The Constant Nymph

by Margaret Kennedy

  ‘I don’t need to guess. You’ve got a face like a cinematograph. He who runs may read. I know what it was.’

  ‘Bet you don’t …’

  ‘Something frightened you.’

  ‘Aren’t you clever!’

  ‘What was it? I always know when you’re frightened; there are two funny little lamps in your eyes, right in the very middle of your eyes, and they light up when you’re frightened. I can see them now; you’re frightened still. Tessa! Don’t hide away from me! Tell me what it is!’

  She had twisted herself away from him, and was hiding her tell-tale face in the pillow. But he could see a deep blush spreading over her cheek and the back of her neck. His astonishment grew. What in the world could ever make her blush?

  ‘Are you ashamed of anything,’ he demanded sternly.

  A muffled voice bade him leave her alone.

  ‘Well then, look at me!’

  She sat up and looked at him, straightfaced and rather indignant, the pink slowly ebbing from her cheeks. He saw that she had been ashamed, but not for herself. Some one else had been at her. But who? After he had left Chiswick … Oh, it was obvious!

  ‘It was something Florence said,’ he stated.

  ‘Lewis! Please …’

  ‘Did you have words?’

  ‘I shan’t tell you.’

  ‘And she made you frightened and ashamed? Why can’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because … women oughtn’t to … to tell men about each other …’

  ‘I see. Then we’ll leave it. But you’re an astounding creature, Tessa. You’ll listen to Reine’s conversation without turning a hair, and yet a genteel person like Florence …’

  ‘Please!’

  He laughed. He could quite imagine the sort of thing that Florence had said; it was probably enough to make anybody blush. Whatever it was, he blessed her for it, since it had sent Tessa to him. He went on teasing for a little while, but he did not press the point.

  ‘I don’t believe that you really understood half that Reine said,’ he insisted.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ she murmured, her cheek against his. ‘But I know what she thinks. She thinks a funny thing about you and me. She thinks I’m your fancy lady.’

  ‘So does Florence, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Does she?’ Tessa sheered away from all thought of Florence. ‘Well, but Lewis, I’ve a hard thing to ask you. If I’m not … what they think … what am I?’

  He sat for a long time silent, holding her carefully as though she was something precious and easily broken. Then he said:

  ‘You mean, what would I call you if I wasn’t your lover? That’s a tight place! Listen! Will this do? I won’t … I couldn’t … ever again, in all my life, call any woman by a name that sounded too hard for you. I would think of any woman that she could be to some man, perhaps, what you are to me.’

  ‘That sounds all right. Don’t look so worried. I only just wanted to know. It’s … completely unimportant …’

  He had lost himself a little, quite carried away by her passion and the fiery intensity of her mind. Almost he believed himself capable of a love like hers. They sat watching the swift fading of daylight in the sky, while sounds of distant traffic floated up from the street to their high, hidden retreat. He discovered at last that she was very cold; her little fingers, locked in his, were icy, and she shivered so often that he again offered to lend her his muffler. He lit the gas, a bare, noisy jet which threw a green light upon the disorder of the room and turned the window panes from sapphire to black. She looked more wan and frail than ever and he exclaimed:

  ‘You look very mouldy. Come down to supper.’

  ‘I couldn’t really. I don’t want anything. I’m too tired.’

  ‘Well then I’ll go down and bring something up.’

  And he left her, treading lightly from the room and shutting the door behind him with caution. Outside, in the closeness of the dark landing, the evil of the house seemed to pounce upon him and he was faced with the knowledge that he had brought her there. He would take her away. He groped his way downstairs past shut, secret doors, ranging the world in his mind, seeking a suitable shelter for the pair of them. No place offered itself to his imagination. As she had said, all places seemed so very much alike. Their safety lay only in themselves, and she had no doubts about it. Why should she? But for himself it was different; he had not that constant and unswerving love which would shine like a torch in dark, unfriendly places.

  He interviewed Gabrielle and induced her, with some bribery, to prepare and bring up a tray of food. He told her that they would be leaving in the morning. Then he started up again, still wrestling with the problem of the future. What in the world was he to do with her? They had, unfortunately, no friend whom they could consult. Nobody appreciated Tessa, unless it might be that old gentleman, her uncle.

  Confronted by the idea of Charles Churchill, Lewis became very thoughtful.

  He found Teresa upon her feet, struggling with some labour and difficulty to take off her frock. He sat down and buried his face in his hands, trying to clear his mind, still distracted by the lethargy of thought which had disabled him all day. At last he said:

  ‘Suppose I wrote to your uncle …’

  ‘Uncle Charles? What do you want to write to him for?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’ll send your love when I write, shall I?’ she jeered.

  ‘Oh! You’ll write, will you?’

  ‘I thought I’d send him a picture postcard now and then.’

  ‘Well, when you do, tell him …’

  ‘What? Damn these buttons!’

  ‘I must think.’

  What, indeed, was he to say to Charles? It was more easy to guess what Charles would say to him. And yet Charles was the only person in the world who had a proper value for Tessa.

  ‘It’s very stuffy in here,’ she said suddenly, in a choked little voice.

  He told her to open the window. In his mind he had begun a letter to Charles. He was never very good at writing letters. He could not at all plan one that explained the nature of his passion for Charles’s niece – a thing so delicate that words seemed to hurt it, a thing so beautiful that it must somehow be preserved, a thing so strong that nothing in the world could stand in its way.

  ‘I can’t open it,’ said Teresa, who had been tugging at the window. ‘It’s stiff.’

  ‘Try at the top,’ he advised, without looking round.

  She stared up at the top, clutching her breast for a moment, where pain was alive and threatening. Then she braced herself for another effort.

  Lewis gave it up. There would be no sort of good in writing to Charles. The only result would be a separation; they would come and take her away from him. That was not to be thought of. The alternative was to succomb to Maison Marxse. He wished that Gabrielle would hurry up with that food. Not that he would let her in. This room was Tessa’s stronghold. He would go out and fetch the tray in from the landing.

  The noise of the flaming gas seemed to have grown very much louder. The room was frighteningly quiet. Teresa had stopped pulling at the window; she had stopped moving. He looked round and saw that she had slipped down on to the floor.

  ‘Have you fainted?’ he asked, jumping up.

  She made no reply.

  He picked her up and put her on the bed. There was no water in the room, but he found a damp sponge among her things and began anxiously to sponge her face in the hope of bringing her round. Her colour disturbed him. Presently a gleam of consciousness returned to her eyes.

  ‘Light the light!’ she whispered.

  ‘It’s lighted.’

  She stared fixedly at the soaring green flame. He began to think that she could not see it.

  ‘Tessa!’ he protested. ‘Dearest love …’

  He went on sponging her face. The hissing of the gas grew so loud that he could hardly be sure that she breathed. And all day she had been cold.

  He heard the t
ray clinking outside and cried to Gabrielle for help. She opened the door with a bump, pushing the tray in front of her. But when she looked at the bed she exclaimed, and came quickly forward. She put the tray on the floor and came to Lewis and took the sponge away from him.

  ‘What’s the good of doing that?’ she asked in tones of anger and alarm.

  He saw, then, that there was no sort of good in it. His heart’s treasure was gone; she had eluded finally both his love and his folly. He became, in an instant, so certain of his loss that he gave up the defenceless thing in his arms to the rude, untender handling of Gabrielle; she could do no harm now to the living Tessa. He stood watching while she made a hasty, indignant examination and at last he explained, stupidly:

  ‘She has got away … she’s dead …’

  ‘That is evident,’ agreed Gabrielle. ‘Still, a doctor must be fetched. I will send Paul.’

  She hurried off and soon there began to be noises of footsteps, the cries of alarmed people, lower in the house.

  Lewis, discovering in his turn that the room was very airless, went to open the window. It would not move and he found a wedge at the top. When he had taken this away the sash slid up easily. He stood holding the wedge in his hand, looking at it and thinking, with a kind of slow amazement, that it had killed Tessa.

  The night wind blew in, swaying the dusty curtains, and all the sheets of music on the floor went rustling and flapping like fallen leaves. A chill tempest, it blew over the quiet bed, but it could not wake her. She slept on, where they had flung her down among the pillows, silent, undefeated, young.

  Lewis leant far out of the window, as if to hail a departing friend. Down in the street he saw a long, long double row of lamps burning steadily in spite of the gale. People moved like shadows over the bright pavements. Above the houses, very high in the sky, a small, pale moon raced through the clouds as though some enemy pursued her.

  24

  Florence had been forced to seek help from the Birnbaums. She had not meant to tell them of her fears when she hurried round to Lexham Gardens in search of Teresa. But Antonia had exclaimed immediately:

  ‘Tessa gone? Himmel! I knew they would.’

  And Jacob said:

  ‘We must follow them. She shall be brought back.’

  They took it for granted that Lewis and Teresa were gone together. It seemed to Florence as though the whole family had been awaiting this calamity; they must have known of it all the time. And, though they were kind to her and sorry for her, she could not help a certain distrust of them, for she had an idea that their sympathies were upon the other side.

  They were, however, quite obviously distressed and anxious. Teresa, they said, must be pursued and recovered. Jacob was sure that they would have gone to Brussels, and Tony suggested that they might be staying with Reine.

  ‘We always do, when we go to Brussels,’ she explained.

  Jacob, who knew Mdme Marxse by reputation, was inclined to agree with her. He said that he would take the early train upon the following day.

  ‘You?’ cried Florence in surprise. ‘Did you think of going?’

  ‘It is better,’ he said, ‘unless your father …’

  She had not realised that he would take the affair so personally. But he had a good deal of clan feeling. Teresa was Tony’s belonging and he was not going to have her lost.

  ‘I must go,’ said Florence. ‘I’m responsible.’

  ‘I think,’ he suggested nervously. ‘that it would be better that I should go. There is no necessity …’

  ‘It’s good of you. But she was my charge. I can manage it alone.’

  ‘Mrs Dodd, you must let me come with you. Or your father. But I, perhaps, would be better than he. You do not know these people. You could do nothing with them.’

  ‘Reine is an old devil,’ supplemented Antonia.

  Florence did not want him. She loathed the idea of travelling with him. But she saw that she might, indeed, require his help. She really could not present herself at the house of this Mdme Marxse, clamouring for her husband. It was horrible. She thanked Jacob and compromised by accepting his escort. He grumbled about it to Antonia afterwards, declaring that he could have managed the business and brought Teresa back perfectly well by himself.

  ‘Can’t you see,’ said Antonia, ‘that she’s going after Lewis? She doesn’t care in the least what becomes of Tessa. She hates Tessa. But she won’t let Lewis go.’

  ‘You are wrong,’ said Jacob positively. ‘She will leave him after this. She will not, naturally, endure such behaviour. This is the end of that affair.’

  ‘Not at all. You think she’s proud? She isn’t a bit. She’ll follow him about anywhere. She won’t let Tessa have him, even though everybody knows that he loves Tessa and not her.’

  ‘Does he love Tessa? I think he loves nobody but himself. I’m afraid to think what will happen to that little girl.’

  ‘They’re all right,’ she insisted comfortably. ‘They love each other … well … like we do.’

  ‘I see little safety in that,’ he said rather grimly. ‘And we are probably going too late. But it is clear that she must be brought back. I wish your cousin did not come too. She frightens me, that woman. She is always so correct; and I … am not always correct, you understand. What a journey we shall have!’

  ‘Poor Florence!’

  ‘Why do you pity her? She should not have married him. She is not very young and it is to be supposed that she knew the world. It is all her own fault.’

  ‘She was very kind to us last Summer.’

  ‘To you perhaps. To me she has never been kind. I am a very wicked man! What, I would ask, does she call Lewis? You are mistaken, Tony. She will never forgive him. She must hate him.’

  ‘Perhaps. You can hate a person and want them.’

  He agreed, with a nervous glance at her, not daring to ask what she meant precisely. Always he lost himself when he made an attempt to explore her deeper mind.

  The journey proved no better than he had expected. He did his best to be inoffensive to his companion, but his behaviour, when travelling, was too ornate for her taste, and embarrassment did not improve it. Beside her quiet elegance he was monstrously out of place. He handed her in and out of first-class carriages, ordered sumptuous meals, bullied officials, and made himself and his wealth generally intolerable. It was a relief when they got to Brussels.

  He selected their hotel, a large, noisy, expensive place which she detested, and left her there while he went to make enquiries after the fugitives. This most odious part of the business was, at least, to be spared her; he would do it all, as he had carried her wraps and tipped the porters.

  She sat waiting for him to come back, in a chilly, magnificent bedroom. Her spirits sank as the moments passed; she became the prey of a kind of despairing lassitude. She wondered, miserably, why she had come. Yesterday she had been strained and anxious to be off; all through the night an implacable, goaded imagination had kept her from sleeping. Now she felt as though nothing mattered. Time pressed no longer. She hardly cared whether they traced Teresa or not. She was sure that they had come too late.

  ‘Why did I come?’ she muttered to herself. ‘I won’t see him.’

  She took off her hat and veil and smoothed her hair. Then she fell to pacing the room, up and down, up and down, while the long minutes dragged. At last she flung herself down on a couch by the window and closed her eyes. Immediately there floated before her that vision which had haunted her mind for forty-eight hours – the dim, chequered pattern of an orchestra and the white bows moving through the air all together. The themes of the Dodd Symphony had run in her head, maddeningly, through all her other distractions. To the memory of its rhythms she had made her preparations for this hurried journey, she had heard it in all the trains and in the Brussels traffic. Now, as she dozed, the music swelled and grew louder, thrilling through her tired brain; the violins took on the sweet, piercing quality of dream sounds; the drums, hammering omin
ously, frightened her. They grew so loud that she started up. Jacob was knocking at her door, asking if he could speak to her for a moment. She came out, and stood talking to him in the passage.

  ‘Well?’ she asked.

  He was pale and disordered. Agitation quivered in his large, opulent person and kindly face. He looked past her into the room and asked if he might come in. He said that it was a bad business. She opened her door wider and let him in. Her aversion was so great that she disliked having to do so, despite the unintimate atmosphere of the room.

  Once inside he hardly seemed to know what to say. He stood looking at her, tongue-tied and miserable. She asked whether he had found them.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They went to Mdme Marxse.’

  ‘Did you see them?’

  ‘I saw Lewis. Mrs Dodd … it is terrible … I hardly know how to tell you … I … she …’

  ‘You mean … he’s ruined her …’ she helped him.

  ‘She is dead.’

  He almost shouted it, in the effort to get it said. Florence started away from him, growing very pale, crying out:

  ‘No! Oh, no! Impossible …’

  He thought that she would faint, and was relieved, as then he might put an end to a painful interview and summon assistance. But she collected herself and asked, in a low voice:

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘I know! I know! I could not.’

  ‘Yesterday! When? After they got here?’

  ‘I think so.’

  He gave her such details as he had been able to collect. After the first she showed little agitation and a great anxiety to know everything.

  ‘Where is Lewis?’ she said at last.

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘In the vestibule. Downstairs. I thought that perhaps you might wish to see him. Shall I send him away?’

  ‘No. No, don’t do that.’

  She reflected for a moment and then asked:

  ‘Does he … does he want to see me?’

  ‘I think so. He has sent a telegram for you this morning.’

  ‘Telegraphed for me? Why did he do that?’