows, watching her with puzzled anxiety. Nothing could harm that child, she was safe, so long as she loved and believed in Everard; but suppose some day—suppose gradually—suppose a doubt should creep into her mind whether perhaps, after all, Vera’s fall … suppose a question should get into her head whether perhaps, after all, Vera’s death——?
Aunt Dot knew Lucy’s face so well that it seemed absurd to examine it now, searching for signs in its features and expression of enough character, enough nerves, enough—this, if there were enough of it, might by itself carry her through—sense of humour. Yes, she had a beautiful sweep of forehead; all that part of her face was lovely—so calm and open, with intelligent, sweet eyes. But were those dear eyes intelligent enough? Was not sweetness really far more manifest in them than intelligence? After that her face went small, and then, looking bigger than it was because of her little face, was her kind, funny mouth. Generous; easily forgiving; quick to be happy; quick to despair,—Aunt Dot, looking anxiously at it, thought she saw all this in the shape of Lucy’s mouth. But had the child strength? Had she the strength that would be needed equally—supposing that doubt and that question should ever get into her head—for staying or for going; for staying or for running … oh, but running, running, for her very life ….
With a violent effort Miss Entwhistle shook herself free from these thoughts. Where in heaven’s name was her mind wandering to? It was intolerable, this tyranny of suggestion in everything one looked at here, in everything one touched. And Lucy, who was watching her and who couldn’t imagine why Aunt Dot should be so steadfastly gazing at her mouth, naturally asked, ‘Is anything the matter with my face?’
Then Miss Entwhistle managed to smile, and came and sat down again beside the sofa. ‘No,’ she said, taking her hand. ‘But I don’t think I want to read after all. Let us talk.’
And holding Lucy’s hand, who looked a little afraid at first but soon grew content on finding what the talk was to be about, she proceeded to discuss supper, and whether a poached egg or a cup of beef-tea contained the greater amount of nourishment.
XXX
Also she presently told her, approaching it with caution, for she was sure Lucy wouldn’t like it, that as Everard was coming down next day she thought it better to go back to Eaton Terrace in the morning.
‘You two love-birds won’t want me,’ she said gaily, expecting and prepared for opposition; but really, as the child was getting well so quickly, there was no reason why she and Everard should be forced to begin practising affection for each other here and now. Besides, in the small bag she brought there had only been a nightgown and her washing things, and she couldn’t go on much longer on only that.
To her surprise Lucy not only agreed but looked relieved. Miss Entwhistle was greatly surprised, and also greatly pleased. ‘She adores him,’ she thought, ‘and only wants to be alone with him. If Everard makes her as happy as all that, who cares what he is like to me or to anybody else in the world?’
And all the horrible, ridiculous things she had been thinking half an hour before were blown away like so many cobwebs.
Just before half-past seven, while she was in her room on the other side of the house tidying herself before facing Chesterton and the evening meal—she had reduced it to the merest skeleton of a meal, but Chesterton insisted on waiting, and all the usual ceremonies were observed—she was startled by the sound of wheels on the gravel beneath the window. It could only be Everard. He had come.
‘Dear me,’ said Miss Entwhistle to herself,—and she who had planned to be gone so neatly before his arrival!
It would be idle to pretend that she wasn’t very much perturbed,—she was; and the brush with which she was tidying her pretty grey hair shook in her hand. Dinner alone with Everard,—well, at least let her be thankful that he hadn’t arrived a few minutes later and found her actually sitting in his chair. What would have happened if he had? Miss Entwhistle, for all her dismay, couldn’t help laughing. Also, she encouraged herself for the encounter by remembering the doctor. Behind his authority she was secure. She had developed, since Tuesday, from an uninvited visitor into an indispensable adjunct. Not a nurse; Lucy hadn’t at any moment been positively ill enough for a nurse; but an adjunct.
She listened, her brush suspended. There was no mistaking it: it was certainly Everard, for she heard his voice. The wheels of the cab, after the interval necessary for ejecting him, turned round again on the drive, crunching much less, and went away, and presently there was his well-known deliberate, heavy tread coming up the uncarpeted staircase. Thank God for bedrooms, thought Miss Entwhistle, fervently brushing. Where would one be without them and bathrooms,—places of legitimate lockings-in, places even the most indignant host was bound to respect?
Now this wasn’t the proper spirit in which to go down and begin getting fond of Everard and giving him the opportunity of getting fond of her, as she herself presently saw. Besides, at that very moment Lucy was probably in his arms, all alight with joyful surprise, and if he could make Lucy so happy there must be enough of good in him to enable him to fulfil the very mild requirements of Lucy’s aunt. Just bare pleasantness, bare decency would be enough. She stoutly assured herself of her certainty of being fond of Everard if only he would let her. Sufficiently fond of him, that is; she didn’t suppose any affection she was going to feel for him would ever be likely to get the better of her reason.
Immediately on Wemyss’s arrival the silent house had burst into feverish life. Doors banged, feet ran; and now Lizzie came hurrying along the passage and knocked at the door and told her breathlessly that dinner would be later—not for at least another half hour, because Mr Wemyss had come unexpectedly, and cook had to——
She didn’t finish the sentence, she was in such a hurry to be off.
Miss Entwhistle, her simple preparations being complete, had nothing left to do but sit in one of those wickerwork chairs with thin, hard, cretonne-covered upholstery, which are sometimes found in inhospitable spare-rooms, and wait.
She found this bad for her morale. There wasn’t a book in the room, or she would have distracted her thoughts by reading. She didn’t want dinner. She would have best liked to get into the bed she hadn’t yet slept once in, and stay there till it was time to go home, but her pride blushed scarlet at such a cowardly desire. She arranged herself, therefore, in the chair, and, since she couldn’t read, tried to remember something to say over to herself instead,—some poem, or verse of a poem, to take her attention off the coming dinner; and she was shocked to find, as she sat there with her eyes shut to keep out the light that glared on her from the middle of the ceiling, that she could remember nothing but fragments: loose bits floating derelict round her mind, broken spars that didn’t even belong, she was afraid, to any really magnificent whole. How Jim would have scolded her,—Jim who forgot nothing that was beautiful.
By nature cool, in pious habits bred,
She lo
oked on husbands with a virgin’s dread ….
Now where did that come from? And why should it come at all?
Such was the tone and manners of them all
No married lady at the house would call ….
And that, for instance? She couldn’t remember ever having read any poem that could contain these lines, yet she must have; she certainly hadn’t invented them.
And this,—an absurd German thing Jim used to quote and laugh at:
Der Sultan winkt, Zuleika schweigt,
Und zeigt sich gänzlich abgeneight ….
Why should a thing like that rise now to the surface of her mind and float round on it, while all the noble verse she had read and enjoyed, which would have been of such use and support to her at this juncture, was nowhere to be found, not a shred of it, in any corner of her brain?
What a brain, thought Miss Entwhistle, disgusted, sitting up very straight in the wickerwork chair, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes shut; what a contemptible anaemic brain, deserting her like this, only able to throw up to the surface when stirred, out of all the store of splendid stuff put so assiduously into it during years and years of life, couplets.
A sound she hadn’t yet heard began to crawl round the house, and, even while she wondered what it was, increased and increased till it seemed to her at last as if it must fill the universe and reach to Eaton Terrace.
It was that gong. Become active. Heavens, and what activity. She listened amazed. The time it went on! It went on and on, beating in her ears like the crack of doom.
When the three great final strokes were succeeded by silence, she got up from her chair. The moment had come. A last couplet floated through her brain,—her brain seemed to clutch at it:
Betwixt the stirrup and the ground
She mercy sought, she mercy found ….
Now where did that come from? she asked herself distractedly, nervously passing one hand over her already perfectly tidy hair and opening the door with the other.
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