Kerran had got to Lourdes and the vision of Bernadette and she began to listen again, until it was time to make them all go home to lunch. The little expedition had just filled in the morning, which was satisfactory. In these days, while she was waiting for Dick, she needed some kind of definite routine.
“You must row quickly,” she said, when she had collected her three men, “or we shall be late.”
“Give us twenty,” said Barny earnestly.
Smiling, she counted twenty, while Barny, Kerran and Gordon tugged at their oars. The boat flew across the water and the island bore down on them. A tolling bell from the castle told them that lunch was ready just as they shipped oars smartly beside the landing stage.
Louise was running down the grass slope, all ready to tell them the news. For there was continual drama on the island; under her sway that was inevitable. If people went away for a morning, they would be sure to miss something.
Louise was transported with excitement. And she had taken off her shoes and stockings. Her white ankles twinkled under her linen skirt as she came bounding over the grass. They all stared first at her feet and then at her glowing face. Ellen rose up in the boat, crying:
“Dick? Has Dick come?”
“No, no! Not Dick. No. It’s Elissa Koebel. I’ve asked her to lunch.”
The three men had begun to smile at the prospect of Dick arriving, but at this announcement they left off smiling abruptly. Ellen, who had heard nothing about Elissa Koebel, looked bewildered.
“I’ve never seen anyone like her,” cried Louise, as she hurried them out of the boat. “Like somebody out of a fairy tale. She came suddenly out of the woods when we were bathing. Really like somebody out of a fairy tale. Ow!”
There were little thistles in the short grass and Louise sometimes walked on these, but after the first betraying exclamation she managed to ignore the pain they gave her.
“I felt as if I’d known her all my life. I can’t tell you … there we were, bathing on a little beach, and all at once this absolutely beautiful person just … occurred. There’s no other word for it. She was suddenly with us. And she sang! She sang to us (Ow!) just sitting on the beach. I thought she would vanish at any moment. But she didn’t. She’s in the dining-hall at this minute. Isn’t it fun?”
Ellen was so deeply disappointed that she said nothing at all for a moment, and then she asked what had happened to Louise’s shoes and stockings.
“I threw them into the lake,” said Louise, laughing.
“Oh, did you? Why?”
Louise was hobbling painfully over the gravel path in front of the north gate and did not reply. Once on the grateful smoothness of the flagstones, she recovered poise and asked “Why not?”
“Er …” said Gordon. “Er … er … er …”
In private he had agreed with Barny and Kerran that such a person as Madame Koebel could not possibly be received in the castle. When he heard what they had to tell of her, he had assured them that there was no danger. Louise would be the last woman to make such a friendship. So now he could only flush and gobble.
“Er … er … er …”
He had never seen the woman, or heard her sing. He knew nothing about her save what Kerran and Barny had told him. But he pictured he knew not what of disreputability installed in his dining-room. His acquaintance with the half world had been slight. He associated easy virtue with paint, powder, strong perfume and Gals Gossip, which friends of his youth had all thought very funny but which was full of jokes which he could never understand. He rather expected that Elissa would wear a very large hat and a veil with black dots on it, like a dreadful person in the Bal Boulier, to which he had been taken while in Paris, who came up and pinched his behind. To find that Louise had accepted all this, Louise, to whom any sort of vulgarity was torture, left him without powers of speech. He could only clutch his sundew and make helpless little noises, as he followed her across the courtyard.
Kerran and Barny were already looking self-conscious, like cows turned into a field with a bull. All their sex had come to the surface, so that they had left off wanting to laugh, and were quite grave, as they clattered into the hall after Louise.
Elissa and Maude were sitting in silence at the long table that stood on the dais. Maude’s silence was that of a charged thunder-cloud. At any moment it might have dissolved into a peal of laughter or a series of shrieks. She did not speak because her feelings were too much for her. But Elissa was silent because she had nothing to say. It was evident that she had forgotten the existence of Maude. Leaning her bare white elbows on the table, she had fallen into a profound reverie, while the food on her plate grew cold.
Nor did she immediately look up at the little party advancing across the hall. She remained as unaware of them as though footlights had lain between. Her attitude was that of Sieglinde, sitting at Hunding’s board and listening to Siegmund’s story. Her loose draperies flowed about her limbs and fell carelessly into folds that were classic, traditional. Her hair, of that miraculous gold which is seldom seen outside legend, hung down on either side of her head in two thick braids. The face between was pale, severe almost to harshness. She had taken on the stern beauty of the great bare hall, so that she seemed to belong to it, as it had belonged once to the barbarous chieftains who had made their home in the castle. She sat at the table, as if by right, and Maude, beside her, was such an anachronism as to be scarcely there at all.
“My husband …” Louise was saying. “My brothers … my sister, Mrs. Napier.”
Slowly the stern pose was changed for one of grave recognition and attention. Elissa came out of her trance and acknowledged these introductions, looking from one to another as if she would ask what they wanted of her. It was difficult to remember that this was their house and that she was the stranger. She said nothing until she caught sight of the handkerchief which Gordon still clutched. Then there was a definite movement of interest. A faint smile quivered on her lovely mouth as she asked:
“What haf you got there? Show me.”
Her voice was deep and beautiful. It was the loveliest speaking voice that any of them had ever heard, and its foreign accent lent it an unexpected charm. It obliged them all to feel that she was a great woman, a rare and gifted creature, condescending to their hospitality.
“S—s—s—sundew,” stammered Gordon, putting his handkerchief on the table and revealing its contents. “A rare specimen …”
“It is not beautiful,” observed Elissa, looking at the handful of crushed moss.
“No. But it eats flies.”
“Ach, so! Tell me, please?”
He stammered a confused explanation, to which she listened attentively.
“But this is wonderful!” she exclaimed. “I also love flowers, but of sundew I have never heard. It is macabre, this! Could we not catch a fly for it?”
“Try it with a crumb,” ventured Kerran.
She looked at him for a second, and he blushed. He had never seen such eyes, so wild and strange and unabashed, in any woman’s head before. They gave him a sensation as if one of his vertebræ, low down near the base of the spine, was missing. And they made him feel queerly ashamed of himself. He was aware that in all his thoughts, all his conversation, about this woman, he had been guilty of gross vulgarity. She might be abominable, but the scandal which he and Barny had been talking was too small for her. He looked over at Barny, who had taken his place by Maude. And he saw that Barny was very cross.
Gordon’s soup got cold while he tried to catch a fly for the sundew, and explained just exactly how rare this species was. Never before had he had such a success with his botanical discoveries. Their guest displayed the most flattering attention. She plied him with questions for twenty minutes. And then, half-way through the pudding course, she rose abruptly.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I am going back into the sunshine. I have eaten sufficient, and I find it a little cold in here.”
Without further apology she left them, w
alking slowly down the hall as though she was making a stage exit. They all stared after her until she had vanished into the sunshine of the courtyard.
Maude spoke first. She said:
“How very rude!”
To which Louise replied:
“Do you think so?”
“But who is she? Who is she?” asked Ellen.
“What is going to happen next?” asked Kerran.
Barny and Gordon said nothing. Barny was too angry to speak. He considered that Maude had been insulted.
As for Gordon, he was head over ears in love.
11
Letter from Ellen
MY DEAREST MOTHER,—
Thank you for sending me the wool. It is just what I wanted, so beautifully soft. I shall have enough to make six little vests, and I don’t think I shall need any more; they grow out of the first size so quickly. So if you have any time for knitting, would you concentrate on another shawl, as I find that one or two that I thought would do are so washed up they have gone all felty?
We go on very well here, the weather is beautiful; I only hope it will not break before Dick comes. No news of him, at least I get a letter every day with nothing in it. It is tiresome that he should be kept hanging about all this time in London.
I am very well. It is nice to have nothing to do. The bathing is very nice. The children seem to be very well, though I do not think it is a very bracing place. I would have liked a more bracing place for Dick. No other news. We have a great deal of music, which is nice, and will have more, I suppose, when Mr. Fletcher comes, as he is bringing his violin. Madame Koebel sings every evening. She is a strange person, but she certainly sings beautifully, and one cannot help admiring her. But I would have to know her much better before I could be quite sure if she is always sincere. It is so difficult to know what foreigners are really like.
I go over every day that I can to the mainland. It is a nice change from the island, where we seem to be rather cut off, somehow. I think this is because we never see anything of the country people as one does generally in the country. There is a nice woman in a cottage some way up on the north shore, a Mrs. Gallagher. She keeps bees and sells very good honey. I will send you a comb. She has seven children “at foot” and an eight months’ old baby. I see them running about the bogs, six little boys and a girl. The boys all wear frocks, even the ten-year-old, I think because their mother cannot make trousers. They wear one long homespun garment, rather like a cassock. The little girl, Nellie, wears quite a short frock with half a dozen petticoats under it, like the peasant women. She has red corkscrew curls and is very self-possessed. It would make you laugh to see them all come stringing over the bog, these great boys with their cassocks flapping round their legs and the very feminine Nellie clambering after them.
The post is going, so I must stop.
Your loving daughter,
ELLEN.
Letter from Gordon
DEAR MRS. ANNESLEY,—
Louise has commissioned me to write and tell you that she has remembered about the spirit lamp and is writing to the stores. I transcribe this message verbatim and trust that you will understand it.
We are so glad to hear that Harrogate is doing you good, but we miss you sadly here, for this is certainly the most delightful holiday that we have ever spent. In fact, we have become so enamoured of the place that we plan to spend every Long Vacation here.
Louise will have written to you an account of our new acquaintance: I may say friend, for she is with us so much that we have come to regard her as practically one of our party. I expect the intimacy will surprise you a little. That she should “fit in” so well must be almost incomprehensible to anyone who knows her only by repute. Indeed, I could not have imagined it myself ten days ago.
But you will have gathered that she is a most remarkable woman. Her unconventionality, which is at first a trifle disconcerting, springs from a sincerity which rapidly wins respect. There is an element of greatness, of nobility, not only in her art but in her character; she moves, speaks and thinks with a direct simplicity which is only possible to genius, and in her company one has a glimpse of a freer and grander world. The most abiding impression which she gives is one of beauty, a beauty which neither begins nor ends with her art but which inspires all her approaches to life. It is difficult to imagine how this child of the gods can have survived all the insincerities and the petty vulgarities of the stage. One can only imagine that Apollo himself has protected her.
She has a mind which constantly outruns the narrow scope of her profession. It is not a trained mind, nor always a very well-informed mind, but it has the liveliest and the most delicate perceptions. One instance I will mention: I happened in the course of a conversation to quote a few lines of Vergil, in English of course (my own translation). She looked at me as though she had just received some specific revelation. The words, the whole meaning of the passage, so fixed her attention that she returned to it again and again. Who had written these lines? To whom did they refer? I must describe for her the whole narrative, the purpose and intention of the Æneid. She must read my translation. She must do more. She must read the original. You will scarcely believe me when I tell you that for three days she has been learning Latin in order that she may not, as she says, die before she has read Vergil.
She has infected Louise with her enthusiasm and a strange business we make of it, for they are both determined to read the Æneid at once and when they have conjugated a few verbs we sit, all three of us, upon the banks of the lake construing Dido’s lament. And then, in payment, she sings for me. I little thought that I should ever have two such pupils, and these golden hours are an idyll which I shall remember when I am old.
Louise had some message about a spirit lamp … but I see that I have given it. We all send our fondest love.
Yours very sincerely,
GORDON LINDSAY.
Letter from Kerran
DEAR MOTHER,—
The Koebel epoch is in full swing, though how long it will last I do not know, or what harm could really come of it. Louise, of course, is infatuated, and so is Gordon. Barny and I scarcely dare open our mouths. He entirely refuses to credit any of the stories about her; says it is all club gossip and so on. I had never realised before quite how unworldly the poor man is. He believes her to be all that is respectable, simply because she does not answer to his idea of a demi-mondaine.
But a word from herself may at any time shatter these delusions. I will say for her that she is a creature of no concealments. You couldn’t possibly call her a shady character. It is the sheerest accident that she has not yet told Gordon her life history. She will one day, and then we shall see wigs on the green, all sorts of wigs, because Louise is much further gone in Koebelismus than he is. She threw her shoes and stockings into the lake on the first day and heaven knows what she has not discarded since. She now holds a brief for all sorts of things which used to be very mal vues in the Woodstock Road, and I heard her this morning talking (a little nervously, I admit) about Sacred Impulses. Not that she makes any claim to such things, as yet, herself. It is the enviable Koebel who must, at all costs, be allowed to have them.
I thought at first that Barny was going to kick. He admires her tremendously, as an artist, but is very much shocked at Louise for bringing her here. But I imagine that Maude has talked him into a kind of surly acquiescence, though what Maude’s game is, I do not know. I think she likes to feel that it is upon her tact and forbearance that the peace of the household depends. She makes him play the Koebel’s accompaniments, with a bright firmness, which must be galling to Louise. He always begins very sulkily, but wakes up in spite of himself, to a real enthusiasm when the Koebel has sung for a little while.
Still no Dick. Ellen is looking a trifle haggard, and I think she is worried about him. She goes about looking as if she has lost something, and Maude says that he has not written to her for three days. But I may be quite wrong. It may be her condition.
&nb
sp; Love,
KERRAN.
Letter from Rosamund
CARA NONNA,—
That is the Italian for grandmother and I am going to call you it because it sounds nice. Thank you for the Yellow Fairy Book. I love Fairy Stories best. Elissa believes in Fairies. She says she sees them. She says she has second sight, and she thinks I have it too. She says it is a great gift, but I will have to pay for it when I grow up because people who are not so sensitive, like Hope, are really happiest. I had a lovely birthday. Mother gave me a book to write my poetry in, and the children gave me a No. 1 Brownie. I have taken a snap of Elissa; she says it is the only photo that has ever been taken of her, and she just did it for me. Father gave me a purse and Hope gave me a pin-cushion she made herself, and Aunt Maude gave me The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas Akempis. Uncle Barny gave me 2s. 6d., but Uncle Kerran did not give me anything. I had fifteen presents.
Your loving little granddaughter,
ROSAMUND LINDSAY.
Letter from Hope
DEAR GRANDMOTHER,—
Do you like this writing paper? I got it at Xmas, but I save it up for special letters. It has different flowers, but I chose the forget-me-nots because you like blue. We had a very exciting journey; first we went in a train and then in a boat. The island is very exciting. I can swim 100 strokes. I have written some poetry! It is about Madam Kerble, because she would not let me take a snap of her. It is this:
STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION AT INISHBAR
By Hope Napier
Long have I been a maiden glad.
Long have I lived in this world so sad.
From time to time I have had a grief,
But youth always came to my relief.
But now, alas, my dear one,
Now, alas, my fair one
Has refused my only boon.
A Long Time Ago Page 13