by Guy McCrone
Sitting here at peace, Bel wondered how she had ever had the courage to bring them together. And yet, in spite of awkward moments, it had been a friendly gathering, with much goodwill and a display of affectionate indulgence that did everybody credit.
Bel’s besetting sins were her preoccupation with the trimmings of life and her obsession with social compatibility. She had worried that William Butter had not been properly dressed; that her mother’s speech was abrupt; that the McNairn boys had seemed rude. But she had not taken account of the sense of security and family good-feeling that existed among them, even among the newer members; of the consciousness of each that, should things go wrong, all the others would be there to give support.
There was another shuddering gust against the windows, and, following it, a metallic crash on what sounded like the private carriage-way of the terrace.
“Good gracious, Arthur. What’s that?”
“Somebody’s chimney-can.”
“What a night!”
Arthur rose, parted the curtains of a window, and looked out. Street lamps were dancing and flickering. Some of them had been extinguished. A torrent of rain was lashing a traffickless Great Western Road. He fancied he heard a branch crack and break off over there in the Botanic Gardens.
“It’s as bad as I’ve seen,” he said, turning back into the room.
Bel looked up at the clock. It was after nine. She felt a genuine stab of apprehension now. “I wish Phœbe was at home and safe,” she said.
“She’ll take a cab.”
“Do you think a cab will dare to bring her?”
“Of course. It’s scarcely time yet.”
Bel went on with her sewing, thinking of Phœbe. She had seemed quieter this autumn. Quieter and more contented. She got letters from Henry in Vienna, but said little about them. Bel had begun to think that her interest in Henry was on the wane. But with Phœbe you never knew. When she asked her how Henry was getting on, Phœbe usually said, “All right,” and left it at that. But she was well accustomed to Phœbe’s queerness. She could do nothing but leave her alone.
There was a momentary lull in the storm. They could hear the sound of horses’ hoofs, and presently the slamming of a cab door.
Arthur was at the window again. “It’s stopped here,” he said. “I’ll go and let her in.”
II
“Henry! Where have you come from?”
Henry, still in his Inverness cape, stood grinning at Bel.
“From Vienna. From where else do you think? Can I stay here tonight?”
“Of course.” When had Bel’s hospitality ever been appealed to in vain? “But why didn’t you tell us? Phœbe is at a concert.”
Momentary disappointment clouded Henry’s grin. He began to unwind his thick scarf. “It’s a terrible night,” he went on. “I thought the cab was going to be blown over when we were crossing Kelvin Bridge. I hope she’ll get home all right.”
“Of course she will. Have you ever known Phœbe stuck?”
Another fierce blast struck the house and roared in the chimney. Henry replied with a doubtful “No”, and stretched out his hands to the fire. “I’ve never seen such a storm,” he said. “My porter at St. Enoch’s told me that a lot of the glass roof of the station had been blown in. I’m glad I didn’t try to cross from Hamburg to Leith. The porter said word had come through that there was trouble on the East Coast. The Tay Bridge. He didn’t know yet whether it was true.”
Arthur joined with Bel in pressing Henry to stay at Grosvenor Terrace, which Henry had fully intended to do. But why was he in Scotland, and what was the purpose of this surprise visit? Henry avoided the answer to this question. He had things to see to at home, but he must return to Vienna within the next fortnight.
As he sat with them talking of his work, Bel and her husband could not help noticing that, in so short a time as three months, Henry’s character had undergone many not quite definable changes. He was more of a man. The lines of his face were more mature. It was the old Henry who, gesticulating and excited, was telling them of his struggles in the strange, far-off city where his calling had now taken him; of his difficulties with a strange language; of his troubles with the kindly, almost Oriental lethargy of the Viennese workmen—a lethargy that the people of Vienna themselves, prepared to excuse everything, especially their own and everybody else’s shortcomings, dignified by the name of Schlamperei. It was at once obvious to Bel and Arthur that Henry was developing. He had been given authority, and he was able to take it. He had said do this to this one, and do that to that other. People had taken his orders as an expert, and neither he nor they had questioned his right to give them. This was fixing his character. Was it also colouring his eagerness with tinges of conceit?
“And what kind of place is Vienna? Is it as wonderful as they say it is?”
What was the meaning of the smile that flickered in Henry’s face? Was it the smile of a cosmopolitan, who has returned for a moment to the ignorance of his native province? Was it a faint smile of patronage?
And yet, what had he done in the last months? Gone to Vienna and lodged in a workman’s suburb with a family who were less educated than he. Schemed and laboured to set up a factory for harvesting machinery. Studied the German language. Gone for walks, written letters home, suffered from sharp fits of loneliness. The real life of the City had scarcely touched him. He had been quite unaware that a part of the cultural history of Europe was being written under his nose.
He had seen the Emperor Franz Joseph make one of his paternal appearances at his study window at the midday changing of the Palace Guard. He had seen him wave to his people. He had, here and there, caught glimpses of military splendour. But that was all. He had viewed such happenings with little curiosity, and no sense of romance.
And yet the Imperial City had worked a change in him. It had given him a consciousness that lay beyond the horizons of his boyhood. Of lands that took notice of neither his cults nor his creeds; yet seemed to do very well in their ignorance of them, and rise, after their own fashion, to a glory of their own choosing.
The door was suddenly thrown open with the words: “What a night! We couldn’t get a cab and decided to walk.” Phœbe was standing framed in the doorway, dripping and dishevelled.
“Phœbe, dearest, see who’s here!”
She stood where she was, looking at Henry, who had risen from his chair. For a time neither of them moved.
Fascinated, Bel tried to interpret the emotions of this strange, unpredictable girl. She saw the colour flood up from Phœbe’s neck and set fire to her face. For a moment it wore an expression of softness that Bel had never seen before. Her gipsy eyes shone. Her lips seemed to be exclaiming the word “Henry!” In an instant it was over, and Phœbe was advancing into the room to shake Henry warmly by the hand, and to kiss him in all friendliness, as though she were his sister.
“Hullo, Henry. What on earth are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to take you back to Vienna with me.”
The colour began to rise in Phœbe’s face again. “What do you mean?”
“To get married, of course. We’ve only got a fortnight.”
Phœbe said nothing. She crossed to the mirror over the fire-place and fingered the strands of wet hair that straggled on her cheeks. More, even, than the others, she had already felt the new force that Henry had brought back with him. “I’m soaking! I must go and change at once. I won’t be a minute.” She left the room.
“You never told me!” Bel said as they sat down once more.
“I wanted to tell her first.”
“But, Henry, Phœbe is only nineteen! And you would be taking her so far away! I don’t quite see how we can allow it!”
But now Bel remembered how Phœbe had looked a moment ago as she stood in the doorway.
III
Everyone was out at church next morning. The fury had gone out of a wind that had dropped to little more than a breeze. As the Moorhouse carriage, containing Be
l, Arthur and their elder son, together with Henry and Phœbe, made its shining way towards town and the Ramshorn Church, a watery sun found strength, for some moments, to pierce a fissure in the low-hanging cloud, filling a wet rain-washed city with a sudden flood of diamond light. Streets were littered with slates and chimney-pots. Shattered glass lay here and there on pavements. Trees, hoardings and wooden fences lay torn and broken.
Already there was early morning talk of a great railway disaster. It was, perhaps, to hear of this that so many people had come out this morning. Being Sunday, there were no newspapers to tell them, but telegrams had been coming from the East Coast. The great middle span of the Tay Bridge had collapsed before the fury of the storm, taking a trainload of some two hundred people with it. Glasgow, along with the rest of the Kingdom, was horrified.
People stood on their church steps, talking of it; declaring it could not be true. And what was the world coming to?—With this dreadful happening; the depression in trade; and last year’s collapse of so many banks up and down the country, beginning with the collapse of the City Bank of Glasgow. They shook their heads and agreed that the times were indeed terrible, and that things couldn’t be much worse. It was only when the bells showed signs of stopping that they remembered where they were, and turned to hurry inside. In many churches, prayers were offered for the bereaved. And when the service was over, worshippers lingered once more to discuss the disaster further, to tell their friends how their own washing-house door had been torn from its hinges, how a chimney-pot had smashed the glass of garden-frames, or how a tree had fallen on the rose-plot in the front lawn.
Like many another returned traveller, Henry felt himself detached. Those of the family who had come to church this morning expressed momentary surprise at seeing him; then seemed to take him for granted; to forget all about him. He put this down to the all-engrossing news. But in this he was wrong. The imaginations of the Moorhouse family, as of most people, could not stretch beyond the circle of their own experiences. The appearance and customs of the Austrian capital in no way aroused their curiosity; except when they fell to considering if it was wise or foolish to allow one of their number to follow him thither as his wife.
Even on the church steps, Sophia, hearing from Bel that Henry proposed marrying Phœbe and taking her back to Vienna almost at once, was quick to express an opinion. “But, Bel dear, Phœbe’s only a child! Now, if it was my own Margy, I would never think—and I read somewhere that Vienna was a fearfully wicked place! Oh, Henry Hayburn’s quite a nice boy, dear; I don’t mean he … But you remember we always used to think that his brother Stephen—you know, in David’s office—was just a little bit—well, dear, light-minded. Of course, I’m sure he’s quite settled down, and all right now, what with his mother’s death, and having to work, and everything. Still, the family has a wild streak—and we couldn’t have Phœbe …”
At this point Arthur had hurried Bel and their elder son into church, where they found old Mrs. Barrowfield comfortably ensconced in the corner of their pew; her elastic-sided boots on the highest and most comfortable hassock; her special, large print Bible and hymn-book conveniently placed in front of her; and her gold spectacles polished, ready to begin. She was smiling delightedly at Henry and Phœbe, who were already in their places, and she was addressing Henry in loud, unnecessary whispers.
Somehow, Sophia’s chatter had stirred up Bel’s anxiety. Was she to let Phœbe go? How could she hold her against her will? Was not Phœbe much too young to marry this impetuous, strange young man, and go to live with him in a great, unknown city? For one of the few times in her life, Bel wished she were better educated—better informed.
Standing, sitting, praying, going through the actions of worship, with elegant, automatic reverence, Bel took in nothing of the service. She was worried by love and anxiety. Phœbe would want to go. Her behaviour last night had shown Bel that.
What, then, had stung Bel to apprehension? Sophia’s silly talk? The sense of disaster that hung in the air this morning? But now Bel remembered that Phœbe had once promised to come back to her if she were in trouble. Surely there was comfort in that? Bel stood up for the benediction. For the first time during the service, she found herself receiving some comfort; some quieting of her fears.
IV
“Well, Phœbe? Are you coming back to Austria with me?”
“I think so.”
They had been given possession of Bel’s parlour on Sunday evening. For the first time, almost, they were left to themselves.
Henry took her into his arms and kissed her, with a force, a lack of apology, that Phœbe had never met in him before. His former love-making, when, indeed, there had been any, had been boyish, tentative, and virginal. These were the embraces of a man.
“No, Henry. Go over there and sit down. That’s better. Did you miss me when you were away?”
“Yes. Did you miss me?”
“Of course.”
It was impossible for these two to be arch or oblique in their utterance, the one to the other.
“You know, you’ve changed,” Phœbe went on, looking across at him.
“For the worse?”
Phœbe considered this for an instant. “Not for the worse. I think you’re a bit older. That’s all.” And then after a moment: “No. I’m glad you went. It’s been good for you.”
For reply, Henry allowed a flicker of indulgent amusement to show itself upon his snub features. She had never seen this look of masculine patronage before. Yes, Henry was changing.
“Tell me about everything.”
There was much of the old Henry left. Indeed, now that he was in full cry, chasing his ideas, following his plans, the old Henry seemed livelier than ever.
She was accustomed to these outbursts. Henry, she knew, was launched. A semblance of listening, a word or two of assent, and he could go on like this for hours. And meanwhile she would sit, hearing his voice, basking in his enthusiasm, testing the strength of the bond between them, seeking the answers to the questions of her own unquiet heart.
What had brought her together with this strange young man, who sat here gesticulating happily before her? An uprush of emotion, when, that night two autumns ago, she had seen he was at breaking-point?
She sat watching him, summing him up behind the mask of her smiles. The attitudes of his body. The eagerness of his voice. The graceless expressiveness of his gestures. That was Henry; the Henry she knew now through and through; the Henry she had defended hotly; the Henry she had sometimes quarrelled with childishly; the Henry whose fears she had stifled; whose resolution she had steeled. There was little more now of Henry to know, until she came to know the unknown Henry who was her husband.
Was she ready to go thus far with him? Was she ready to join hands with the unknown Henry, and follow him confidently into an unknown world?
But now, as she sat watching him, his body bent excitedly towards her, it came to her clearly that should Henry leave once more for Austria without her, he would be tearing away a part of her with him. For better or for worse, Henry Hayburn was her own.
“But tell me a little about the town, Henry. What does it look like? In what kind of house shall we have to live?”
The will to adventure had never been lacking in Phœbe. And now that she had settled essentials, she was prepared to let excitement do what it would. Henry could tell her that Vienna was a great, important city; a city of spectacle, consequence and glitter. When they got back it would be lying under the white, mid-European winter. But while they settled in, it would be moving forward towards the spring. And people had told him that there was nowhere comparable to Vienna then.
She tried to see Vienna in her mind. But she could not. She had never been in London, and, like so many people in the West of Scotland, only once or twice in her own lovely capital. But she allowed the prospect of living in this far-off City of enchantment to take hold of her. Life would be new. She could not believe that it would not be beautiful. And now that
she felt sure of her heart, her doubt was banished. This passionate girl could look to nothing but adventure and fulfilment. Her lover saw her eyes were dancing; that her face was flushed with happiness.
“Will they let you come, Phœbe?”
“They’ll have to.”
“You’re not quite twenty yet. They might say …”
“I’ll run away with you if they try to stop me.”
“I hope it doesn’t have to come to that.”
Presently they found themselves in the drawing-room having tea. David, who was spending the weekend with Grace in Mrs. Dermott’s lately acquired house in Kelvinside, had come across to pay Henry his respects.
Grace was doing splendidly, he told Henry. But did not much care to be out of the immediate reach of her mother and the best professional attention now.
Talk at once turned to the disaster. Yes, it was fully confirmed. David had special information. The papers would tell everything in the morning.
Now Henry was all questions. What had happened? Where had the weakness been? What was the speed of the train as it crossed the bridge? What was the force of the wind? Questions that David could not answer.
“I think I’ll run through to Newport tomorrow and have a look at the damage myself,” Henry said.
Bel looked at Phœbe. She did not seem to mind.
V
Bel had come to call upon her mother for several reasons this morning. The first one was filial. The old lady had a sharp attack of gout, and had, at the last moment, sent apologies and regrets that she felt unable to attend the wedding of Phœbe to Henry Hayburn, which, hastily arranged, had taken place in the drawing-room of Grosvenor Terrace yesterday. Bel had felt that it would be the next thing to cruelty not to drop down to Monteith Row, on this the morning after, to enquire for her mother’s health and give her the gossip.
Again, having assured herself that the tradesmen had already done their part in restoring her house to its usual, Bel had felt it more tactful to leave her maid-servants, tired and out of temper, to take their own time to dust, sweep and add the final polish.