"No; but, Mary, p"r"aps----"
"No; there aren"t. Say there aren"t."
"There isn"t."
Poor Barbara, even as she concluded this ceremony, clutching her doll close to her to give her comfort, could not refrain from a hurried glance over her shoulder. He _might_ be---- But upon Mary this all began soon enough to pall. She liked some opposition. She liked to defeat people and trample on them and then be gracious. Barbara was a poor little thing. Moreover, Barbara"s standard of morality and righteousness annoyed her. Barbara seemed to have no idea that there was anything in this confused world of ours except wrong and right. No dialectician, argue he ever so stoutly, could have persuaded Barbara that there was such a colour in the world"s paint-box as grey. "It"s bad to tell lies.
It"s bad to steal. It"s bad to put your tongue out. It"s good to be kind to poor people. It"s good to say "No" when you want more pudding but mustn"t have it." Barbara was no prig. She did not care the least little thing about these things, nor did she ever mention them, but let a question of conduct arise, then was Barbara"s way plain and clear. She did not always take it, but there it was. With Mary, how very different!
She had, I am afraid, no sense of right and wrong at all, but only a coolly ironical perception of the things that her elders disliked and permitted. Very foolish and absurd, these elders. We have always before our eyes some generation that provokes our irony, the one before us, the one behind us, our own perhaps; for Mary Adams it would always be any generation that was not her own. Her business in life was to avoid unpleasantness, to extract the honey from every flower, but above all to be admired, praised, preferred.
At first with her pleasure at Barbara"s adoration she had found, within herself, a truly alarming desire to be "good." It might, after all, be rather amusing to be, in strict reality, all the fine things that Barbara considered her. She endeavoured for a week or two to adjust herself to this point of view, to consider, however slightly, whether it were right or wrong to do something that she particularly wished to do.
But she found it very tiresome. The effort spoilt her temper, and no one seemed to notice any change. She might as well be bad as good were there no one present to perceive the difference. She gave it up, and, from that moment found that she suffered Barbara less gladly than before.
Meanwhile, in Barbara also strange forces had been at work. She found that her imagination (making up stories) simply, in spite of all the Mary Adamses in the world, refused to stop. Still would the almond tree and the fountain, the gold dust on the roofs of the houses when the sun was setting, the racing hurry of rain drops down the window-pane, the funny old woman with the red shawl who brought plants round in a wheelbarrow, start her story telling.
Still could she not hold herself from fancying, at times, that her doll Jane was a queen, and that Miss Letts could make "spells" by the mere crook of her bony fingers. Worst of all, still she must think of her Friend, tell herself with an ache that he would never come back again, feel, sometimes, that she would give up Mary and all the rest of the world if he would only be beside her bed, as he used to be, talking to her, holding her hand. During these days, had there been any one to observe her, she was a pathetic little figure, with her thin legs like black sticks, her saucer eyes that so readily filled with tears, her eager, half-apprehensive expression, the pa.s.sionate clutch of the doll to her heart, and it is, after all, a painful business, this adoration--no human soul can live up to the heights of it, and, what is more, no human soul ought to.
As Mary grew tired of Barbara she allowed to slip from her many of the virtuous graces that had hitherto, for Barbara"s benefit, adorned her.
She lost her temper, was cruel simply for the pleasure that Barbara"s ill-restrained agitation yielded her, but, even beyond this, squandered recklessly her reputation for virtue. Twice, before Barbara"s very eyes, she told lies, and told them, too, with a real mastery of the craft--long practice and a natural disposition had brought her very near perfection. Barbara, her heart beating wildly, refused to understand; Mary could not be so. She held Jane to her breast more tightly than before. And the denials continued; twice a day now they were extorted from her--with every denial the ghost of her Friend stole more deeply into the mist. He was gone; he was gone; and what was left?
Very soon, and with unexpected suddenness, the crisis came.
V
Upon a day Barbara accompanied her mother to tea with Mrs. Adams. The ladies remained downstairs in the dull splendour of the drawing-room; Mary and Barbara were delivered to Miss Fortescue, the most recent guardian of Mary"s life and prospects.
"She"s simply awful. You needn"t mind a word she says," Mary instructed her friend, and prepared then to behave accordingly. They had tea, and Mary did as she pleased. Miss Fortescue protested, scolded, was weak when she should have been strong, and said often, "Now, Mary, there"s a dear."
Barbara, the faint colour coming and going in her cheeks, watched. She watched Mary now with quite a fresh intention. She had begun her voyage of discovery: what was in Mary"s head, _what_ would she do next? What Mary did next was to propose, after tea, that they should travel through other parts of the house.
"We"ll be back in a moment," Mary flung over her head to Miss Fortescue.
They proceeded then through pa.s.sages, peering into dark rooms, looking behind curtains, Barbara following behind her friend, who seemed to be moved by a rather aimless intention of finding something to do that she shouldn"t. They finally arrived at Mrs. Adams"s private and particular sitting-room, a place that may be said, in the main, to stand as a protest against the rule of the ancient philosopher, being all pink and flimsy and fragile with precious vases and two post-impressionist pictures (a green apple tree one, the other a brown woman), and lace cushions and blue bowls with rose leaves in them. Barbara had never been into this room before, nor had she ever in all her seven years seen anything so lovely.
"Mother says I"m never to come in here," announced Mary. "But I do--lots. Isn"t it pretty?"
"P"r"aps we oughtn"t----" began Barbara.
"Oh, yes, we ought," answered Mary scornfully. "Always you and your "oughtn"t.""
She turned, and her shoulders brushed a low bracket that was close to the door. A large Nankin vase was at her feet, scattered into a thousand pieces. Even Mary"s proud indifference was stirred by this catastrophe, and she was down on her knees in an instant, trying to pick up the pieces. Barbara stared, her eyes wide with horror.
"Oh, Mary," she gasped.
"You might help instead of just standing there!"
Then the door opened and, like the avenging G.o.ds from Olympus, in came the two ladies, eagerly, with smiles.
"Now I must just show you," began Mrs. Adams. Then the catastrophe was discovered--a moment"s silence, then a cry from the poor lady: "Oh, my vase! It was priceless!" (It was not, but no matter.)
About Barbara the air clung so thick with catastrophe that it was from a very long way indeed that she heard Mary"s voice:
"Barbara didn"t mean-----"
"Did you do this, Barbara?" her mother turned round upon her.
"You know, Mary, I"ve told you a thousand times that you"re not to come in here!" this from Mrs. Adams, who was obviously very angry indeed.
Mary was on her feet now and, as she looked across at Barbara, there was in her glance a strange look, ironical, amused, inquisitive, even affectionate. "Well, mother, I knew we mustn"t. But Barbara wanted to _look_ so I said we"d just _peep_, but that we weren"t to touch anything, and then Barbara couldn"t help it, really; her shoulder just brushed the shelf----" and still as she looked there was in her eyes that strange irony: "Well, now you see me as I am--I"m bored by all this pretending. It"s gone on long enough. Are you going to give me away?"
But Barbara could do nothing. Her whole world was there, like the Nankin vase, smashed about her feet, as it never, never would be again.
"So you did this, Barbara?" Mrs. Flint said.
"Yes," said Barbara. Then she began to cry.
VI
At home she was sent to bed. Her mother read her a chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, and then left her; she lay there, sick with crying, her eyes stiff and red, wondering how she would ever get through the weeks and weeks of life that remained to her. She thought: "I"ll never love any one again. Mary took my Friend away--and then she wasn"t there herself. There isn"t anybody."
Then it suddenly occurred to her that she need never be put through the agony of her denials again, that she could believe what she liked, make up stories.
Her Friend would, of course, never come to see her any more, but at least now she would be able to think about him. She would be allowed to remember. Her brain was drowsy, her eyes half closed. Through the humming air something was coming; the dark curtains were parted, the light of the late afternoon sun was faint yellow upon the opposite wall--there was a little breeze. Drowsily, drowsily, her drooping eyes felt the light, the stir of the air, the sense that some one was in the room.
She looked up; she gave a cry! He had come back! He had come back after all!
CHAPTER VIII
SARAH TREFUSIS
I
Sarah Trefusis lived, with her mother, in the smallest house in March Square, a really tiny house, like a box, squeezed breathlessly between two fat buildings, but looking, with its white paint and green doors, smarter than either of them. Lady Charlotte Trefusis, Sarah"s mother, was elegant, penniless and a widow; Captain B. Trefusis, her husband, had led the merriest of lives until a game of polo carried him reluctantly from a delightful world and forced Lady Charlotte to consider the problem of having a good time alone on nothing at all. But it may be said that, on the whole, she succeeded. She was the best-dressed widow in London, and went everywhere, but the little house in March Square was the scene of a most strenuous campaign, every day presenting its defeat or victory, and every minute of the day threatening overwhelming disaster if something were not done immediately. Lady Charlotte had the smallest feet and hands outside China, a pile of golden hair above the face of a pink-and-white doll.
Staring from this face, however, were two of the loveliest, most unscrupulous of eyes, and those eyes did more for Lady Charlotte"s precarious income than any other of her resources. She wore her expensive clothes quite beautifully, and gave lovely little lunches and dinners; no really merry house-party was complete without her.
Sarah was her only child, and, although at the time of which I am writing she was not yet nine years of age, there was no one in London better suited to the adventurous and perilous existence that Fate had selected for her. Sarah was black as ink--that is, she had coal black hair, coal black eyes, and wonderful black eyelashes. Her eyelashes were her only beautiful feature, but she was, nevertheless, a most remarkable looking child. "If ever a child"s possessed of the devil, my dear Charlotte," said Captain James Trent to her mother, "it"s your precious daughter--she _is_ the devil, I believe."
"Well, she needs to be," said her mother, "considering the life that"s in store for her. We"re very good friends, she and I, thank you."
They were. They understood one another to perfection. Lady Charlotte was as hard as nails, and Sarah was harder. Sarah had never been known to cry. She had bitten the fingers of one of her nurses through to the bone, and had stuck a needle into the cheek of another whilst she slept, and had watched, with a curious abstracted gaze, the punishment dealt out to her, as though it had nothing to do with her at all. She never lost her temper, and one of the most terrible things about her was her absolute calm. She was utterly fearless, went to the dentist without a tremor, and, at the age of six, fell downstairs, broke her leg, and so lay until help arrived without a cry. She bullied and hurt anything or anybody that came her way, but carried out her plans always with the same deliberate abstraction as though she were obeying somebody"s orders. She never nourished revenge or resentment, and it seemed to be her sense of humour (rather than any fierce or hostile feeling) that was tickled when she hurt any one.
She was a child, apparently without imagination, but displayed, at a very early period, a strangely sharpened perception of what her nurse called "the uncanny." She frightened even her mother by the expression that her face often wore of attention to something or somebody outside her companion"s perception.
"A broomstick is what she"ll be flying away on one of these nights, you mark my word," a nurse declared. "Little devil, she is, neither more nor less. It isn"t decent the way she sits on the floor looking right through the wall into the next room, as you might say. Yes, and knows who"s coming up the stairs long before she"s seen "em. No place for a decent Christian woman, and so I told her mother this very morning." It was, of course, quite impossible to find a nurse to stay with Sarah, and, when she arrived at the age of seven, nurses were dismissed, and she either looked after herself or was tended by an abandoned French maid of her mother"s, who stayed with Lady Charlotte, like a wicked, familiar spirit, for a great number of years on a strange basis of confidante, fellow-plunderer, and sympathetic adventurer. This French maid, whose name was, appropriately enough, Hortense, had a real affection for Sarah "because she was the weeckedest child of "er age she ever see." There was nothing of which Sarah, from the very earliest age, did not seem aware. Her mother"s gentlemen friends she valued according to their status in the house, and, as they "fell off" or "came on," so was her manner indifferent or pleasant. For Hortense, she had a real respect, but even that improper and brazen spirit quailed at times before her cynical and elfish regard. To say of a child that there is something "unearthly" about it is, as a rule, to pay a compliment to ethereal blue and gold. There was nothing ethereal about Sarah, and yet she was unearthly enough. Squatting on the floor, her legs tucked under her, her head thrust forward, her large black eyes staring at the wall, her black hair almost alive in the shining intensity of its colours, she had in her att.i.tude the lithe poise of some animal ready to spring, waiting for its exact opportunity.