"You have too long an opinion of yourself," was Eileen's parting flash.
IX.
The next evening she sat in the drawing-room before dinner, softly playing an accompaniment to her thoughts. Why didn't she feel anything about Robert Maper except a mild irritation at the destruction of so truly platonic a converse? In a book, of which his proposal savoured, she would have found him quite a romantic person. In the actuality she felt as frigid as if his marble forehead was chilling her, and what she remembered most acutely was his fishlike gasping. Then, too, the contradictoriness of his social attitude, his desire to make her a rich drone, his shame at his mother, his reclusive shyness-all the weaknesses of the man-came to obscure her sense of his literary idealism, if not, indeed, to reveal it as a mere coquetry with fine ideas and coarse clothes. And then for a moment the humour of being Mrs. Maper's daughter-in-law appealed to her, and she laughed to herself in soft duet with the music.
And in the middle of the duet Mrs. Maper herself burst in, with her bodice half hooked and her hair half done.
"What's this I hear, Miss Hirish Himpudence, of your goings-on with my son?"
Eileen swung round on her stool. "I beg your pardon," she said.
"Oh, you can't get out of it by beggin' my pardon, creepin' into the library like a mouse-and it's a nice sly mouse you are, too, but there's never a mouse without its cat-"
"She'd have done better to do your hair and mind her business," said Eileen, calmly.
Mrs. Maper's forefinger shot heavenwards. "It was you as ought to have minded your business. I didn't pay you like a lady and feed you like a duchess to set your cap at your betters. But I told Mr. Maper what 'ud come of it if we let you heat with us, though I didn't dream what a sly little mouse-"
The torrent went on and on. Eileen as in a daze watched the theatric forefinger-now pointed at the floor as if to the mouse-hole, now leaping ceilingwards like the cat,-and her main feeling was professional. She was watching her pupil, storing up in her memory the mispronunciations and vulgarisms for later insinuative improvement. Only a tithe of her was aware of the impertinence. But suddenly she heard herself interrupting quietly.
"I shall not sleep under your roof another night." Mrs. Maper paused so abruptly that her forefinger fell limp. She was not sure she meant to give her companion notice, and have the trouble of training another, and she certainly did not wish to be dismissed instead of dismissing.
"Silly chit!" she said in more conciliatory tones. "And where will you sleep?"
But Eileen now felt she must obey her own voice-the voice of her outraged pride, perhaps even of Brian Boru himself. "Good-by. I'll take some things in a handbag and send for my box in the morning."
Mrs. Maper's hand pointed to the ceiling. "And is that the way you treat a lady-you're no lady, I tell you that. I demand a month's notice or I shall summons you."
At this juncture it occurred to Eileen that this might have been her mother-in-law, and a smile danced into her eyes.
"Himpudent Hirish hussy! Oh, but I'll have the lore of you. Don't forget I'm the wife of a Justice of the Peace."
"Very well; you get Justice, I want Peace." And Eileen fled to her room.
She had hardly begun packing her handbag when she heard the door locked from the outside with a savage snap and a cry of, "I'll learn you who's mistress here, my lady."
Eileen smiled. She was only on the second floor, and captivity revived all her girlish prankishness. She now began to enjoy the whole episode. That she was out of place, out of character, out of lodging even, was nothing beside the humour of this incursion into real life of the melodrama she had mocked at. Was she not the innocent heroine entrapped by the villain? Fortunately, she would not need the hero to rescue her. She went on packing. When her handbag was ready she looked about for means to escape. She opened her windows and studied the drop and the odd bits of helpful rainpipe. Descent was not so easy as she had imagined. Short of tearing the sheets into strips (and that might really bring her within the J.P.'s purview) or of picking the lock (which seemed even more burglarious, not to mention more difficult) she might really remain trapped. However, there would be time to think properly when she had packed her big box. Half an hour passed cheerfully in the folding of dresses to an underplay of planned escapes, and she had just locked the box, when Mrs. Maper's voice pierced the door panel.
"Well, are you ready to come to supper?"
The governess's instinct corrected "dinner." Mrs. Maper when excited was always tripping into this betrayal of auld lang syne, but she preserved a disdainful silence.
"Eileen, why don't you hanser?"
Still silence. The key grated in the lock.
Eileen looked round desperately. The thought of meeting Mrs. Maper again was intolerable. The mirrored door of the rifled wardrobe stood ajar, revealing an enticing emptiness. Snatching up her handbag and her hat, she crept inside and closed the door noiselessly upon herself. "The wardrobe mouse," she thought, smiling.
"Well, my lady!" Mrs. Maper dashed through the door, in her dinner-gown and diamonds, her forefinger hovering, balanced, between earth and heaven. She saw nothing but an answering figure ribboned and jewelled, that dashed at her and pointed its forefinger menacingly.
The appearance of this figure as from behind the glass shut out from her mind the idea of another figure behind it. The packed box, neat and new-labelled, the absence of the handbag and of any sign of occupancy, the open windows, the silence, all told their lying tale.
"The Hirish witch!" she screamed.
She ran from one window to the other seeking for a sign of the escaped or the escapade. She was relieved to find no batter of brains and blood spoiling the green lawn. How had the trick been done? It did not even occur to her to look under the bed, so hypnotised was she by the sense of a flown bird. Eileen almost betrayed herself by giggling, as at the real stage melodrama.
When Mrs. Maper ran downstairs to interrogate the servants-eruption into the kitchen was one of her incurable habits-Eileen slipped through the wide-flung door, down the staircase, and then, seeing the butler ahead, turned sharp off to the little-used part of the corridor and so into the library. She made straight for the iron staircase to the grounds, and came face to face with Robert Maper.
Twilight was not his hour for the library-she saw even through her perturbation that he was pacing it in fond memory. His face lighted up with amazement, as though the dead had come up through a tombstone.
"Good-by!" she said, shifting her handbag to her left hand and holding out her right. Her self-possession pleased her.
"What!" he cried. And again he had the gasp of a fish out of water.
"Yes, I came to say good-by."
"You are leaving us?"
"Yes."
"Oh, and it is I that have driven you away!"
"No, no, don't reproach yourself, please don't. Good-by."
He gasped in silence. She gave a little laugh. "Now that I offer you my hand, it is you who won't take it."
He seized it. "Oh, Eil-Miss O'Keeffe-let me keep it."
"Please! we settled that."
"It will never be settled till you are my wife."
"Listen!" said Eileen, dramatically. "In a few minutes your mother and father will be seated at dinner. Your mother will have told your father I've left the house in disgrace. Don't interrupt. Would you be prepared to walk in upon them with me on your arm and to say, 'Mother, father, Miss O'Keeffe has done me the honour of consenting to be my wife'?"
With her warm hand still in his, how could he hesitate? "Oh, Eileen, if you'd only let me!"
The imagination of the tableau was only less tempting to Eileen. It was procurable-she had only to move her little finger, or rather not to move it. But the very facility of production lessened the tableau's temptingness. The triumph was complete without the vulgar actuality.
"I can't," she said, withdrawing her hand. "But you are a good fellow. Good-by." She moved towards the garden steps. He was
incredulous of the utter end. "I shall write to you," he said.
"This is a short cut," she murmured, descending. As her feet touched the grass she smiled. How they had both tried to stop her, mother and son! She hurried through the shrubbery, and by a side gate was out on the old wagon road. More slowly, but still at a good pace, she descended towards the Black Hole, now beginning to twinkle and glimmer with lights, and far less grimy and prosaic than in the crude day.
X.
While packing her big box, she had decided to try to lodge that night with a programme-girl she had got to know at the Theatre Royal, and the motive that set her pace was the desire to find her before she had started for the theatre.
The girl usually hovered about Mrs. Maper's box. Once Eileen had asked her why she wasn't in evidence the week before. "Lord, miss," she said, "didn't you recognise me on the stage?"
Eileen thus discovered that the girl sometimes figured as a super, when travelling companies came with sensational pieces, relying upon local talent, hastily drilled, for the crowds. Mary became a Greek slave, or a Billingsgate fishwife, with amusing unexpectedness.
Eileen's next discovery about the girl was that she supported a paralysed mother, though the bed-ridden creature on inspection proved to be more cheerful than the visitors she depressed. Mr. Maper had sent her grapes from his hothouse only a few days before, and in taking them to the little house Eileen had noticed a "Bedroom to Let."
To her relief, when she reached the bleak street, she could see that though the blind was down, the bill was still in the window. Her spirits bubbled up again. Ere she could knock at the door, the programme-girl bounced through it, hatted and cloaked for the theatre.
"Miss O'Keeffe!" She almost staggered backward. Eileen's face worked tragically in the gloom.
"There are villains after me!" Eileen gasped. "Take this bag, it contains the family jewels. That bedroom of yours, it is still to let?"
"Yes, miss."
"I take it for to-night, perhaps for ever. The avenger is on my footsteps. The law may follow me, but I shall defy its myrmidons in my trackless eyrie."
"Oh, Miss O'Keeffe! You frighten me. I shouldn't like to have all these jewels in my house, and with my mother tied to her bed."
Eileen burst into a laugh. "Oh, miss!" she said, mimicking the programme-girl. "Didn't you recognise me on the stage?"
"Mary Murchison!" gasped the programme-girl. "Oh, Miss O'Keeffe, how wonderful! You nearly made my heart stop-"
"I am sorry, but I do want to take your bedroom. I've left Mrs. Maper, and you are not to ask any questions."
"I haven't time, I'm late already. Fortunately, I only come on in the second act."
"That's nice; put my bag in and I'll come to the theatre with you." The thought was impromptu, an evening with a bed-ridden woman was not exhilarating at such a crisis.
"You ought to be an actress yourself," the programme-girl remarked admiringly on the way.
Eileen shuddered. "No, thank you. Scream the same thing night after night-like a parrot with not even one's own words-I should die of monotony."
"Oh, it isn't at all monotonous. It's a different audience every night, and even the laughs come in different places. My parts have mostly been thinking parts-to-night I'm a prince without a word-but still it's fun."
"But how can you bear strange men staring at you?"
"One gets used to it. The first time they put me in tights I blushed all through the piece, but they had painted me so thick it wasn't visible."
"In short, you blushed unseen."
Eileen wished to go to the pit, but her new friend would not hear of her not occupying her habitual box, since she knew that the management would be glad to have it occupied if it were empty. This proved to be the case, and put the seal upon Eileen's enjoyment of the situation. To spend her evening in Mrs. Maper's box was indeed a climax.
She borrowed theatre-paper and scribbled a note to her ex-employer, giving the address for her trunk. An orange and some biscuits sufficed for her dinner.
Not till she was in her little bedroom, surrounded by pious texts, did she break down in tears.
XI.
The next morning, as she sat answering advertisements, the programme-girl knocked at the door of the bedroom and announced that Mr. Maper had called.
Eileen turned red. It was too disconcerting. Would he never take "no" for an answer? "I won't see him. I can't see him," she cried.
The girl departed and returned. "Oh, Miss O'Keeffe, he begs so for only one word."
"The word is 'no.'"
"After he's been so kind as to bring your box down!"
"Oh, has he? Then the word is 'thanks.'"
"Please, miss, would you mind giving it to him yourself?"
"Who's Irish, you or I? I won't speak to him at all, I tell you."
"But I don't like to send him away like that, when he's been so kind to mother."
"When has he been kind to your mother?"
"Those grapes you brought-"
"That was old Mr. Maper."
"So is this."
"Oh!" Eileen was quite taken aback, for once. "All right, I'll go into the parlour."
He was infinitely courteous and apologetic. He had been very anxious about her. Why had she been so unkind as to leave, and without ever a good-by to him?
"Oh, hasn't your wife told you, then?"
"She has told me you were rude, and that you left without notice, and she wants me to prosecute you. I suppose you lost your temper. You found her rather difficult."
"I found her impossible," said Eileen, frigidly.
"Yes, yes, I understand." He was flushed and unhappy. "You found her impossible to live with?"
Eileen nodded; she would have added "or to make a lady of," but he looked so purple and agitated that she charitably forbore. She was wondering whether Mrs. Maper could really have been so mean as to omit her share in the quarrel, but he went on eagerly:-
"Quite so, quite so. And what do you think it has been for me?"
She murmured inarticulate sympathy.
"Ah, if you only knew! Oh, my dear Miss O'Keeffe, while you've been in the house, it's been like heaven."
"I'm glad I've given satisfaction," she said drily.
"Then what do you give by going? I assure you the day you came to the works it was like heaven there too."
"You forget the temperature," Eileen smiled. "However, it was a very nice day, and I thank you. But I can't come back after-"
"Who asks you to come back?" he broke in. "No, I should be sorry to see you again in a menial position, you with your divine gifts of beauty and song. The idea of your getting a new place," he added with a fall into prose, "makes me feel sick."
"I value your sympathy, but it is misplaced," she replied freezingly.
"Sympathy! It isn't sympathy! It's jealousy. Oh, my dear Miss O'Keeffe!" He seized her limp hand. "Eileen! Let me help you-"
As the true significance of his visit, and of the purple agitation, dawned upon her, the grim humour of the position overbore every other feeling. Her hand still in his, she began to laugh, and no biting of her lips could do more than change the laugh into an undignified snigger. Instead of profiting by his grip of her, he dropped her hand suddenly as if a hose had been turned on his passion, and this surrender of her hand reduced Eileen to a passable gravity.
"I'm very sorry, Mr. Maper. But really, life is too horribly amusing."
"I'm very sorry it's me that affords you amusement," he said stiffly.
"No, it isn't you at all, it's just the whole thing. You've been most kind all along. And I dare say you mean to be kind now. But I don't really need any help. Your wife's threats of prosecution are ridiculous, she made my longer stay impossible. I could more justly claim a month's notice from her."
"That's what I thought. I've brought you a month's salary." He fumbled in his pocket-book.
"Don't trouble. I shall not accept it."
"You shall," he said sternly. "Or I'l
l prosecute you."
Eileen's laugh rang out clear. This time he laughed too.
"Now, don't you call life amusing?" she said. "Here am I to take a cheque under penalty of having to pay it."
"Well, which shall it be?"
"Such a cheque is charming." And she held out her hand. He put the cheque in it and shook both warmly. They parted, the best of friends.
"Come to me for a character, of course," he said.
"Don't you come to me," replied Eileen, with a roguish smile.
XII.
Eileen's next place was-as if by contrast-with a much more genteel family, and a much poorer, though it flew higher socially. It lived in a house, half in a fashionable London terrace, half in a shabby side street, and its abode was typical of its ambitions and its means. Mrs. Lee Carter drew the line clearly between herself and her governess, which was a blessing, for it meant Eileen's total exclusion from her social life, and Eileen's consequent enjoyment of her own evenings at home or abroad, as she wished. This unusual freedom compensated for the hard work of teaching children in various stages of growth and ignorance how to talk French and play the piano. Her salary was small, for Mrs. Lee Carter's ambition to live beyond her neighbours' means was only achieved by pinching whomever she could. She was not bad-hearted; she simply could not afford anything but luxuries. Eileen wondered at not being asked sometimes to perform at her parties, till she found that only celebrities ever did anything in that house.
This was a period of much mental activity in Eileen's life. The tossing ocean of London life, the theatres that played Shakespeare, the world of new books and new thought, her recent perusal of Plato and of man, all produced fermentation. But every night she knelt by her bedside and said her "Ave Maria" with a voluptuous sense of spiritual peace, and every morning she woke with a certain joy in existence and a certain surprise to find herself again existing. Her old convent-thought recurred. "We are worked from without-marionettes who can watch their own performance. And it is very amusing." Once she read of a British action in Afghanistan against border-tribes, and she wondered if Lieutenant Doherty was in the fighting. Since she had ceased to be his mother-confessor he had become very shadowy; his image now rose substantial from the newspaper lines, and she was surprised to find in herself a little palpitation at his probable perils. "One's heartstrings, too, are pulled," she thought. "I don't like it. Marionettes should move, not feel." These reflections, however, came to her more often anent her family, and the struggles of her kin for a livelihood touched her more deeply than any love. "We are like bits of the same shattered body," she thought. "In these cold English families everybody is another body." She sent most of her salary to Ireland, and her pocket-money came from singing in the choir on Sunday.
The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes Page 35