The sound of her voice surprised her. It came from her whole body; it vibrated like a violin.
"How could he love you? You were a child then."
"I"m not a child now. You"ll have to let him marry me."
"I"d rather see you in your coffin. I"d rather see you married to poor Norman Waugh. And goodness knows I wouldn"t like that."
"Your mother didn"t like your marrying Papa."
"You surely don"t compare Maurice Jourdain with your father?"
"He"s faithful. Papa was faithful. I"m faithful too."
"Faithful! To a horrid man like that!"
"He isn"t horrid. He"s kind and clever and good. He"s brave, like Mark.
He"d have been a soldier if he hadn"t had to help his mother. And he"s honourable. He said he wouldn"t see me or write to me unless you let him.
And he hasn"t seen me and he hasn"t written. You can"t say he isn"t honourable."
"I suppose," her mother said, "he"s honourable enough."
"You"ll have to let him come. If you don"t, I _shall go to him_."
"I declare if you"re not as bad as your Aunt Charlotte."
IV.
Incredible; impossible; but it had happened.
And it was as if she had known it--all the time, known that she would come downstairs that morning and see Maurice Jourdain"s letter lying on the table. She always had known that something, some wonderful, beautiful, tremendous thing would happen to her. This was it.
It had been hidden in all her happiness. Her happiness was it. Maurice Jourdain.
When she said "Maurice Jourdain" she could feel her voice throb in her body like the string of a violin. When she thought of Maurice Jourdain the stir renewed itself in a vague, exquisite vibration. The edges of her mouth curled out with faint throbbing movements, suddenly sensitive, like eyelids, like finger-tips.
Odd memories darted out at her. The plantation at Ilford. Jimmy"s mouth crushing her face. Jimmy"s arms crushing her chest. A scarlet frock. The white bridge-rail by the ford. Bertha Mitchison, saying things, things you wouldn"t think of if you could help it. But she was mainly aware of a surpa.s.sing tenderness and a desire to immolate herself, in some remarkable and n.o.ble fashion, for Maurice Jourdain. If only she could see him, for ten minutes, five minutes, and tell him that she hadn"t forgotten him. He belonged to her real life. Her self had a secret place where people couldn"t get at it, where its real life went on. He was the only person she could think of as having a real life at all like her own.
She had thought of him as mixed up for ever with her real life, so that whether she saw him or not, whether she remembered him or not, he would be there. He was in the songs she made, he was in the Sonata _Appa.s.sionata_; he was in the solemn beauty of Karva under the moon. In the _Critique of Pure Reason_ she caught the bright pa.s.sing of his mind.
Perhaps she had forgotten a little what he looked like. Smoky black eyes.
Tired eyelids. A crystal mind, shining and flashing. A mind like a big room, filled from end to end with light. Maurice Jourdain.
V.
"I don"t think I should have known you, Mary."
Maurice Jourdain had come. In the end Uncle Victor had let him. He was sitting there, all by himself, on the sofa in the middle of the room.
It was his third evening. She had thought it was going to pa.s.s exactly like the other two, and then her mother had got up, with an incredible suddenness, and left them.
Through the open window you could hear the rain falling in the garden; you could see the garden grey and wet with rain.
She sat on the edge of the fender, and without looking up she knew that he was watching her from under half-shut eyelids.
His eyelids were so old, so tired, so very tired and old.
"What did you cut it all off for?"
"Oh, just for fun."
Without looking at him she knew that he had moved, that his chin had dropped to his chest; there would be a sort of puffiness in his cheeks and about his jaw under the black, close-clipped beard. When she saw it she felt a little creeping chill at her heart.
But that was unfaithfulness, that was cruelty. If he knew it--poor thing--how it would hurt him! But he never would know. She would behave as though she hadn"t seen any difference in him at all.
If only she could set his mind moving; turn the crystal about; make it flash and shine.
"What have they been doing to you?" he said. "You used to be clever. I wonder if you"re clever still."
"I don"t think I am, very."
She thought: "I"m stupid. I"m as stupid as an owl. I never felt so stupid in all my life. If only I could _think_ of something to say to him."
"Did they tell you what I"ve come for?"
"Yes."
"Are you glad?"
"Very glad."
"Why do you sit on the fender?"
"I"m cold."
"Cold and glad."
A long pause.
"Do you know why your mother hates me, Mary?"
"She doesn"t. She only thought you"d killed Papa."
"I didn"t kill him. It wasn"t my fault if he couldn"t control his temper.... That isn"t what she hates me for.... Do you know why you were sent to school--the school my aunt found for you?"
"Well--to keep me from seeing you."
"Yes. And because I asked your father to let me educate you, since he wasn"t doing it himself. I wanted to send you to a school in Paris for two years."