Surrept.i.tiously I tried. She saw me. A smile of infinite irony, infinite sorrow, flitted and faded from her face. But she had communicated, shared her secret, pa.s.sed her poison; she would speak no more. Leaning back in my corner, shielding my eyes from her eyes, seeing only the slopes and hollows, greys and purples, of the winter"s landscape, I read her message, deciphered her secret, reading it beneath her gaze.
Hilda"s the sister-in-law. Hilda? Hilda? Hilda Marsh--Hilda the blooming, the full bosomed, the matronly. Hilda stands at the door as the cab draws up, holding a coin. "Poor Minnie, more of a gra.s.shopper than ever--old cloak she had last year. Well, well, with two children these days one can"t do more. No, Minnie, I"ve got it; here you are, cabby--none of your ways with me. Come in, Minnie. Oh, I could carry _you_, let alone your basket!" So they go into the dining-room. "Aunt Minnie, children."
Slowly the knives and forks sink from the upright. Down they get (Bob and Barbara), hold out hands stiffly; back again to their chairs, staring between the resumed mouthfuls. [But this we"ll skip; ornaments, curtains, trefoil china plate, yellow oblongs of cheese, white squares of biscuit--skip--oh, but wait! Halfway through luncheon one of those shivers; Bob stares at her, spoon in mouth. "Get on with your pudding, Bob;" but Hilda disapproves. "Why _should_ she twitch?" Skip, skip, till we reach the landing on the upper floor; stairs bra.s.s-bound; linoleum worn; oh, yes! little bedroom looking out over the roofs of Eastbourne--zigzagging roofs like the spines of caterpillars, this way, that way, striped red and yellow, with blue-black slating]. Now, Minnie, the door"s shut; Hilda heavily descends to the bas.e.m.e.nt; you unstrap the straps of your basket, lay on the bed a meagre nightgown, stand side by side furred felt slippers. The looking-gla.s.s--no, you avoid the looking-gla.s.s. Some methodical disposition of hat-pins. Perhaps the sh.e.l.l box has something in it? You shake it; it"s the pearl stud there was last year--that"s all. And then the sniff, the sigh, the sitting by the window. Three o"clock on a December afternoon; the rain drizzling; one light low in the skylight of a drapery emporium; another high in a servant"s bedroom--this one goes out. That gives her nothing to look at.
A moment"s blankness--then, what are you thinking? (Let me peep across at her opposite; she"s asleep or pretending it; so what would she think about sitting at the window at three o"clock in the afternoon? Health, money, hills, her G.o.d?) Yes, sitting on the very edge of the chair looking over the roofs of Eastbourne, Minnie Marsh prays to G.o.d. That"s all very well; and she may rub the pane too, as though to see G.o.d better; but what G.o.d does she see? Who"s the G.o.d of Minnie Marsh, the G.o.d of the back streets of Eastbourne, the G.o.d of three o"clock in the afternoon? I, too, see roofs, I see sky; but, oh, dear--this seeing of G.o.ds! More like President Kruger than Prince Albert--that"s the best I can do for him; and I see him on a chair, in a black frock-coat, not so very high up either; I can manage a cloud or two for him to sit on; and then his hand trailing in the cloud holds a rod, a truncheon is it?--black, thick, thorned--a brutal old bully--Minnie"s G.o.d! Did he send the itch and the patch and the twitch? Is that why she prays? What she rubs on the window is the stain of sin. Oh, she committed some crime!
I have my choice of crimes. The woods flit and fly--in summer there are bluebells; in the opening there, when Spring comes, primroses. A parting, was it, twenty years ago? Vows broken? Not Minnie"s!... She was faithful. How she nursed her mother! All her savings on the tombstone--wreaths under gla.s.s--daffodils in jars. But I"m off the track. A crime.... They would say she kept her sorrow, suppressed her secret--her s.e.x, they"d say--the scientific people. But what flummery to saddle _her_ with s.e.x! No--more like this. Pa.s.sing down the streets of Croydon twenty years ago, the violet loops of ribbon in the draper"s window spangled in the electric light catch her eye. She lingers--past six. Still by running she can reach home. She pushes through the gla.s.s swing door. It"s sale-time. Shallow trays brim with ribbons. She pauses, pulls this, fingers that with the raised roses on it--no need to choose, no need to buy, and each tray with its surprises. "We don"t shut till seven," and then it _is_ seven. She runs, she rushes, home she reaches, but too late. Neighbours--the doctor--baby brother--the kettle--scalded--hospital--dead--or only the shock of it, the blame?
Ah, but the detail matters nothing! It"s what she carries with her; the spot, the crime, the thing to expiate, always there between her shoulders. "Yes," she seems to nod to me, "it"s the thing I did."
Whether you did, or what you did, I don"t mind; it"s not the thing I want. The draper"s window looped with violet--that"ll do; a little cheap perhaps, a little commonplace--since one has a choice of crimes, but then so many (let me peep across again--still sleeping, or pretending sleep! white, worn, the mouth closed--a touch of obstinacy, more than one would think--no hint of s.e.x)--so many crimes aren"t _your_ crime; your crime was cheap; only the retribution solemn; for now the church door opens, the hard wooden pew receives her; on the brown tiles she kneels; every day, winter, summer, dusk, dawn (here she"s at it) prays.
All her sins fall, fall, for ever fall. The spot receives them. It"s raised, it"s red, it"s burning. Next she twitches. Small boys point.
"Bob at lunch to-day"--But elderly women are the worst.
Indeed now you can"t sit praying any longer. Kruger"s sunk beneath the clouds--washed over as with a painter"s brush of liquid grey, to which he adds a tinge of black--even the tip of the truncheon gone now. That"s what always happens! Just as you"ve seen him, felt him, someone interrupts. It"s Hilda now.
How you hate her! She"ll even lock the bathroom door overnight, too, though it"s only cold water you want, and sometimes when the night"s been bad it seems as if washing helped. And John at breakfast--the children--meals are worst, and sometimes there are friends--ferns don"t altogether hide "em--they guess, too; so out you go along the front, where the waves are grey, and the papers blow, and the gla.s.s shelters green and draughty, and the chairs cost tuppence--too much--for there must be preachers along the sands. Ah, that"s a n.i.g.g.e.r--that"s a funny man--that"s a man with parakeets--poor little creatures! Is there no one here who thinks of G.o.d?--just up there, over the pier, with his rod--but no--there"s nothing but grey in the sky or if it"s blue the white clouds hide him, and the music--it"s military music--and what they are fishing for? Do they catch them? How the children stare! Well, then home a back way--"Home a back way!" The words have meaning; might have been spoken by the old man with whiskers--no, no, he didn"t really speak; but everything has meaning--placards leaning against doorways--names above shop-windows--red fruit in baskets--women"s heads in the hairdresser"s--all say "Minnie Marsh!" But here"s a jerk. "Eggs are cheaper!" That"s what always happens! I was heading her over the waterfall, straight for madness, when, like a flock of dream sheep, she turns t"other way and runs between my fingers. Eggs are cheaper.
Tethered to the sh.o.r.es of the world, none of the crimes, sorrows, rhapsodies, or insanities for poor Minnie Marsh; never late for luncheon; never caught in a storm without a mackintosh; never utterly unconscious of the cheapness of eggs. So she reaches home--sc.r.a.pes her boots.
Have I read you right? But the human face--the human face at the top of the fullest sheet of print holds more, withholds more. Now, eyes open, she looks out; and in the human eye--how d"you define it?--there"s a break--a division--so that when you"ve grasped the stem the b.u.t.terfly"s off--the moth that hangs in the evening over the yellow flower--move, raise your hand, off, high, away. I won"t raise my hand. Hang still, then, quiver, life, soul, spirit, whatever you are of Minnie Marsh--I, too, on my flower--the hawk over the down--alone, or what were the worth of life? To rise; hang still in the evening, in the midday; hang still over the down. The flicker of a hand--off, up! then poised again. Alone, unseen; seeing all so still down there, all so lovely. None seeing, none caring. The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages. Air above, air below. And the moon and immortality.... Oh, but I drop to the turf! Are you down too, you in the corner, what"s your name--woman--Minnie Marsh; some such name as that? There she is, tight to her blossom; opening her hand-bag, from which she takes a hollow sh.e.l.l--an egg--who was saying that eggs were cheaper? You or I? Oh, it was you who said it on the way home, you remember, when the old gentleman, suddenly opening his umbrella--or sneezing was it? Anyhow, Kruger went, and you came "home a back way," and sc.r.a.ped your boots.
Yes. And now you lay across your knees a pocket-handkerchief into which drop little angular fragments of eggsh.e.l.l--fragments of a map--a puzzle.
I wish I could piece them together! If you would only sit still. She"s moved her knees--the map"s in bits again. Down the slopes of the Andes the white blocks of marble go bounding and hurtling, crushing to death a whole troop of Spanish muleteers, with their convoy--Drake"s booty, gold and silver. But to return----
To what, to where? She opened the door, and, putting her umbrella in the stand--that goes without saying; so, too, the whiff of beef from the bas.e.m.e.nt; dot, dot, dot. But what I cannot thus eliminate, what I must, head down, eyes shut, with the courage of a battalion and the blindness of a bull, charge and disperse are, indubitably, the figures behind the ferns, commercial travellers. There I"ve hidden them all this time in the hope that somehow they"d disappear, or better still emerge, as indeed they must, if the story"s to go on gathering richness and rotundity, destiny and tragedy, as stories should, rolling along with it two, if not three, commercial travellers and a whole grove of aspidistra. "The fronds of the aspidistra only partly concealed the commercial traveller--" Rhododendrons would conceal him utterly, and into the bargain give me my fling of red and white, for which I starve and strive; but rhododendrons in Eastbourne--in December--on the Marshes" table--no, no, I dare not; it"s all a matter of crusts and cruets, frills and ferns. Perhaps there"ll be a moment later by the sea.
Moreover, I feel, pleasantly p.r.i.c.king through the green fretwork and over the glacis of cut gla.s.s, a desire to peer and peep at the man opposite--one"s as much as I can manage. James Moggridge is it, whom the Marshes call Jimmy? [Minnie, you must promise not to twitch till I"ve got this straight]. James Moggridge travels in--shall we say b.u.t.tons?--but the time"s not come for bringing _them_ in--the big and the little on the long cards, some peac.o.c.k-eyed, others dull gold; cairngorms some, and others coral sprays--but I say the time"s not come.
He travels, and on Thursdays, his Eastbourne day, takes his meals with the Marshes. His red face, his little steady eyes--by no means altogether commonplace--his enormous appet.i.te (that"s safe; he won"t look at Minnie till the bread"s swamped the gravy dry), napkin tucked diamond-wise--but this is primitive, and, whatever it may do the reader, don"t take me in. Let"s dodge to the Moggridge household, set that in motion. Well, the family boots are mended on Sundays by James himself.
He reads _Truth_. But his pa.s.sion? Roses--and his wife a retired hospital nurse--interesting--for G.o.d"s sake let me have one woman with a name I like! But no; she"s of the unborn children of the mind, illicit, none the less loved, like my rhododendrons. How many die in every novel that"s written--the best, the dearest, while Moggridge lives. It"s life"s fault. Here"s Minnie eating her egg at the moment opposite and at t"other end of the line--are we past Lewes?--there must be Jimmy--or what"s her twitch for?
There must be Moggridge--life"s fault. Life imposes her laws; life blocks the way; life"s behind the fern; life"s the tyrant; oh, but not the bully! No, for I a.s.sure you I come willingly; I come wooed by Heaven knows what compulsion across ferns and cruets, table splashed and bottles smeared. I come irresistibly to lodge myself somewhere on the firm flesh, in the robust spine, wherever I can penetrate or find foothold on the person, in the soul, of Moggridge the man. The enormous stability of the fabric; the spine tough as whalebone, straight as oak-tree; the ribs radiating branches; the flesh taut tarpaulin; the red hollows; the suck and regurgitation of the heart; while from above meat falls in brown cubes and beer gushes to be churned to blood again--and so we reach the eyes. Behind the aspidistra they see something: black, white, dismal; now the plate again; behind the aspidistra they see elderly woman; "Marsh"s sister, Hilda"s more my sort;" the tablecloth now. "Marsh would know what"s wrong with Morrises ..." talk that over; cheese has come; the plate again; turn it round--the enormous fingers; now the woman opposite. "Marsh"s sister--not a bit like Marsh; wretched, elderly female.... You should feed your hens.... G.o.d"s truth, what"s set her twitching? Not what _I_ said? Dear, dear, dear! these elderly women. Dear, dear!"
[Yes, Minnie; I know you"ve twitched, but one moment--James Moggridge].
"Dear, dear, dear!" How beautiful the sound is! like the knock of a mallet on seasoned timber, like the throb of the heart of an ancient whaler when the seas press thick and the green is clouded. "Dear, dear!"
what a pa.s.sing bell for the souls of the fretful to soothe them and solace them, lap them in linen, saying, "So long. Good luck to you!" and then, "What"s your pleasure?" for though Moggridge would pluck his rose for her, that"s done, that"s over. Now what"s the next thing? "Madam, you"ll miss your train," for they don"t linger.
That"s the man"s way; that"s the sound that reverberates; that"s St.
Paul"s and the motor-omnibuses. But we"re brushing the crumbs off. Oh, Moggridge, you won"t stay? You must be off? Are you driving through Eastbourne this afternoon in one of those little carriages? Are you the man who"s walled up in green cardboard boxes, and sometimes has the blinds down, and sometimes sits so solemn staring like a sphinx, and always there"s a look of the sepulchral, something of the undertaker, the coffin, and the dusk about horse and driver? Do tell me--but the doors slammed. We shall never meet again. Moggridge, farewell!
Yes, yes, I"m coming. Right up to the top of the house. One moment I"ll linger. How the mud goes round in the mind--what a swirl these monsters leave, the waters rocking, the weeds waving and green here, black there, striking to the sand, till by degrees the atoms rea.s.semble, the deposit sifts itself, and again through the eyes one sees clear and still, and there comes to the lips some prayer for the departed, some obsequy for the souls of those one nods to, the people one never meets again.
James Moggridge is dead now, gone for ever. Well, Minnie--"I can face it no longer." If she said that--(Let me look at her. She is brushing the eggsh.e.l.l into deep declivities). She said it certainly, leaning against the wall of the bedroom, and plucking at the little b.a.l.l.s which edge the claret-coloured curtain. But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking?--the entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the central catacomb; the self that took the veil and left the world--a coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors. "I can bear it no longer,"
her spirit says. "That man at lunch--Hilda--the children." Oh, heavens, her sob! It"s the spirit wailing its destiny, the spirit driven hither, thither, lodging on the diminishing carpets--meagre footholds--shrunken shreds of all the vanishing universe--love, life, faith, husband, children, I know not what splendours and pageantries glimpsed in girlhood. "Not for me--not for me."
But then--the m.u.f.fins, the bald elderly dog? Bead mats I should fancy and the consolation of underlinen. If Minnie Marsh were run over and taken to hospital, nurses and doctors themselves would exclaim....
There"s the vista and the vision--there"s the distance--the blue blot at the end of the avenue, while, after all, the tea is rich, the m.u.f.fin hot, and the dog--"Benny, to your basket, sir, and see what mother"s brought you!" So, taking the glove with the worn thumb, defying once more the encroaching demon of what"s called going in holes, you renew the fortifications, threading the grey wool, running it in and out.
Running it in and out, across and over, spinning a web through which G.o.d himself--hush, don"t think of G.o.d! How firm the st.i.tches are! You must be proud of your darning. Let nothing disturb her. Let the light fall gently, and the clouds show an inner vest of the first green leaf. Let the sparrow perch on the twig and shake the raindrop hanging to the twig"s elbow.... Why look up? Was it a sound, a thought? Oh, heavens!
Back again to the thing you did, the plate gla.s.s with the violet loops?
But Hilda will come. Ignominies, humiliations, oh! Close the breach.
Having mended her glove, Minnie Marsh lays it in the drawer. She shuts the drawer with decision. I catch sight of her face in the gla.s.s. Lips are pursed. Chin held high. Next she laces her shoes. Then she touches her throat. What"s your brooch? Mistletoe or merry-thought? And what is happening? Unless I"m much mistaken, the pulse"s quickened, the moment"s coming, the threads are racing, Niagara"s ahead. Here"s the crisis!
Heaven be with you! Down she goes. Courage, courage! Face it, be it! For G.o.d"s sake don"t wait on the mat now! There"s the door! I"m on your side. Speak! Confront her, confound her soul!
"Oh, I beg your pardon! Yes, this is Eastbourne. I"ll reach it down for you. Let me try the handle." [But, Minnie, though we keep up pretences, I"ve read you right--I"m with you now].
"That"s all your luggage?"
"Much obliged, I"m sure."
(But why do you look about you? Hilda won"t come to the station, nor John; and Moggridge is driving at the far side of Eastbourne).
"I"ll wait by my bag, ma"am, that"s safest. He said he"d meet me.... Oh, there he is! That"s my son."
So they walk off together.
Well, but I"m confounded.... Surely, Minnie, you know better! A strange young man.... Stop! I"ll tell him--Minnie!--Miss Marsh!--I don"t know though. There"s something queer in her cloak as it blows. Oh, but it"s untrue, it"s indecent.... Look how he bends as they reach the gateway.
She finds her ticket. What"s the joke? Off they go, down the road, side by side.... Well, my world"s done for! What do I stand on? What do I know? That"s not Minnie. There never was Moggridge. Who am I? Life"s bare as bone.
And yet the last look of them--he stepping from the kerb and she following him round the edge of the big building brims me with wonder--floods me anew. Mysterious figures! Mother and son. Who are you?
Why do you walk down the street? Where to-night will you sleep, and then, to-morrow? Oh, how it whirls and surges--floats me afresh! I start after them. People drive this way and that. The white light splutters and pours. Plate-gla.s.s windows. Carnations; chrysanthemums. Ivy in dark gardens. Milk carts at the door. Wherever I go, mysterious figures, I see you, turning the corner, mothers and sons; you, you, you. I hasten, I follow. This, I fancy, must be the sea. Grey is the landscape; dim as ashes; the water murmurs and moves. If I fall on my knees, if I go through the ritual, the ancient antics, it"s you, unknown figures, you I adore; if I open my arms, it"s you I embrace, you I draw to me--adorable world!
THE STRING QUARTET
Well, here we are, and if you cast your eye over the room you will see that Tubes and trams and omnibuses, private carriages not a few, even, I venture to believe, landaus with bays in them, have been busy at it, weaving threads from one end of London to the other. Yet I begin to have my doubts--
If indeed it"s true, as they"re saying, that Regent Street is up, and the Treaty signed, and the weather not cold for the time of year, and even at that rent not a flat to be had, and the worst of influenza its after effects; if I bethink me of having forgotten to write about the leak in the larder, and left my glove in the train; if the ties of blood require me, leaning forward, to accept cordially the hand which is perhaps offered hesitatingly--
"Seven years since we met!"
"The last time in Venice."
"And where are you living now?"
"Well, the late afternoon suits me the best, though, if it weren"t asking too much----"
"But I knew you at once!"
"Still, the war made a break----"
If the mind"s shot through by such little arrows, and--for human society compels it--no sooner is one launched than another presses forward; if this engenders heat and in addition they"ve turned on the electric light; if saying one thing does, in so many cases, leave behind it a need to improve and revise, stirring besides regrets, pleasures, vanities, and desires--if it"s all the facts I mean, and the hats, the fur boas, the gentlemen"s swallow-tail coats, and pearl tie-pins that come to the surface--what chance is there?
Of what? It becomes every minute more difficult to say why, in spite of everything, I sit here believing I can"t now say what, or even remember the last time it happened.
"Did you see the procession?"
"The King looked cold."