Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  “Ah, that,” said Cousin Jane. “How do you know all this?”

  “It is written on your face. I know the handwriting of tyrants. And now you are free, and it feels so strange, like when at first in convalescence you put your feet weak to the ground. Is it not, my sister?”

  “Ah,” said Cousin Jane for the third time, “you do understand.”

  Then Daphne, who had lingered near the door went to make tea.

  When she came back she found Miss Claringbold stroking the hand of the Russian as she was used to stroke the hand of Doris.

  “We are already old friends,” said he; “she stays and takes care of me. The wooden woman shall not return. She has promised.”

  “I said she shouldn’t come back,” Miss Claringbold’s fluttered voice explained, “but as for staying—”

  “Some one must,” said Daphne.

  “Do you think I might? Stay, I mean?”

  “Why not?” Daphne asked. “Or I’ll stay if you like — at any rate till we get another nurse.”

  “No more wooden women,” the patient insisted. “She slept all night like a pig, I crying vainly for tea —— or even, at last, for water. I will not any more of her. You will stay with me, my sister?”

  “I should, if I were you,” said Daphne—”if you feel you’d not mind the bother, I mean. I’ll go home and get your things. It will be most awfully good of you.”

  “I used to be considered a good nurse,” Cousin Jane murmured. “I nursed your father once, Daphne.”

  ‘Yes,” said Daphne, pouring tea. She wished she could speak with a clear heart, see with a straight eye. Of course it was kind of Cousin Jane. Russians always expect every one to do everything for them. And it would be good for Cousin Jane, be interesting, make her feel of importance. It would be pleasant for her to be wanted, to be needed. Yes. She tried not to hear the voice that, speaking from the back of her mind, told her that it would be a relief to her to be free once more from her cousin’s gentle chaperonage.

  She made the journey to Fitzroy Street — lent Doris to Green Eyes for the rest of the day, returned with Miss Claringbold’s things, fetched food for her, and left her, oddly in charge of a Red Revolutionary, who, already was calling her by her Christian name, and further, insisting that she should call him, not merely by his, but by its affectionate diminutive.

  Then Daphne was quite free. And, for once, she used her freedom as she wanted to use it. She went straight to Mr. Henry’s studio. Would he be in? Of course he would not. But she could leave a note about Vorontzoff. If he were in — but of course he would not be in — she would just tell him about the wooden woman and the substitute that Vorontzoff had found for her.

  She climbed the stairs, through the reek of paraffin and musk that always clung there, crossed the bridge and found herself at his familiar door. She stood a moment before she dared to knock, dared to risk the yes or no that her heart, half asleep, feared and hoped.

  It was yes.

  He rose from his divan where he had been lying at full length.

  “You!” he said, and her heart awoke instantly in a garden of roses and nightingales. “Dear Beautiful! was wishing for you. But I did not think you would come. It’s so very seldom the time and the place and the loved one all together.” He held her in his arm, and shut the door with his other hand. “You never went to see Vorontzoff?”

  “I should have gone this evening. I left a nurse. But now I needn’t go. You’ve been. Tell me all about it.”

  Daphne, held closely by his arm, told.

  “And Doris? Where is she?’

  Daphne told that too.

  “Good! Then for hours — five, six — you’re mine! Now we’re going to be happy. Your eyes are as blue as the sky, your mouth’s a rose, your face is a flower, your hair is threads of sunshine, and it’s all mine, mine.”

  He spoke gaily, tenderly. He drew her head to his shoulder. Never before had she met in him this mood.

  “Let me map out our immediate future, my Pretty,” he said. “First tea. Then I shall sit at your feet and you shall read to me. Poetry. I’ve got some dusty poetry books somewhere. Then we’ll go out to dinner — a real dinner, not Soho. Then we’ll come back here for more poetry — only we’ll make that ourselves. The world’s full of flowers and sunshine. I am eighteen and so are you, and we have loved each other since the beginning of the would,”

  “And shall to the end,” said she.

  “Yes, that’s part of the play — to the very end.”

  “Is it only a play?” she asked, and moved from him, but he held her fast. Her resistance, resisted, set her heart beating faster.

  “No, no, no — I told you I never pretend. I only say what I feel. To-day I feel that there’s no one else in the world, only you and me. There’s no such thing as art. There’s no such thing as yesterday and to-morrow. There never is, by the way. There’s always only to-day. You love me, and I worship you. Tell me that you love me. Tell me why you love me. Tell me if it’s my beautiful eyes, or my charming smile, or my pretty manners.”

  “I don’t know,” she said—”it’s — it’s you.”

  “Best of answers!” he said gaily.

  “Love me not for comely grace, For my pleasing eye or face.

  How smooth you are, and slender. It is like having one’s arm round a lily stalk. Are you happy? Do you love me? Very much?

  “You know,” said Daphne, her eyes hidden in his neck.

  Then there was silence.

  It was he who broke the spell. It always was he. He sprang up.

  “Tea,” he cried, “tea! Boil the kettle, loveliest lady on earth, while I fetch the milk.”

  The programme he had sketched was carried out in every detail, and through it all he was gay, devoted, tender as she had never seen him. Every moment brought its interest, its joy. And she hugged it all to her heart with innocent abandonment.

  Only when, after the long, lazy dinner of many courses in a room that was all silver and mirrors, with discreet waiters and a hushed sense of enormous luxury, they stood together in the dark outside his studio door, something caught her, and she said: “Hadn’t I better say good night and go home now?”

  “Not for all the kingdoms of the world,” he said, and his key clicked in the lock.

  They entered, and she stood alone a moment in the dark while he stumbled toward the table where the candles were. Their faint blue flames burned low, burned bright. He came to her, drew out her hat-pins, gently removed hat and gloves. Then he set her in the big chair and kneeled before her. “How quiet it is here,” she said.

  “Yes,” said he. “We are all alone in the quiet night.” He sat at her feet, and laid his head on her knee, drawing her hand to lie against his face. “You were perfectly right. This is worth everything else in the world, to be alone with you, just you and me, and the world shut out.”

  “I never said that.”

  “You have never said anything else. Your eyes, your lips, your pretty hands, they’ve all been saying that to me from the first moment we met, and by heaven they have been right, all the time.”

  “I — are you sure you mean it?”

  “It’s the only thing I do mean. Ah, the nonsense I talk about art — oh, you foolish dear one, did you think I meant it? Didn’t you know it was only because I was afraid of — this — fool that I was.”

  Daphne, drunk with the joy of being near her lover who ‘loved her, was silent. But without knowing why she said presently:

  “I ought to go.”

  “Why should you ever go? Why can’t you be here always?”

  Daphne supposed herself to be listening to an offer of marriage.

  “Do you really want me?” she asked tenderly.

  At that his arms went round her — and there came a knock at the door, and another — three knocks very distinct. fie sprang to his feet. Daphne put up her hands to her hair. He moved toward the door, but before he could get to it it opened, and a girl came in: Green Eyes
.

  “Oh, I came to ask about poor Vorontzoff,” she said calmly. “Mrs. Delarue’s with the child, Daphne.” Daphne had to hold on with both hands to keep herself from explanations, apologies almost. She insisted to herself that no one in Fitzroy Street circles thought anything of anyone’s being in anyone else’s studio at nine o’clock at night.”

  Henry was slowly and carefully, with much detail, elaborating an account of the condition of Vorontzoff.

  “My Cousin Jane is staying with him,” said Daphne, breathing more freely as Green Eyes unconcernedly sat down. Certainly she would not have sat down if she had had any idea that she had interrupted an offer of marriage.

  “I snail go and see him to-morrow, of course,” Henry was saying. “It is very sweet of you both to come asking after him. See what it is to be popular. Oh, these Russians, these Russians! Take your hat off, won’t you? I was just making coffee for Miss Carmichael. I’ll go and see if the kettle’s boiling yet.”

  He went.

  “Your French friends are delightful,” said Green Eyes. “I wish we could persuade them to join our camp next week.”

  “Yes — you’re all going away,” said Daphne; “how lonely I shall be.”

  “You ought to come, too,” said Green Eyes. “Perhaps I will,” said Daphne, who knew better. “It will boil almost instantly,” Henry returned to say. “You are all going to live in some wonderful Kentish farm-house, they tell me; and sleep in tents in the orchard. How idyllic. Why don t you go, Miss Carmichael?”

  “I think I will,” she said. “One must get away from London some time in the year.”

  “Then will you come?’

  “I couldn’t next week,” Daphne said. “You see there’s the portrait.”

  “Oh, I should hate that to interfere with your plans,” Henry said. “Three more sittings at most will be enough now.”

  “If it’s as near completion as that, mayn’t one see it?’

  “But surely,” said Henry. “I wouldn’t show it to anyone else, but you and I are such old friends, aren’t we?’

  He turned the canvas from the wall, lifted it to an easel, lighted the hanging lamp, and pulled it down to the right level.

  Green Eyes looked and looked, drew a long breath. “Oh, but it’s fine!” she said. “It’s the best thing you’ve ever done.”

  It was Daphne in the Salvation Army dress, her hair a halo under the Salvation Army bonnet, her raised hand holding the tambourine, and on her face the light that transfigures equally the face of the religious enthusiast and of the woman in love.

  “You are great,” said Green Eyes, grudgingly, after a long pause. “Yes, you are.”

  “A thousand thanks!” said he, and put the picture back against the wall.

  Daphne saw by this time that she must either give Green Eyes her secret, the beautiful secret as yet hardly even quite her own, or else go when Green Eyes went. She chose the latter. Henry talked much and saved her from the need of much talking. He talked of art, but not as he had talked to Daphne; he talked as though art were a trade, and eccentricity its advertisement — a pose its trade-mark. And they drank coffee when, after a very long time, the kettle boiled. And then Green Eyes rose to go, and Daphne went with her. Henry’s hand-clasp did not linger on Daphne’s hand that night. He lighted the girls to the street and bade them good night, with cheerful courteous banalities.

  “Daphne,” said Green Eyes, as they went down the street, “may I come home with you? There’s something I want to tell you.”

  Daphne experienced that sinking of the heart which comes like a physical nausea to the Utterly Found Out.

  Because the voice of Green Eyes was changed, and Daphne knew that she knew.

  Of course,” she said, “I should love you to come. You might begin to tell me as we go.”

  “No,” said Green Eyes; “I’ll wait till we get to your place. Unless you’d rather come to mine.” ‘ “No, no,” said Daphne, hospitably; “come home with me. Mrs. Delarue’ll be wanting to get away. And there’s Doris.”

  “Yes,” said Green Eyes, “there’s Doris,”

  CHAPTER XXI. DESERTED

  “WELL?” Daphne said.

  “Oh, but it’s difficult,” said Green Eyes. “You’ll hate me, though, anyhow, whether I tell you or not — so here goes.”

  Upon which she was silent.

  One candle hardly lighted the room at all. Doris was asleep. The cistern gurgled and giggled. The two girls sat, rather upright, on chairs that were not the most comfortable.

  “Well,” said Daphne again. It was not her fault, she told herself, that her voice was hard.

  “Well,” said Green Eyes, and her voice, too, was hard. “What I want is to warn you — about Him.”

  “What about him?” said Daphne. It was not worth while to pretend, and to say “Who?”

  “I like you — I do, very much. You’ll believe that, won’t you. That’s why. It’s not jealousy or mischief-making, or any underhand rubbish — it’s just — I like you — and I don’t think it’s fair.”

  “What?”

  “Look here,” said Green Eyes, speaking very fast, twisting writhing hands in her lap, “when I first came to London I loved him — just as you do. He made me love him just as he’s made you. And then, when there was nothing else in the world but just him, he — changed his mind.”

  “Well,” said Daphne, still hard. “I suppose he couldn’t help that.”

  “Very well.” Green Eyes got up, “I’m sorry I tried to tell you — good night.”

  “No, don’t — I didn’t mean that — I mean —

  Oh, sit down — don’t be horrid. I don’t mean to be horrid — only — oh, don’t hate me, but are you sure he loved you?”

  “I was then, and I loved him — you know what loving him is — and I lived just to see him, just as you’re doing. And then, quite suddenly, he wrote and said it was all over, that he felt he must choose between me and his art — his art! — and he couldn’t choose me.”

  This bore the stamp of truth.

  “And then,” said Daphne, very much more gently. “Then — he went to Italy. That’s all. And you know. Think if it had been you.”

  “Do you love him still?” Daphne asked calmly. “No” said Green Eyes. I hate him. At least — No, don’t pity me, don’t be kind to me; I shall hate you if you do. Oh — I don’t suppose, it’s done any good my telling you; has it? You love him just the same, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” said Daphne. “Oh, don’t cry — I love you anyway. It was splendid of you to try to help me. Oh, don’t cry! I don’t know what to say. Don’t, dear, don’t.”

  There seemed indeed nothing more the saying of which would help either of them, and presently in a forlorn silence they parted. Daphne was very sorry for Green Eyes, of course. It was very sad that he should have left off loving Green Eyes — but if he had left off what was he to do? And perhaps he had never really loved her.

  “Not as he loves me,” her heart whispered.

  “Perhaps I ought to have told her that he wants to marry me. He never wanted to marry her. No —— she ‘a have said so if he had. Oh, how horrible it is that you can’t be happy without making somebody else unhappy!”

  The rose of happiness that lay on her heart next morning was redder and sweeter than ever before. She sang as she dressed.

  And then there was a letter, from him; he must have written it last night after poor Green Eyes had broken in on the love-dream, and taken her from him. No words of endearment, but the letter itself was a caress.

  “I cannot live without you. I am going to Brittany next week. You will come with me — I know you will. It is not possible for us to do anything else. Write to me, but don’t come to see me till I write again. I must work day and night all this week if we’re to go to Paradise next. I am not going to think of you again till next Sunday — if I can help it. Good-bye, my white Witch Lily.

  “H.

  “Of course you will n
ot tell any one till afterward. Other people are so tiresome.”

  What did Green Eyes matter now? How little and faded a thing was any other woman’s joy or sorrow! “He is mine, mine, mine,” she told her heart, against which his letter lay. She felt it there hard and cornery, all through the morning, which was a full one.

  Madeleine and Columbine came early, full of joyous plans. Columbine was going to take a house near the summer camp. Life would be a glorious picnic for the next six weeks. Daphne and Doris must come.

  Daphne smiled. She would see.

  The party was starting almost at once. Yes, already Colombe had seen a house-agent: there was a lovely old Manor House to let. Mr. Seddon was taking them down in his motor, to look at it. If it were anything like as nice as the house-agent said it was—”We should go down at once. It’s perfectly sweet of you, Daphne, to have found such nice friends. It’s the loveliest set,” said Colombe, all aglow with the illumination of youth and hope.

  “It is ravishing,” said Madeleine. “All the world is so amiable. Monsieur Winston — even at the hour of the little breakfast, he was at the hotel, to counsel us and explicate us the things.”

  “You’ll come too, won’t you?” Colombe asked. “My dear, do. We shall have the time of our lives. New-mown hay, new-laid eggs and honey and cream and pigs and motors and tennis. You will come, won’t you — you and Doris?”

  “I do like new-laid hay,” said Doris reproachfully. “You know I do, Daffy.”

  “If I can,” said Daphne, and flushed a little at the lie; “but there’s Cousin Jane. I can’t leave her alone in London, like Jessica, or whoever it was, can I?”

  “Well, anyhow you’ll come to-day, to see the house?”

  “I can’t,” said Daphne, falsely.

  “I can,” said the child. “I can quite easily — can’t I, Daff? And you can stop on the way and buy me the white mouse you promised, and the nougat, and—”

  “Don’t be a little pig, my pigeon,” Daphne said. “Colombe doesn’t want you to-day.”