I gave the car an extra turn of speed. The full harvest moon shone down on the road and over the dark hedges and the fields sleeping at either hand. There is a path that comes through those fields. I had often used it myself. It brings you straight on to the road. There is no pavement. And that night came two lovers, oblivious of all save themselves under the enchantment of the moon. Oblivious of the car, a brutal thing that could not exist in their fairyland.
Straight out into the road they walked, arms wrapped around each other, and only then, caught in the sudden blaze of headlights did they pause, wrenched back to the world of sense. Then they stood stock-still while my heart cried: “Oh, poor young fools! Leap! Backwards or forwards. But leap!” and Nellie’s hand went to her mouth, smothering a cry.
They did not leap. They dithered now forward, now backward. On me, then, the decision fell, and I drove the car full pelt between them and the hedge through which they had come. I suppose it was all a matter of three seconds, and already joy was springing up in me at having missed them, when I found that the car was not coming round on to the road again. There was a tearing of shrubs and saplings, a sudden remembrance, piercing me like a knife, that the hedge hid a sharply-falling bank. Then we were through the hedge, and my mind was recording everything with a dreadful slow-motion exactitude: the bonnet sticking its snout into the earth half-way down the bank, the end of the car lifting, poising, dropping forward, the car sliding with us beneath it for a little way, then coming to a standstill. I raised my arms, trying foolishly to lift the weight that oppressed us; I tried to move my legs, and agony forced a cry from me; I called “Nellie! Nellie! Are you all right?” but there was no answer, and when I ceased to shout and struggle in order to concentrate all my attention on listening for her breathing, I fell into panic, for there was no breathing, no movement, no sound at all, except the sound of men shouting and of hands rasping on the fabric of the car as it was seized and lifted.
A fractured thigh for me. A broken neck for Nellie. They said she must have died instantly. A statement was taken from me in hospital, but I could not attend the inquest. Dermot came down from London and made the formal identification. Dermot and Sheila arranged and attended the funeral in the Southern Cemetery. It was a long time before I saw the grave. Early in the new year I hobbled out of the nursing-home, whither I had gone from hospital. My new car was waiting for me, with a chauffeur at the wheel. I did not think I should want to drive again in a hurry, so here was Martin, a pleasant-looking youth enough, but wearing that impassive mask that chauffeurs have. Oliver would be pleased, anyway.
The amenities are beautifully considered at the Southern Cemetery. There is a monumental mason’s where you may back your fancy, letting it range from a simple marble “surround” to a variety of angels: angels with heads bowed in sorrow, angels erect and triumphant bearing rewarding wreaths, angels kneeling with hands joined in prayer, and just angels, ready to do for a fee paid to the monumental mason a mercenary watchman’s job of standing guard till judgment day. Next to the monumental mason’s is an excellent public-house, where fortitude may be acquired before the cemetery is entered and sorrow assuaged when it is left.
The car stopped at the cemetery gates, and in the drear winter afternoon the marble angels shone, reminding me of that far-off day in Blackpool when Nellie and I considered the pictured angels on the walls of our boarding-house. I remembered, pottering among the graves with a stick in each hand, how that night she had taken me walking and how we had reached the cliffs at Norbeck and stood there holding on to one another while a sullen sea thudded on the beach and the wind howled round us in the dark.
I wondered whether I could have made life happier for Nellie. I had done all that the copybooks ordered. I had given her a home and supported her handsomely in it. I had given her a child that a mother might be proud of. I had been monogamous. Yet, walking through that flat expanse, under the grey lowering Manchester sky, with the monuments of the innumerable dead strewing the ground as far as the eye could reach, I reflected that I might easily have been a worse man and a better husband.
Dermot had told me how to find the grave amid that afflicting wilderness of graves, and it was with a shock that my eyes fell presently upon a humble piece of marble bearing the name Nellie Essex. At first, my mind, bemused by reverie, merely felt surprise that so soon Nellie should seem so much at home among the dead. Already the lettering looked old, the grave unkempt, as though it harboured an habituated and domestic ghost. Then I realised, with a catch of the breath, that I was looking at my mother’s grave.
I had not known her Christian name. To my father, and to all of us children, she was always “Mother” when she was anything at all more than someone to be casually addressed. I had not seen the grave before. It seemed to me unbearably poignant that in such a place, at such a time, I should learn the simple secret of her identity, of the one thing that had been hers alone, her name. It was all she had, and no one had bothered about it.
Standing on the path, leaning on my two sticks, I gazed for a long time at the grave, then turned, walked a pace or two, and there, on the other side of the path, was the mound of clay that I had come to seek. Here, also, lay Nellie Essex, unrecorded as yet in marble, sleeping beneath the sodden remnants of the flowers that pity had heaped for concealment of the crude fact of burial. Broad white satin ribbon, stained by the earth into which the rain had beaten it, was draggled among the flowers. There were a few black-bordered cards, with the writing already indecipherable, anonymous valedictions.
Standing there in the path with a stick in each hand, I could almost touch the two graves of the women who, both, had been Nellie Essex. They had not known each other. At most, perhaps, in years gone by the younger Nellie Essex had been accustomed to hear her mother speak of Mrs. Essex for whom, in kindness, a bar of soap must be wrapped with the week’s wash.
Washed... washed... washed... Sweeping through the gates of the New Jerusalem, washed in the blood of the Lamb.
I went slowly away, leaving to their sleep side by side two women who had loved me and whom I had not loved.
*
That was a Saturday afternoon. There was a letter waiting for me at the nursing-home when I got back. “Dear Uncle Bill”—I glanced at the signature—“Maeve.” She was coming to see me tomorrow. “And you’ve got two things to thank for the pleasure—first, Livia; and, secondly, the intelligent management of this theatre which doesn’t put the play on on Mondays. That gives us a lovely long week-end. I wonder when all managements will be so sensible and save poor actresses from nervous breakdowns? Livia is bringing me in her car. Man! She’s a fiend of a driver, and that’s just as well—there’ll be so much more time to spend with you. The Sunday trains are dreadful. We shall start as soon as it’s light, and you will wake up with burning ears, for we shall be talking about you all the way. Livia isn’t doing this for me—oh dear no! She’s dying to meet you. She’s read all your books, and I don’t think she quite believes that I know you. How wonderful to be a Person, whom mere people want to know! However, I live in hopes. It’ll come!”
Well, that was a pleasant letter to get. I didn’t feel quite so lonely now. I had my own room at the nursing-home. A maid came in and pulled the curtains, shutting out the prospect of bare boughs and evening mists. She switched on the lights, and the primrose walls and pale green curtains seemed to draw closer and more comfortably about me. My fire was going well, my tea was brought in.
Livia... That would be the girl Dermot had told me about when he was up for the funeral. I remembered that he had seemed a bit hurt. He and Sheila and Eileen were living at Hampstead. There was plenty of room for Maeve, but she preferred to live alone—“or rather with a girl—Vaynol—Livia Vaynol,” Dermot said. There was a snap in his voice.
“He’s jealous, Bill. Take no notice of him,” Sheila said. “It’ll do Maeve all the good in the world to make her own friends and live as she wants to live. After all, she’s had four years of k
nocking about with Mary Latter. She’s no fool.”
“She’s only eighteen,” Dermot objected.
“And how old is Rory? You’ve pushed him out into the world.”
Dermot’s eyes sparkled angrily. “Is there any comparison between the two things?” he demanded. “Rory’s with a responsible man.”
“He’s not where we can descend on him in ten minutes as Maeve is,” Sheila persisted. “Livia’s all right. She’ll do Maeve no harm.”
There was no more said at the time. Livia Vaynol, I gathered later, was not much older than Maeve—twenty or so. She was an orphan with a little money: just enough to allow her to contemplate with humour a series of failures. She had scrounged a small part in the Mary Latter Company. That was where Maeve had met her. But she was not good enough. Then she had been in the chorus of a musical comedy and had hated it and left. She had dabbled with writing. She had, indeed, had a few short stories published in magazines. Now she was trying both to compose songs and to do what Sheila vaguely called “designing.” “You know,” she said, “she just draws shapes—squiggles—that look as if they meant something, but I can’t see what. Dermot says they’re good. He admits that much. He says that some day he may take her up for carpets and hangings and that sort of thing. Exclusive designs. The fact is, the poor child hasn’t discovered what she wants to do, and she’s not going to sit down and just live on her little income. I like her for that. And she’s so good-humoured about it all—never discouraged.”
Well, that was Miss Livia Vaynol; that was all I knew about her.
*
“My dear, what a woman you are!”
Maeve had come impetuously into the room. Crippled as I was, I couldn’t get up quickly, and she stood looking down at me, holding both my hands in hers, as I sat in my chair. She was wearing a close-fitting little coat of grey astrakhan and a round hat of the same material. Her face was as white as ever, but the black eyes that had a hint of blue in them swam with pleasure, and her mouth was very red. Her hands gripped mine tight, and her body, which had grown tall and flexible, swayed above me with an emotion that I could feel passing into her hands. I wondered if she would kiss me. She didn’t.
She sat down at my feet, leaning against the arm of my chair. “You poor dear,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t let’s talk about that. Tell me about your journey. And where is your friend—my admirer?”
“It was a wonderful journey, I suppose, as those journeys go. But I hate motoring, you know. It doesn’t make me sick, thank God, but it’s such a waste of time. Except that I was coming to see you.” She gave my knee a pat. “That made it bearable.”
“And when am I to see Miss Vaynol?”
“Oh, Livia’ll be up in a moment. She’s seeing that her precious car’s all right.”
“Tell me about your play.” I tamped down the tobacco in my pipe, and Maeve sprang up to get the matches from the mantelpiece, struck one, and held it while I puffed.
“Oh, the play’s grand,” she said, sinking down to the floor again, “and I’m on in every act. Five minutes in the first, then a really important scene lasting for eleven minutes in the second, and off and on a lot in the third. It’s a marvellous chance.”
“And you’re making good use of it. I know. Just hand me that book.”
She brought the book from the table. “See,” I said. “Here’s what The Times says: ‘Miss Maeve O’Riorden is a new actress who brought to the part of Henrietta Shane a talent that gave us both a fine performance and, what is more important, the promise of better work in the future.’ And here’s the Telegraph...”
“Oh, Man, that’s sweet of you—to bother with my old cuttings,” Maeve cried, jumping up and looking at me with her eyes shining.
“Well, look at the book,” I said. “See what lovely stout leather binding it has! See how many pages! I had it specially made. And look at the title-page, written in my own best hand: ‘Maeve’s Progress.’”
“Oh, you shouldn’t! You shouldn’t!” she cried.
“Oh, yes, I should. See, they’re all here. This is the very first. It crept into an Accrington paper when you were on your first tour with Mary Latter. Whitby, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Carlisle, Birmingham. I’ve got your whole career taped out. Look! Here’s one from a Cape Town paper—that’s Mary Latter’s South African tour.”
“You darling!” she said. “Are you so much interested in me—in my career,” she corrected herself with a blush, “as all that?”
“This is only the preamble,” I laughed. “Wait till we come to the important chapter: ‘Maeve O’Riorden in William Essex’s plays.’”
She took the big book in her slender hands, placed it upon the carpet, and turned the leaves. “There’s a terrible lot of pages,” she sighed. “I wonder shall we fill them all?” She lifted to mine the eyes swimming with emotion in her white face. “No one cares so much about me as you do,” she said. “You’ve wanted this from the beginning, haven’t you, as much as I have?”
“My dear, I’ve wanted it as much as I’ve ever wanted anything, except perhaps to see Oliver doing things that will make me as proud as you do.”
“Oh, Oliver.” She got up and placed the book on the table. “And what is Oliver going to do?”
“I don’t know. He’s away at school now.”
“Yes, I know. He’s fifteen, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Older than I was when I went off with Mary Latter.”
“You mean—?”
“He’s having a jammy life, isn’t he?” She shrugged her shoulders with a faint dislike, then turned eagerly at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. “Livia!” She opened the door, and Livia Vaynol came in. “This is Uncle Bill,” said Maeve, “or, if you want to be reverent, William Essex.”
Livia Vaynol was the first woman I knew to wear short hair. As she came into the room she pulled off a leather motoring helmet and at the same time shook her hair free from constriction. The shake was hardly necessary, for the hair seemed of its own accord to ray out suddenly into a nimbus of spun gold round her head. I think that hair, which had its own startling quality of vitality, was the first thing anyone noticed about Livia Vaynol. It was the colour of corn, a gold that was almost white, yet sparkling and gathering to itself any light there was. Livia knew all about the attractiveness of that hair, and I was afterwards to discover that her favourite hat, whenever the occasion made it possible, was the simplest thing, fitting close to her head like a skull cap, allowing the hair to flow out all round it. Always the hat was of rich velvet: sometimes crimson, sometimes deep blue.
But at the moment there was no hat: there was nothing but that sudden apparition of the golden hair, so immediately impressive that I did not at once notice the broad white brow, the eyes that had the blue colour of a cornflower, the compassionate mouth, and the way the whole face fell down to the small pointed chin, so that it was shaped like the petal of a rose.
She was wearing a stained leather jerkin, and below that a tweed skirt and brogues. Her clothes seemed altogether too utilitarian for so decorative a person. We shook hands, and I said: “Miss Vaynol, you look like a fine flower in a jam-jar.”
“I’ve brought a suit-case with me,” she said, “containing one or two porcelain vases.”
Her red mouth opened in a smile, revealing the even whiteness of her teeth.
“Yes, Uncle Bill,” said Maeve, “you needn’t worry about that, if you’re thinking of taking us out to dinner. Livia’s a dressy young piece, though you’d hardly believe it to look at her now.”
“It certainly is my intention to take you out to dinner,” I said.
“Do you remember the first time I did that? The night we saw Irving and Ellen Terry? It seems a long time ago.”
“Ages.”
“And we drove home in a four-wheeler. You were asleep in my arms, with my coat pulled round you.”
“The child hasn’t forgotten it, Mr. Essex,” Livia said.
“It’s a memory she treasures like a pearl. She’s told me about it. Don’t blush, Maeve, darling. I’d be as proud as Punch to have famous men tucking me up in their coats. I was brought up among stockbrokers. They never called themselves that, of course. They were ‘in the City.’ Wonderful life, isn’t it—buying something you’ve never seen from someone you’ve never met, and selling it for more than you gave for it to someone you’ve never heard of. Wonderful fellows. I’ve written a song about them. Like to hear it? You shall, anyway.”
Maeve, clearly, was used to the oddities of Miss Livia Vaynol. She was unsurprised by this sudden threat to break into song. For my part, though the time was to come when I should hear Livia’s songs before anyone else, I was perturbed when Livia’s voice broke into the silence of that Sunday afternoon in Victoria Park.
Livia’s voice was not good for singing, but the words amused me, and I congratulated her.
“Oh, a trifle,” she said airily. “First-fruits. You see the idea? Chorus girls with top hats, marching to and fro across the stage, carrying attaché-cases. There’s much more to come. I have great schemes for this young woman, Maeve O’Riorden.”
“But Maeve’s an actress, not a singer,” I protested. “’Pon my soul, Miss Vaynol, I’ve set my heart on making Maeve an actress for years past, and we can’t have you butting in and turning her into a ballad-singer.”
Livia made a gesture that I was to get to know as characteristic. She raised both hands to the golden fluff-ball of her hair and threw them up sharply as though she would toss the bright bubble into the air. “Poof!” she said. “An actress isn’t just a solemn hussy reciting someone else’s words. An actress must learn to do everything. She must dance, she must sing. Hasn’t Maeve told you about the dancing and singing?”
“No.”
“Oh, you don’t know half the tricks we’re up to. Yes, the child’s working. Singing, tap-dancing, everything. We’ll make her an all-rounder yet.”
I looked at Maeve questioningly. “It’s all true, Uncle Bill,” she said, “and I’m loving it. Can’t you imagine a big musical show, with everything for a leading lady?—singing, acting, dancing? I’d love that.”
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