by Edith Nesbit
“Yes, if you like,” she had to say, “but I’m not any good, even as a friend. And nobody’s friendship’s any help. I’m sorry I told you.”
“You won’t be,” he said, simply; “you’ll be glad. Friendship’s a very mysterious thing, dear. You won’t find everything quite so hard now there’s one person that you don’t need to pretend with — to keep secrets from.”
Ana in the days that followed she found that he was right.
Abandoning the summer camp, St. Hilary took up his quarters in London, and every day he came to see Daphne. The first time, remembering her wild confidences, she met him uneasily, awkwardly. But this passed with the meeting hour, and the hour that followed it was full of an unexpected peace. It was indeed good to have one friend with whom one need not pretend — from whom one need not keep secrets; one friend whom one could trust and lean on. Poor Daphne, who had set out to conquer the world single-handed! One friend — and not a girl — girls were so silly and so unreliable.
So now, behold our Daphne spending long hours with one young man whom she does not love, but likes very much, and in the hours when she is not with him scheming to see, “once more, only once,” the other man, whom she would hate if she did not so terribly, so desperately, love him.
CHAPTER XXIII. UNSUBDUED
“YOU would like to know what Henry was thinking and feeling all this time? My gentle reader, I cannot tell you. He has been destined to move across these pages as he moved across the life of Daphne, a “dark, inscrutable figure,” often additionally darkened by charcoal, and by the disapproving gossip of his friends. You probably look upon him with disfavour, and wonder what the girl could see in him — a wonder that would have been shared by any of those who knew them both. Unless of course you have blue eyes and red hair and nineteen years to your age; in which event you will understand perfectly what Daphne saw in him, and will possibly go the length of seeing it yourself.
A great deal of ink has been spilled, many fair rhymes have been wedded, much talk has been talked, and many songs made of this business of love — and we are all as wise as we were before. We know just what we have always known — that you fall in love with people not because they are handsome or clever or good — oh, certainly never because they are good —— but because they are lovable. No, not that either, but — because they are the people you fall in love with.
Hear further the wisdom of Mrs. Delarue, the only other actor on the stage where Mr. St. Hilary and his poor fairy princess go through their interminable duologues.
“Love,” says Mrs. Delarue, pensively, dustpan in hand at a drooping angle, “love’s most awful queer when you come to think of it.”
“Ain’t it now?” she says, after a pause, persuasively.
Daphne, diligently embroidering a dress for Doris —— one of her acts of atonement — supposes that it is.
“It’s different with different people, of course,” Mrs. Delarue goes on. “I ‘ad a cousin — least she was me mother’s cousin, though young, she ‘ad a disappointment with a young man owing to his being a Baptist and looking higher quite unexpected. She never says a word, doesn’t cry or swear or go for him in any way soever, just sits still where she is, gets the yellow jaundies and—”
“Did she die?” Daphne asks.
“Lorloveyer no. Only lost ‘er looks. So it never really come ‘ome to ‘im what ‘e’d done.”
“She was a red-complected girl, too, something like you, miss,” the consoler goes on. “She took up with a undertaker after that. But I’ve often ‘eard ‘er say it wasn’t the same thing.”
“It wouldn’t be,” politeness spoke with Daphne’s tongue.
Some it goes to the ‘ead with,” pursued Mrs. Delarue, sloping the dustpan more and more; “with Nelly of course it went to ‘er stomach. But ‘er brother — a builder’s foreman ‘e was,—’e was after a barmaid that never looked same side er the road where he was — and when ‘e found it was no go he up and went off ‘is ‘ead. ‘E’s in a ‘sylum now. Thinks ‘e’s the Tower of London or something and says they ought to underpin ‘im. Cries ‘cause they won’t. Some said it was the drink, him taking so much for the pleasure it was to him to see her draw it. But Lor no — it was love.”
“What an unfortunate family!”
“Well,” says Mrs. Delarue, and now the dust trickles slowly off the edge of the dustpan, “you may say so, but at any ways they didn’t ‘urt no one, only themselves. But when it goes to the temper, I give you my word, miss, I’d rather do for a cage of howling wild beastises than what I would for a gentleman that’s bin crossed in love and gone to ‘is temper.” Hope, fear, shame, doubt, dance in Daphne’s heart that disreputable jig which is known as the tumult of conflicting emotions.” She does not wish Mrs. Delarue to go on. But she hopes she will. She does.
“Poor dear young man! If I didn’t know what it was through me own ‘art having gone through it, I shouldn’t bear with him that patient like I do. I give you my word, miss, ‘e downright flies out at me, for the least thing. This morning I just says to him, ‘Where’d you wish all these drawings put, sir?’ which they’d slithered out of a portfoley all over the floor when I was a dusting — and he ups with a cushion an’ ‘urls it at me ‘ead with a nowl you could a ‘eard at King’s Cross. A reg’lar ‘owl like a wild beast it was. So I come away. What else was I to do? You tell me that, miss. I’d like to a give ‘im a word of comfort, but it’s my belief ‘e’d a had me life if I’d a tried it on. But my ‘eart ached for ‘im, — and so would yours ‘ave, miss, if you could a seen ‘im — all over charcoal dust and lookin’ like a devil.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Daphne, falsely.
I’m a-talking about that poor dear lamb, Mr.
Henry, as well you know,” says Mrs. Delarue. “Oh, miss, ‘ow you can ‘ave the ‘eart!”
Daphne begins to put her silks together very quickly, and with a decision that urges Mrs. Delarue’s speech to a torrent.
“I wouldn’t let a bit of a tiff stand in my way, knowing what I know, so I wouldn’t. I’d put me pride in me pocket, and I’d just go and say ‘Let bygones be bygones and all forgive and forget. Why not look in this evening, miss? ‘E’ll be there. ‘E’s got a gentleman coming to see ‘im — I see the letter, all but the bit ‘e d’ lit ‘is pipe with that ‘ad the name on. It said he ‘d come at eight and wouldn’t detain Mr. ‘Enry more than ten minutes on a matter of business. If you was to ‘ang about on the stairs and then when the gentleman comes out you pops in — and there you are — and no thanks to me, I can see.”
“Mrs. Delarue, will you be quiet?” says Daphne, who has heard all she wants to hear. “You’ve no business to read Mr. Henry’s letters.”
“‘E shouldn’t throw ’em in the fender then. Oh well, love’s a striving after the enertainible, ain’t it?” says Mrs. Delarue, and goes off with the empty dust — pan, leaving Daphne to the angry certainty that she and he — her pursuit, his elusion — have been the subject of exhaustive discussion between Mrs. Delarue and the unspeakable scented lady of Great Ormonde Street.
A really nice girl would instantly have put away from her thoughts every word that Mrs. Delarue had said, but then a really nice girl would not have listened to Mrs. Delarue at all. Strong in her real niceness, she would never, at any rate, have given a thought to Mrs. Delarue’s shameless suggestion that she should “hang about on the stairs and wait till the gentleman came out, and then pop in.”
Daphne, alas, thought of nothing else. All day she thought of it, saw herself hiding in the shadows of that musky staircase, heard the noisy feet of the gentleman going past her, saw herself flying on noiseless feet along that corridor bridge, reaching his door, opening it. And then —
You see Daphne had always made her dreams come true. She had engineered all things as she chose, till this thing came upon her. It was not possible to believe that now there were two elements which she could not control, her love for Henry, and H
enry himself. The love, she admitted, was stronger than she was. But Henry could not be stronger than she and her love together. She was certain of victory if only she could meet him face to face.
All day she spent, in spirit, on that staircase of his. And all the time she was telling herself, over and over again, that of course she should not go.
And of course she went. The “tumult of conflicting emotions” was tearing at her heart, goading it to mad leapings and flutterings as she crept up the staircase whose darkness a lamp with a blackened chimney only faintly mitigated. It was ten minutes to eight. She could not risk meeting “the gentleman” on the stairs.
It is a mistake to suppose that time is measured by clocks. By all the clocks of London it was only ten minutes that she spent crouched there near the pot of musk dried long since; by all the true measurements of time it was ten years. The musk scent had survived the green musk-leaves; it crept round her in thick waves and sickened her. Her heart was behaving, she thought, more like an alarm clock than a heart; her breathing was difficult to control, and her hands, which were very cold, trembled.
And at long last came the ring at the front door, the voices of the unspeakable lady and her step on the stair. Also another voice and another step. And the other voice and step were the voice and the step of Stephen St. Hilary.
Daphne would have liked to draw farther back into the shadow, but she was afraid to move, afraid to breathe.
Now the woman had conducted the visitor to Henry’s door and was coming back. Would she see Daphne? No — she passed, unconscious, breathing heavily.
And, the moment her vast scented bulk had turned the corner of the stairs, Daphne was on the corridor bridge; next moment she was at Henry’s door. It was not quite closed. She stood, trembling more than ever, uncertain of everything in the world. If she listened — and she wanted to listen — St. Hilary coming suddenly out, might, would, surprise her there. If she did not listen — But she must listen, for she knew, quite unerringly, that this talk, already begun behind that door that had so often withstood her, and now showed this welcoming chink of light, that this talk would be about her. A fury of resentment against St. Hilary fought with a sick sense of disgust at the base creeping thing Daphne had become, Daphne who had always meant to be so brave and noble and honourable.
Should she listen? Should she not listen? Meanwhile she was listening.
“No apology is needed,” she heard Henry say. How different his voice was from everybody else’s voice! “I’m quite at your service.”
She could not hear what St. Hilary said.
“No,” said Henry, “no — I do not wonder at all. No doubt you will enlighten me in your own good time as to the object of your visit.”
She wished St. Hilary would not mumble so. She could hear nothing of what he was saying, and he was saying quite a lot.
“No brothers and no father. Quite so,” said Henry. “And you propose to take their place.! I see. By the lady’s wish?”
“No,” said St. Hilary. She heard that.
“With her knowledge?”
“No,” again.
“In that case,” said Henry, “I have the honour to wish you good evening. No, I am not turning you out. I am the soul of hospitality. Pray stay as long as you wish. I am going out myself.”
St. Hilary moved — nearer to the door, it seemed, for now she could hear what he said.
“I know I’ve no earthly business to interfere — but she is all alone. She is very unhappy. I don’t want to ask any questions — to say anything to offend you.”
“May I ask,” Henry’s tones were cut out of clean ice—”what other object you can possibly have in view?”
“I want,” said St. Hilary, slowly, “to know whether this quarrel is — whether it’s not possible to make it up.”
“Then you are the lady’s ambassador?”
“I answered that before.” St. Hilary’s voice was growing colder and harder. He paused. Then said more gently: “I am her friend. Will you not be patient and let me speak — for the sake of that poor child.”
“If you insist — and stand with your back to my door — I have no alternative.”
“I am her friend. She told me about you. She is very brave, but she is very young and very unhappy. She told me — oh, not your name, but I knew that.”
“Perspicacity itself,” murmured Henry.
“She told me that you had made her an offer of marriage—”
“Oh — she did, did she?”
“And that then you had broken everything off because love stood in the way of your work.”
“Indeed,” said Henry, “and then — ?”
“She is breaking her heart. Is your work really so much more to you than a child who loves you?
If you married her—”
“I never,” said Henry, deliberately, “had the slightest intention of marrying anyone.”
Outside Daphne’s hands tore at the neck of her dress.
“Do you dare to tell me — ?”
“Do you dare to ask me what I did intend? I’ll tell you, with the greatest pleasure. I asked her to go away with me. Then I thought better of it. Are you sorry I did?”
“You devil,” said St. Hilary, slowly.
“I wonder,” said Henry’s voice, low and sweet, “I wonder why I am not killing you. And by God,” he cried, very loudly and harshly, “if you don’t clear out I will. Clear out. Go and marry her yourself. Since she lies to you, she probably cares for you. I may be a devil — you’ll know it in another minute —— but I’m not devil enough to wish to tie any woman to me. I don’t care for any woman — for more than half an hour. I never have; I never shall. Go, I tell you — go back to your—”
Then there was no more speech, but a sound of feet moving, then some words heavily spoken under the breath. Daphne, outside, became aware that it was a struggle — two men angry to madness. And Henry had said — what horrible thing was it he had said among all the other horrible things?
“At least I’m not a coward,” she said; and with that she pushed the door open and went in.
“Oh, don’t,” she cried. “Oh, stop — oh, don’t —— it’s me.”
Two faces turned toward her. Two faces that haunt her dreams to this day. Then the men gripped each other again in a struggle. It was like two dogs fighting, she thought — only dogs growl and bark and shriek, and these two were so horribly quiet. They stamped and struggled, and she could hear them breathe thickly. They writhed to and fro — and Henry’s face was thin and white and horrible; St. Hilary’s face was swollen and pink. Now Henry’s hands were on the other man’s throat. Daphne tried to throw her arms round Henry. He shook her off roughly, and she saw his face again — St. Hilary’s, too. And she saw, very plainly, and quite without any possibility of mistake, that in another minute Henry would have done what he had said he would do.
All the woman’s wit supplemented the child’s dramatic instinct. She threw up her arms, screamed, and fell headlong on the ground, her bright hair, quite intentionally, among the black of fender and fire-irons. There she lay for a little eternity of half a minute before she could be sure that she had won. Then she knew. Yes. The struggle had ceased. Then there were arms round her — oh, arms she knew. She was being lifted. Ought she to go on pretending to faint, or — She let her head hang limply over the shoulder that supported it. She was being placed in a chair; the arms were being withdrawn. No one had spoken a word. Now she spoke.
“No, no, no!” she said, and “no, no”; and her arms went round Henry’s neck and held him. He must have read in the touch of her the truth about her swoon, for he laughed as he pulled her roughly to her feet and faced St. Hilary, with his arm still round her.
“Will you let this gentleman take you home, or will you stay with me?” he asked.
And Daphne, still tingling with the shame of the words she had heard him speak, clung blindly to that certainty she had always had. If she could only be alone with him all wo
uld be well.
She deliberately laid her head on his shoulder again.
“You see?” said Henry, to the other man—”your doing entirely. I hope you are satisfied? Good night!” And he leaned his face, with studied tenderness, over Daphne’s hair.
St. Hilary stood still, swallowed once, turned and went out.
Then both Henry’s arms went round her for a moment, before he held her at arms’ length to look at her face.
“God, but it’s good to see you again,” he said.
For a little minute it was enough to be with him — to touch him — to see him.
“Oh,” she whispered, “I have wanted you so.”
“Not as I’ve wanted you,” he answered, almost savagely.
“You didn’t—” she said,—”it wasn’t true — what you said to him. You only said it because you were angry with him.”
“What, my lily-love?”
‘‘That you didn’t want to marry me? It wasn’t true?”
She looked at him with those blue eyes — wide open, full of the horror of the question.
“True? Don’t be a darling idiot! Of course it wasn’t true! I want nothing else.”
“And your work — I won’t interfere with your work? — you know I won’t.”
Everything was coming right, just as she had always known it would.
“Oh, damn my work!” he said, and kissed her.
“Oh, I have been so unhappy,” she said.
“I’m not worth it,” he said, and kissed her again.
“But it’s all over now, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said, “it’s all over now. Come, I must take you home. That man’s probably gone to fetch all your relations in cabs, and it would be just as well that they should find you at your own place and not at mine.”
“That man,” however, was where Daphne had been — on the staircase beside the dead musk plant. It was a satisfaction to him to see the two go past, to hear them go out, and, following them to Daphne’s door, to witness there their parting.