The Collected Short Stories

  All the evening, little was said, save by Laura. Miss Syfurt exclaimed continually: "Oh, that is fine! You play gra-and, Miss Varley, don't you know. If I could play the violin--ah! the violin!"

  It was not later than ten o'clock when Winifred and Miss Syfurt rose to go, the former to Croydon, the latter to Ewell.

  "We can go by car together to West Croydon," said the German lady, gleefully, as if she were a child. She was a frail, excitable little woman of forty, naïve and innocent. She gazed with bright brown eyes of admiration on Coutts.

  "Yes, I am glad," he answered.

  He took up Winifred's violin, and the three proceeded downhill to the tram-terminus. There a car was on the point of departure. They hurried forward. Miss Syfurt mounted the step. Coutts waited for Winifred. The conductor called:

  "Come along, please, if you're going."

  "No," said Winifred. "I prefer to walk this stage."

  "We can walk from West Croydon," said Coutts.

  The conductor rang the bell.

  "Aren't you coming?" cried the frail, excitable little lady, from the footboard. "Aren't you coming?--Oh!"

  "I walk from West Croydon every day; I prefer to walk here, in the quiet," said Winifred.

  "Aw! aren't you coming with me?" cried the little lady, quite frightened. She stepped back, in supplication, towards the footboard. The conductor impatiently buzzed the bell. The car started forward, Miss Syfurt staggered, was caught by the conductor.

  "Aw!" she cried, holding her hand out to the two who stood on the road, and breaking almost into tears of disappointment. As the tram darted forward she clutched at her hat. In a moment she was out of sight.

  Coutts stood wounded to the quick by this pain given to the frail, child-like lady.

  "We may as well," said Winifred, "walk over the hill to 'The Swan'." Her note had that intense reedy quality which always set the man on edge; it was the note of her anger, or, more often, of her tortured sense of discord. The two turned away, to climb the hill again. He carried the violin; for a long time neither spoke.

  "Ah, how I hate her, how I hate her!" he repeated in his heart. He winced repeatedly at the thought of Miss Syfurt's little cry of supplication. He was in a position where he was not himself, and he hated her for putting him there, forgetting that it was he who had come, like a moth to the candle. For half a mile he walked on, his head carried stiffly, his face set, his heart twisted with painful emotion. And all the time, as she plodded, head down, beside him, his blood beat with hate of her, drawn to her, repelled by her.

  At last, on the high-up, naked down, they came upon those meaningless pavements that run through the grass, waiting for the houses to line them. The two were thrust up into the night above the little flowering of the lamps in the valley. In front was the daze of light from London, rising midway to the zenith, just fainter than the stars. Across the valley, on the blackness of the opposite hill, little groups of lights like gnats seemed to be floating in the darkness. Orion was heeled over the West. Below, in a cleft in the night, the long, low garland of arc lamps strung down the Brighton Road, where now and then the golden tram-cars flew along the track, passing each other with a faint, angry sound.

  "It is a year last Monday since we came over here," said Winifred, as they stopped to look about them.

  "I remember--but I didn't know it was then," he said. There was a touch of hardness in his voice. "I don't remember our dates."

  After a wait, she said in a very low, passionate tones:

  "It is a beautiful night."

  "The moon has set, and the evening star," he answered; "both were out as I came down."

  She glanced swiftly at him to see if this speech was a bit of symbolism. He was looking across the valley with a set face. Very slightly, by an inch or two, she nestled towards him.

  "Yes," she said, half-stubborn, half-pleading. "But the night is a very fine one, for all that."

  "Yes," he replied, unwillingly.

  Thus, after months of separation, they dove-tailed into the same love and hate.

  "You are staying down here?" she asked at length, in a forced voice. She never intruded a hair's-breadth on the most trifling privacy; in which she was Laura's antithesis; so that this question was almost an impertinence for her. He felt her shrink.

  "Till the morning--then Yorkshire," he said cruelly.

  He hated it that she could not bear outspokenness.

  At that moment a train across the valley threaded the opposite darkness with its gold thread. The valley re-echoed with vague threat. The two watched the express, like a gold-and-black snake, curve and dive seawards into the night. He turned, saw her full, fine face tilted up to him. It showed pale, distinct, and firm, very near to him. He shut his eyes and shivered.

  "I hate trains," he said, impulsively.

  "Why?" she asked, with a curious, tender little smile that caressed, as it were, his emotion towards her.

  "I don't know; they pitch one about here and there . . ."

  "I thought," she said, with faint irony, "that you preferred change."

  "I do like life. But now I should like to be nailed to something, if it were only a cross."

  She laughed sharply, and said, with keen sarcasm:

  "Is it so difficult, then, to let yourself be nailed to a cross? I thought the difficulty lay in getting free."

  He ignored her sarcasm on his engagement.

  "There is nothing now that matters," he said, adding quickly, to forestall her: "Of course I'm wild when dinner's late, and so on; but . . . apart from those things . . . nothing seems to matter."

  She was silent.

  "One goes on--remains in office, so to speak; and life's all right--only, it doesn't seem to matter."

  "This does sound like complaining of trouble because you've got none," she laughed.

  "Trouble . . ." he repeated. "No, I don't suppose I've got any. Vexation, which most folk call trouble; but something I really grieve about in my soul--no, nothing. I wish I had."

  She laughed again sharply; but he perceived in her laughter a little keen despair.

  "I find a lucky pebble. I think, now I'll throw it over my left shoulder, and wish. So I spit over my little finger, and throw the white pebble behind me, and then, when I want to wish, I'm done. I say to myself: 'Wish,' and myself says back: 'I don't want anything.' I say again: 'Wish, you fool,' but I'm as dumb of wishes as a newt. And then, because it rather frightens me, I say in a hurry: 'A million of money.' Do you know what to wish for when you see the new moon?"

  She laughed quickly.

  "I think so," she said. "But my wish varies."

  "I wish mine did," he said, whimsically lugubrious.

  She took his hand in a little impulse of love.

  They walked hand in hand on the ridge of the down, bunches of lights shining below, the big radiance of London advancing like a wonder in front.

  "You know . . ." he began, then stopped.

  "I don't . . ." she ironically urged.

  "Do you want to?" he laughed.

  "Yes; one is never at peace with oneself till one understands."

  "Understands what?" he asked brutally. He knew she meant that she wanted to understand the situation he and she were in.

  "How to resolve the discord," she said, balking the issue. He would have liked her to say: "What you want of me."

  "Your foggy weather of symbolism, as usual," he said.

  "The fog is not of symbols," she replied, in her metallic voice of displeasure. "It may be symbols are candles in a fog."

  "I prefer my fog without candles. I'm the fog, eh? Then I'll blow out your candle, and you'll see me better. Your candles of speech, symbols and so forth, only lead you more wrong. I'm going to wander blind, and go by instinct, like a moth that flies and settles on the wooden box his mate is shut up in."

  "Isn't it an ignis fatuus you are flying after, at that rate?" she said.

  "Maybe, for if I breathe outwards, in the positive movement towards
you, you move off. If I draw in a vacant sigh of soulfulness, you flow nearly to my lips."

  "This is a very interesting symbol," she said, with sharp sarcasm.

  He hated her, truly. She hated him. Yet they held hands fast as they walked.

  "We are just the same as we were a year ago," he laughed. But he hated her, for all his laughter.

  When, at the "Swan and Sugar-Loaf", they mounted the car, she climbed to the top, in spite of the sharp night. They nestled side by side, shoulders caressing, and all the time that they ran under the round lamps neither spoke.

  At the gate of a small house in a dark tree-lined street, both waited a moment. From her garden leaned an almond tree whose buds, early this year, glistened in the light of the street lamp, with theatrical effect. He broke off a twig.

  "I always remember this tree," he said; "how I used to feel sorry for it when it was full out, and so lively, at midnight in the lamplight. I thought it must be tired."

  "Will you come in?" she asked tenderly.

  "I did get a room in town," he answered, following her.

  She opened the door with her latch-key, showing him, as usual, into the drawing-room. Everything was just the same; cold in colouring, warm in appointment; ivory-coloured walls, blond, polished floor, with thick ivory-coloured rugs; three deep arm-chairs in pale amber, with large cushions; a big black piano, a violin-stand beside it; and the room very warm with a clear red fire, the brass shining hot. Coutts, according to his habit, lit the piano-candles and lowered the blinds.

  "I say," he said; "this is a variation from your line!"

  He pointed to a bowl of magnificent scarlet anemones that stood on the piano.

  "Why?" she asked, pausing in arranging her hair at the small mirror.

  "On the piano!" he admonished.

  "Only while the table was in use," she smiled, glancing at the litter of papers that covered her table.

  "And then--red flowers!" he said.

  "Oh, I thought they were such a fine piece of colour," she replied.

  "I would have wagered you would buy freesias," he said.

  "Why?" she smiled. He pleased her thus.

  "Well--for their cream and gold and restrained, bruised purple, and their scent. I can't believe you bought scentless flowers!"

  "What!" She went forward, bent over the flowers.

  "I had not noticed," she said, smiling curiously, "that they were scentless."

  She touched the velvet black centres.

  "Would you have bought them had you noticed?" he asked.

  She thought for a moment, curiously.

  "I don't know . . . probably I should not."

  "You would never buy scentless flowers," he averred. "Any more than you'd love a man because he was handsome."

  "I did not know," she smiled. She was pleased.

  The housekeeper entered with a lamp, which she set on a stand.

  "You will illuminate me?" he said to Winifred. It was her habit to talk to him by candle-light.

  "I have thought about you--now I will look at you," she said quietly, smiling.

  "I see--To confirm your conclusions?" he asked.

  Her eyes lifted quickly in acknowledgment of his guess.

  "That is so," she replied.

  "Then," he said, "I'll wash my hands."

  He ran upstairs. The sense of freedom, of intimacy, was very fascinating. As he washed, the little everyday action of twining his hands in the lather set him suddenly considering his other love. At her house he was always polite and formal; gentlemanly, in short. With Connie he felt the old, manly superiority; he was the knight, strong and tender, she was the beautiful maiden with a touch of God on her brow. He kissed her, he softened and selected his speech for her, he forbore from being the greater part of himself. She was his betrothed, his wife, his queen, whom he loved to idealise, and for whom he carefully modified himself. She should rule him later on--that part of him which was hers. But he loved her, too, with a pitying, tender love. He thought of her tears upon her pillow in the northern Rectory, and he bit his lip, held his breath under the strain of the situation. Vaguely he knew she would bore him. And Winifred fascinated him. He and she really played with fire. In her house, he was roused and keen. But she was not, and never could be, frank. So he was not frank, even to himself. Saying nothing, betraying nothing, immediately they were together they began the same game. Each shuddered, each defenceless and exposed, hated the other by turns. Yet they came together again. Coutts felt a vague fear of Winifred. She was intense and unnatural--and he became unnatural and intense, beside her.

  When he came downstairs she was fingering the piano from the score of "Walküre".

  "First wash in England," he announced, looking at his hands. She laughed swiftly. Impatient herself of the slightest soil, his indifference to temporary grubbiness amused her.

  He was a tall, bony man, with small hands and feet. His features were rough and rather ugly, but his smile was taking. She was always fascinated by the changes in him. His eyes, particularly, seemed quite different at times; sometimes hard, insolent, blue; sometimes dark, full of warmth and tenderness; sometimes flaring like an animal's.

  He sank wearily into a chair.

  "My chair," he said, as if to himself.

  She bowed her head. Of compact physique, uncorseted, her figure bowed richly to the piano. He watched the shallow concave between her shoulders, marvelling at its rich solidity. She let one arm fall loose, he looked at the shadows in the dimples of her elbow. Slowly smiling a look of brooding affection, of acknowledgment upon him for a forgetful moment, she said:

  "And what have you done lately?"

  "Simply nothing," he replied quietly. "For all that these months have been so full of variety, I think they will sink out of my life; they will evaporate and leave no result; I shall forget them."

  Her blue eyes were dark and heavy upon him, watching. She did not answer. He smiled faintly at her.

  "And you?" he said, at length.

  "With me it is different," she said quietly.

  "You sit with your crystal," he laughed.

  "While you tilt . . ." She hung on her ending.

  He laughed, sighed, and they were quiet awhile.

  "I've got such a skinful of heavy visions, they come sweating through my dreams," he said.

  "Whom have you read?" She smiled.

  "Meredith. Very healthy," he laughed.

  She laughed quickly at being caught.

  "Now, have you found out all you want?" he asked.

  "Oh, no," she cried with full throat.

  "Well, finish, at any rate. I'm not diseased. How are you?"

  "But . . . but . . ." she stumbled on doggedly. "What do you intend to do?"

  He hardened the line of his mouth and eyes, only to retort with immediate lightness:

  "Just go on."

  This was their battlefield: she could not understand how he could marry: it seemed almost monstrous to her; she fought against his marriage. She looked up at him, witch-like, from under bent brows. Her eyes were dark blue and heavy. He shivered, shrank with pain. She was so cruel to that other, common, everyday part of him.

  "I wonder you dare go on like it," she said.

  "Why dare?" he replied. "What's the odds?"

  "I don't know," she answered, in deep, bitter displeasure.

  "And I don't care," he said.

  "But . . ." she continued, slowly, gravely pressing the point: "You know what you intend to do."

  "Marry--settle--be a good husband, good father, partner in the business; get fat, be an amiable gentleman--Q.E.F."

  "Very good," she said, deep and final.

  "Thank you."

  "I did not congratulate you," she said.

  "Ah!" His voice tailed off into sadness and self-mistrust. Meanwhile she watched him heavily. He did not mind being scrutinised: it flattered him.

  "Yes, it is, or may be, very good," she began; "but why all this?--why?"

  "And why n
ot? And why?--Because I want to."

  He could not leave it thus flippantly.

  "You know, Winifred, we should only drive each other into insanity, you and I: become abnormal."

  "Well," she said, "and even so, why the other?"

  "My marriage?--I don't know. Instinct."

  "One has so many instincts," she laughed bitterly.

  That was a new idea to him.

  She raised her arms, stretched them above her head, in a weary gesture. They were fine, strong arms. They reminded Coutts of Euripides' "Bacchae": white, round arms, long arms. The lifting of her arms lifted her breasts. She dropped suddenly as if inert, lolling her arms against the cushions.

  "I really don't see why you should be," she said drearily, though always with a touch of a sneer, "why we should always--be fighting."

  "Oh, yes, you do," he replied. It was a deadlock which he could not sustain.

  "Besides," he laughed, "it's your fault."

  "Am I so bad?" she sneered.

  "Worse," he said.

  "But"--she moved irritably--"is this to the point?"

  "What point?" he answered; then, smiling: "You know you only like a wild-goose chase."

  "I do," she answered plaintively. "I miss you very much. You snatch things from the Kobolds for me."

  "Exactly," he said in a biting tone. "Exactly! That's what you want me for. I am to be your crystal, your 'genius'. My length of blood and bone you don't care a rap for. Ah, yes, you like me for a crystal-glass, to see things in: to hold up to the light. I'm a blessed Lady-of-Shalott looking-glass for you."

  "You talk to me," she said, dashing his fervour, "of my fog of symbols!"

  "Ah, well, if so, 'tis your own asking."

  "I did not know it." She looked at him coldly. She was angry.

  "No," he said.

  Again, they hated each other.

  "The old ancients," he laughed, "gave the gods the suet and intestines: at least, I believe so. They ate the rest. You shouldn't be a goddess."

  "I wonder, among your rectory acquaintances, you haven't learned better manners," she answered in cold contempt. He closed his eyes, lying back in his chair, his legs sprawled towards her.

  "I suppose we're civilised savages," he said sadly. All was silent. At last, opening his eyes again, he said: "I shall have to be going directly, Winifred; it is past eleven . . ." Then the appeal in his voice changed to laughter. "Though I know I shall be winding through all the Addios in 'Traviata' before you can set me travelling." He smiled gently at her, then closed his eyes once more, conscious of deep, but vague, suffering. She lay in her chair, her face averted, rosily, towards the fire. Without glancing at her he was aware of the white approach of her throat towards her breast. He seemed to perceive her with another, unknown sense that acted all over his body. She lay perfectly still and warm in the fire-glow. He was dimly aware that he suffered.