Valentine giggled softly; Reggie looked so awfully like a monkey when he made that face.
“Why?” she said.
“Because I am beautiful,” said Reggie, first rolling his eyes, and then bringing them to rest in a squint. “Beautiful,” he continued, “not only as regards my classic features, but with the inner, hidden beauty of a noble soul—and if you don’t believe me, ask my mo-o-other. Who should know better than a mo-o-other? Haven’t I got a beautiful nature, Mum—from a mere babe? You ask her to show you the photograph of me in my vest at one-year-two-months-five-days-four-hours-six-minutes-and-thirty-seconds looking soulful!”
“Reggie!” said Mrs. Cobb helplessly.
Valentine would have loved her visit if it could have gone on for ever; but three days of it gave her a dreadfully lonely feeling. They were all so kind. It was like being cold and coming into a warm room just for a minute—you didn’t know how cold you were until you came into the warm room, and just as you began to get a little warmer, you had to go out into the cold again. It made it worse. It made it much worse.
The night before she went back, Marjory came into her room and sat on the end of her bed in the dark. It wasn’t really dark, because the light from the lamp-post over the way shone in on the ceiling and made a pattern there. It was a pattern of leaves crossed by the window-bars, and the rest of the room was in a sort of dark dusk. All she could see of Marjory was a shadow that was a little denser than the other shadows.
Marjory sat cross-legged on the end of the bed and said in her cool little voice,
“Why are you going to marry Eustace? You don’t really want to.”
Valentine did not say that she wanted to; she said, “I must.”
“Who’s been stuffing you up with that? Aunt Helena?”
“Oh, no.”
“I think it’s ‘oh, yes.’ You little fool, she wants Holt for Eustace—quite natural, of course, and I’m not blaming her—but why in the name of the Parade of Wooden Soldiers are you playing her game?”
“I must.”
“Why must you?”
Valentine sat bolt upright in bed. She told Marjy all about Parkin Row and the baby who hadn’t enough to eat.
“And you see, Marjy, it doesn’t really matter about Eustace and me—we’re only two people; but there are such a lot of people in Parkin Row.”
“Does Eustace kiss you?” said Marjy abruptly.
“Yes.”
“Often?”
“When he says good-morning—and when he says good-night.”
“Do you mind?”
“Yes,” said Valentine in the dark.
“Then, my dear kid, how on earth are you going to marry him?”
“Perhaps”—rather falteringly—“perhaps he won’t kiss me when we’re married.”
“Perhaps he will,” said Marjory grimly.
“I asked Aunt Helena, and she said I oughtn’t to talk about it, and she went away—she does, you know.”
Marjory had a vivid picture of Helena Ryven passing by on the other side. She took a long breath.
“Look here, baby—” she began.
CHAPTER XXIII
The evening after Valentine got back from her visit to the Cobbs she startled Helena Ryven by asking suddenly,
“Couldn’t I go back to the island?
They had finished dinner. The curtains were still undrawn. The daylight was all gone away into a grey mist, and it was much too dark to read or sew. Helena Ryven sat near the window winding wool, whilst Valentine crouched all in a heap on the window-seat and watched the mist swallow up the woods tree by tree.
Then, suddenly,
“Couldn’t I go back to the island?”
Helena was startled out of her routine.
“My dear, how foolish! I think you had better ring for lights.”
“No—I mean it, Aunt Helena—I really do mean it. You’re so clever. Isn’t there any way that I can go back to the island and let Eustace have everything? I didn’t want to take anything away—and if I could go back—”
Mrs. Ryven put down her wool and got up.
“No one can ever go back,” she said. She crossed the room, switched on the lights, and rang the bell. “You know, Valentine, you really ought not to talk like that—I’ve told you so before. It’s not fair to Eustace.”
When the lights sprang on, the misty woods seemed to have been suddenly overwhelmed by the dark; they were there one moment, and the next a black curtain had fallen and blotted them out.
Valentine went on looking into the dark until Bolton came in to shut up the room. When he had gone again, she tried to say in the bright, coldly lighted room what she had not been able to say in the kind half-light. But she only got as far as,
“Isn’t there any way?”
Helena Ryven looked up, and down again. Valentine had come back paler than she went; she had been crying. Helena’s conscience pricked her, and she silenced it angrily. An attack of stage fright—lots of girls had it, and were happy enough afterwards. She spoke rather sharply.
“My dear Valentine, what is the matter? Do occupy yourself! I can’t bear to see people doing nothing. There’s all that brown wool to be wound if you want something to do.”
Valentine gave up trying to say what couldn’t be said. You couldn’t say things to Aunt Helena; she wouldn’t let you. It was like trying to open a door when you could feel that the person inside was pushing against you with all their might. There could never be an open door between her and Helena Ryven, because Helena would always hold the door against her. She wound the brown wool in silence whilst Helena had angry thoughts about the Cobbs. What had they been saying to upset her like this?
It was after this that Valentine began to go up to London once a week. She told Eustace that she wanted to do something for the poor people; and he said, not very encouragingly, that she was too inexperienced to be of any use. Afterwards he wrote and told her that if she wanted to see something of what was being done, Mrs. Bell, who was an experienced worker, would take her round and explain things. Mrs. Ryven said she did not think that Valentine would be any good at social work, and that she would be better occupied learning how to keep house. However, if Valentine wished to go, she saw no objection; it would at any rate get her into the way of going about by herself. So Valentine went up once a week.
Every time Eustace came down for the week-end, she felt that she must run away. She had dreams in which she ran, and ran, and ran, and ran, and ran. But when she went up to town in the middle of the week and saw Parkin Row, and places that were worse than Parkin Row, she knew that she couldn’t run away.
Mrs. Bell was a useful and practical worker, plump, cheerful, and excessively matter-of-fact. Valentine asked her about Katherine Hill, and was told that Miss Hill had got a place as secretary to Lewis Elderthal, the eminent philanthropist.
“Of course her experience with Mr. Ryven would make her invaluable,” said Mrs. Bell in a tone which meant that she didn’t like Katherine Hill.
“I thought perhaps—now—she would be working for Eustace again.”
Mrs. Bell changed the subject.
One day towards the end of August Valentine was waiting in the outer room of Eustace’s office. He had kept the office on after all, but he had not yet engaged another secretary, so the room was empty except for Valentine. Eustace and Mrs. Bell had gone to a committee meeting, but Mrs. Bell was coming back. It was a cloudy, stuffy afternoon. The room was airless and smelt of varnish. Valertine hated the office. The inner room seemed full of Eustace, even when he wasn’t there; there didn’t seem to be any place for her. Mrs. Bell told her constantly that she was not of the stuff of which social workers are made; she turned white and trembled when people described horrible things; and once she had actually disgraced herself by crying. Eustace ought to be marrying someone quite different—efficient, practical, older. Mrs. Bell didn’t say this, but it was quite obvious that she thought it.
Valentine herself had sto
pped thinking. She was going to be married in a fortnight, and she couldn’t think about it. It was like being carried down a rushing river towards a precipice; you couldn’t stop, and you couldn’t save yourself, and you couldn’t think.
She was standing at the dusty window watching the people go by in the street below, when the door opened. She turned round and saw Katherine Hill standing on the threshold.
It was curious that her feeling should have been one so near pleasure, for when she had seen Katherine before she had been afraid. Now she wasn’t afraid. She felt the same attraction that she had felt before, but this time it was unmixed.
Katherine looked at her in some surprise and stood where she was.
“I came to see Mr. Ryven’s secretary.”
“He hasn’t got one,” said Valentine.
“Is he here?”
“No.”
Katherine came in and shut the door.
“Are you expecting him?”
“No—I’m waiting for Mrs. Bell.”
Katherine had a dispatch-case in her hand. She set it down on the table.
“I’m working for Mr. Elderthal now. I wanted to ask Mr. Ryven’s permission to show him the estimates we had for the last block of model buildings.” She paused slightly and said in the same tone, “You are Valentine Ryven, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
There was a longer pause. Valentine felt as if Katherine’s thoughts were beating against her like waves. She felt as if she could love Katherine very much, as if they were meant to love each other; but something held them apart, and there came into her mind the line she had once read aloud about the unplumbed, salt, estranging sea. She looked at Katherine’s square, strong face, with the storm-coloured eyes that made it so alive, and she wished very much that it had been the face of her friend. She stood there just looking, not speaking; and Katherine said:
“You haven’t had a very long engagement.”
“Aunt Helena thinks long engagements are a mistake.”
“I see.”
She was still looking at Valentine, and Valentine wondered whether she could see how unhappy she was, and how much afraid. The little bare room that smelt of varnish seemed all at once to be quite full of her unhappiness. There was something about Katherine that made you see things which you had only felt before. She became aware that Katherine was unhappy too—not with her own shrinking unhappiness, but with a kind of stormy misery, bitter and tragic and strong.
“Why are you unhappy?”
Valentine shook her head. If she spoke, the stinging tears would brim over and roll down her cheeks; she mustn’t cry. She shook her head.
“You are unhappy,” said Katherine in her deep voice.
Valentine said “Yes,” on a soft, trembling breath.
“My dear—why? Doesn’t he love you?”
Valentine shook her head again. She put her hands together and let them hold each other; they were cold although the day was so hot.
“Is that why you are unhappy?” The faintest shadow of a smile moved Katherine’s lips as she spoke.
Valentine shook her head again.
“I don’t love him,” she said, and the tears that she had been holding back overflowed. She put up her hands and wiped them away.
“Then why,” said Katherine with a gentle persistence, “why are you marrying him?”
Valentine’s wet hands dropped from her face.
“I’ve got to give the money back—somehow—because of Parkin Row—and the other dreadful places. I can’t give it back unless I marry him—everybody says there isn’t any other way. It doesn’t really matter about my being unhappy. I oughtn’t to feel as if it mattered—I don’t when I’ve been seeing very poor, hungry people. That’s why I come up here. When I see them I feel as if I can do it.”
“And when you don’t see them?” said Katherine drily.
“Then I don’t feel as if I can.”
There was a pause. Then Katherine laughed.
“It sounds jolly for Eustace—doesn’t it? The sunbeam in the home and all that sort of thing! My good child, have you thought of what it’s going to be like for Eustace?”
It was quite obvious that Valentine had not. Her wet eyes filled with ingenuous surprise.
“No,” said Katherine, “I see you haven’t. I thought not. You’re the virgin martyr. But what about Eustace, marrying a girl he doesn’t care for, and who doesn’t care for him? What’s it going to do to him? … You don’t know? Well, I do. He’s never had as many human feelings as he ought to have. His mother brought him up in a sort of glass refrigerator. She thinks it’s rather coarse to have feelings—and Eustace would hate to be coarse. Well, if he marries you, he’ll settle down in a nice refined, cold hell and do without feelings altogether. And that will be so good for him—won’t it?”
Katherine never had very much colour, but as she spoke, her face became quite white. Valentine no longer wished to cry. She felt as if she had had cold water thrown over her. She said,
“Eustace asked me to marry him. He wants to build those houses. He has to think about all the poor people.”
“What a well-matched pair you ought to be—both thinking of others! The bother is that I don’t see how you’re going to set other people right when you’re all wrong yourselves. Now I’m not bothering about Parkin Row, or you—I’m bothering about Eustace.”
“Are you fond of him?” asked Valentine.
Katherine laughed.
“I think we may take it that I’m ‘fond’ of him. I expect Mrs. Ryven taught you that word, didn’t she? ‘Fond’ is about as far as she’ll go. ‘Love’ would shock her to the core.”
Valentine looked at her wide-eyed.
“Do you love Eustace?”
Katherine’s face changed.
“Oh, you child!” she said, and said no more.
Valentine flushed.
“No, I’m not—not now. But I wanted to know. I wish—oh, I do wish that you could marry Eustace!”
“Yes. If it hadn’t been for Parkin Row and you, I might—I might—” She choked, caught Valentine suddenly by the wrists, and said in a low muttering tone, “Break it off—break it off! Give us all a chance!”
Valentine felt those waves beating against her. They were waves of passionate anger, passionate love, passionate pity. She felt as if she must be broken by them. But she didn’t break. If she could be free—if they could all be free—if she needn’t marry Eustace—if she needn’t marry anyone—if she could go back to the island—if there were any way out. There wasn’t any way out. She must go on. The waves couldn’t break her.
She looked straight into Katherine’s eyes, and she said,
“I can’t break it off.”
Mrs. Bell came in on the silence that followed, just a little out of breath and looking at her watch.
“I’m so sorry—I was kept. You know what committees are—people begin talking when they haven’t really got anything to say. Oh, how do you do, Miss Hill? You’re quite a stranger.”
She turned back again to Valentine.
“Do you know, I’m afraid you’ll have to catch your train. Mr. Ryven said particularly that his mother wanted you to catch the four-thirty. He asked me to see you into a taxi. Good-bye, Miss Hill. Are you waiting for Mr. Ryven? I’m afraid he’ll be at least half an hour.”
Valentine followed her down the stairs. Half way down she turned with an inarticulate murmur of excuse and ran back. As she pushed open the door, she had a glimpse, just one glimpse, of the face that Katherine wore when she was alone. She did not know that anything could hurt so much.
She ran up to her, and Katherine said,
“What is it?”
“I came back—” Valentine stopped. Then she said, “Oh, Katherine!” and kissed her, and ran out of the room again and down the stairs.
CHAPTER XXIV
Lil came back to pack up before she sailed. She had been away three weeks, and for most of that time Timothy had been awa
y too. He had not seen Valentine since he had asked her if she was happy and she had said “Yes.”
He was out when she came down to see Lil, and the two girls spent a long afternoon together. Every few minutes Lil was called to the telephone, or had a note to write, or a parcel to open. The room was full of tissue paper and half-packed boxes. Lil declared herself to be worn out, and looked radiant.
“Don’t you mind going away alone?” said Valentine suddenly.
Lil laughed.
“Not with Jack at the other end.”
“I remember—you said you wanted to be married. Do you really want to be married?”
“I want to marry Jack.”
“Why?” said Valentine.
Lil stared at her with her bright blue eyes.
“Why do you suppose?”
“I don’t know—that’s why I asked.”
“You didn’t think of my being in love with him by any chance?”
“No,” said Valentine, “because when I asked you, you just said that you wanted to get married.”
“So I do. I want to get married because I’m crazy about Jack, and Jack’s crazy about me. Why, good gracious, what d’you think it’s been like being engaged all these years, with Jack away and everybody sneering and interfering, and Mrs. Ryven going on behind my back about my being a burden to Timothy?” She broke off with a hard, excited little laugh. “My goodness! D’you suppose I’d have stuck it out if I hadn’t cared more for Jack than for the whole lot of them put together?”
Valentine considered this whilst she folded and packed two coats and skirts. Then she asked,
“Do you think it’s wicked to marry someone you don’t love?”
Lil looked at her sharply.
“I don’t know about wicked. I couldn’t do it myself—and I should say it was a mug’s game unless you’re the sort that doesn’t mind things.”
Timothy did not come home till Valentine had gone.
“She looks a perfect scarecrow,” Lil told him, “I think your sister Helena ought to be ashamed of herself.”
“What’s the matter?” said Timothy in the most ordinary voice that he could manage.
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