_Chapter 5_
They found the fire burning brightly in their room. The only otherperson in the pretty, stiffly-furnished cottage was their landlady, acharming old lady, who let this sitting-room more for the change, forthe sake of having visitors, than for gain.
Helena introduced Siegmund as 'My friend'. The old lady smiled upon him.He was big, and good-looking, and embarrassed. She had had a son yearsback.... And the two were lovers. She hoped they would come to her housefor their honeymoon.
Siegmund sat in his great horse-hair chair by the fire, while Helenaattended to the lamp. Glancing at him over the glowing globe, she foundhim watching her with a small, peculiar smile of irony, and anger, andbewilderment. He was not quite himself. Her hand trembled so, she couldscarcely adjust the wicks.
Helena left the room to change her dress.
'I shall be back before Mrs Curtiss brings in the tray. There is theNietzsche I brought--'
He did not answer as he watched her go. Left alone, he sat with his armsalong his knees, perfectly still. His heart beat heavily, and all hisbeing felt sullen, watchful, aloof, like a balked animal. Thoughts cameup in his brain like bubbles--random, hissing out aimlessly. Once, inthe startling inflammability of his blood, his veins ran hot, andhe smiled.
When Helena entered the room his eyes sought hers swiftly, as sparkslighting on the tinder. But her eyes were only moist with tenderness.His look instantly changed. She wondered at his being so silent,so strange.
Coming to him in her unhesitating, womanly way--she was only twenty-sixto his thirty-eight--she stood before him, holding both his hands andlooking down on him with almost gloomy tenderness. She wore a whitedress that showed her throat gathering like a fountain-jet of solid foamto balance her head. He could see the full white arms passing clearthrough the dripping spume of lace, towards the rise of her breasts. Buther eyes bent down upon him with such gloom of tenderness that he darednot reveal the passion burning in him. He could not look at her. Hestrove almost pitifully to be with her sad, tender, but he could not putout his fire. She held both his hands firm, pressing them in appeal forher dream love. He glanced at her wistfully, then turned away. Shewaited for him. She wanted his caresses and tenderness. He would notlook at her.
'You would like supper now, dear?' she asked, looking where the darkhair ended, and his neck ran smooth, under his collar, to the strongsetting of his shoulders.
'Just as you will,' he replied.
Still she waited, and still he would not look at her. Something troubledhim, she thought. He was foreign to her.
'I will spread the cloth, then,' she said, in deep tones of resignation.She pressed his hands closely, and let them drop. He took no notice,but, still with his arms on his knees, he stared into the fire.
In the golden glow of lamplight she set small bowls of white andlavender sweet-peas, and mignonette, upon the round table. He watchedher moving, saw the stir of her white, sloping shoulders under the lace,and the hollow of her shoulders firm as marble, and the slight rise andfall of her loins as she walked. He felt as if his breast were scalded.It was a physical pain to him.
Supper was very quiet. Helena was sad and gentle; he had a peculiar,enigmatic look in his eyes, between suffering and mockery and love. Hewas quite intractable; he would not soften to her, but remained therealoof. He was tired, and the look of weariness and suffering was evidentto her through his strangeness. In her heart she wept.
At last she tinkled the bell for supper to be cleared. Meanwhile,restlessly, she played fragments of Wagner on the piano.
'Will you want anything else?' asked the smiling old landlady.
'Nothing at all, thanks,' said Helena, with decision.
'Oh! then I think I will go to bed when I've washed the dishes. You willput the lamp out, dear?'
'I am well used to a lamp,' smiled Helena. 'We use them always at home.'
She had had a day before Siegmund's coming, in which to win Mrs Curtiss'heart, and she had been successful. The old lady took the tray.
'Good-night, dear--good-night, sir. I will leave you. You will not belong, dear?'
'No, we shall not be long. Mr MacNair is very evidently tired out.'
'Yes--yes. It is very tiring, London.'
When the door was closed, Helena stood a moment undecided, looking atSiegmund. He was lying in his arm-chair in a dispirited way, and lookingin the fire. As she gazed at him with troubled eyes, he happened toglance to her, with the same dark, curiously searching,disappointed eyes.
'Shall I read to you?' she asked bitterly.
'If you will,' he replied.
He sounded so indifferent, she could scarcely refrain from crying. Shewent and stood in front of him, looking down on him heavily.
'What is it, dear?' she said.
'You,' he replied, smiling with a little grimace.
'Why me?'
He smiled at her ironically, then closed his eyes. She slid into hisarms with a little moan. He took her on his knee, where she curled uplike a heavy white cat. She let him caress her with his mouth, and didnot move, but lay there curled up and quiet and luxuriously warm.
He kissed her hair, which was beautifully fragrant of itself, and timeafter time drew between his lips one long, keen thread, as if he wouldravel out with his mouth her vigorous confusion of hair. His tendernessof love was like a soft flame lapping her voluptuously.
After a while they heard the old lady go upstairs. Helena went verystill, and seemed to contract. Siegmund himself hesitated in hislove-making. All was very quiet. They could hear the faint breathing ofthe sea. Presently the cat, which had been sleeping in a chair, rose andwent to the door.
'Shall I let her out?' said Siegmund.
'Do!' said Helena, slipping from his knee. 'She goes out when the nightsare fine.'
Siegmund rose to set free the tabby. Hearing the front door open, MrsCurtiss called from upstairs: 'Is that you, dear?'
'I have just let Kitty out,' said Siegmund.
'Ah, thank you. Good night!' They heard the old lady lock her bedroomdoor.
Helena was kneeling on the hearth. Siegmund softly closed the door, thenwaited a moment. His heart was beating fast.
'Shall we sit by firelight?' he asked tentatively.
'Yes--If you wish,' she replied, very slowly, as if against her will. Hecarefully turned down the lamp, then blew out the light. His whole bodywas burning and surging with desire.
The room was black and red with firelight. Helena shone ruddily as sheknelt, a bright, bowed figure, full in the glow. Now and then redstripes of firelight leapt across the walls. Siegmund, his face ruddy,advanced out of the shadows.
He sat in the chair beside her, leaning forward, his hands hanging liketwo scarlet flowers listless in the fire glow, near to her, as she knelton the hearth, with head bowed down. One of the flowers awoke and spreadtowards her. It asked for her mutely. She was fascinated, scarcelyable to move.
'Come,' he pleaded softly.
She turned, lifted her hands to him. The lace fell back, and her arms,bare to the shoulder, shone rosily. He saw her breasts raised towardshim. Her face was bent between her arms as she looked up at him afraid.Lit by the firelight, in her white, clinging dress, cowering between heruplifted arms, she seemed to be offering him herself to sacrifice.
In an instant he was kneeling, and she was lying on his shoulder,abandoned to him. There was a good deal of sorrow in his joy.
* * * * *
It was eleven o'clock when Helena at last loosened Siegmund's arms, androse from the armchair where she lay beside him. She was very hot,feverish, and restless. For the last half-hour he had lain absolutelystill, with his heavy arms about her, making her hot. If she had notseen his eyes blue and dark, she would have thought him asleep. Shetossed in restlessness on his breast.
'Am I not uneasy?' she had said, to make him speak. He had smiledgently.
'It is wonderful to be as still as this,' he said. She had lain tranquilwith him, th
en, for a few moments. To her there was something sacred inhis stillness and peace. She wondered at him; he was so different froman hour ago. How could he be the same! Now he was like the sea, blue andhazy in the morning, musing by itself. Before, he was burning, volcanic,as if he would destroy her.
She had given him this new soft beauty. She was the earth in which hisstrange flowers grew. But she herself wondered at the flowers producedof her. He was so strange to her, so different from herself. What nextwould he ask of her, what new blossom would she rear in him then. Heseemed to grow and flower involuntarily. She merely helped toproduce him.
Helena could not keep still; her body was full of strange sensations, ofinvoluntary recoil from shock. She was tired, but restless. All the timeSiegmund lay with his hot arms over her, himself so incomprehensible inhis base of blue, open-eyed slumber, she grew more breathless andunbearable to herself.
At last she lifted his arm, and drew herself out of the chair. Siegmundlooked at her from his tranquillity. She put the damp hair from herforehead, breathed deep, almost panting. Then she glanced hauntingly ather flushed face in the mirror. With the same restlessness, she turnedto look at the night. The cool, dark, watery sea called to her. Shepushed back the curtain.
The moon was wading deliciously through shallows of white cloud. Beyondthe trees and the few houses was the great concave of darkness, the sea,and the moonlight. The moon was there to put a cool hand of absolutionon her brow.
'Shall we go out a moment, Siegmund?' she asked fretfully.
'Ay, if you wish to,' he answered, altogether willing. He was filledwith an easiness that would comply with her every wish.
They went out softly, walked in silence to the bay. There they stood atthe head of the white, living moonpath, where the water whispered at thecasement of the land seductively.
'It's the finest night I have seen,' said Siegmund. Helena's eyessuddenly filled with tears, at his simplicity of happiness.
'I like the moon on the water,' she said.
'I can hardly tell the one from the other,' he replied simply. 'The seaseems to be poured out of the moon, and rocking in the hands of thecoast. They are all one, just as your eyes and hands and what you say,are all you.'
'Yes,' she answered, thrilled. This was the Siegmund of her dream, andshe had created him. Yet there was a quiver of pain. He was beyond hernow, and did not need her.
'I feel at home here,' he said; 'as if I had come home where I wasbred.'
She pressed his hand hard, clinging to him.
'We go an awful long way round, Helena,' he said, 'just to find we'reall right.' He laughed pleasantly. 'I have thought myself such anoutcast! How can one be outcast in one's own night, and the moon alwaysnaked to us, and the sky half her time in rags? What do we want?'
Helena did not know. Nor did she know what he meant. But she feltsomething of the harmony.
'Whatever I have or haven't from now,' he continued, 'the darkness is asort of mother, and the moon a sister, and the stars children, andsometimes the sea is a brother: and there's a family in one house,you see.'
'And I, Siegmund?' she said softly, taking him in all seriousness. Shelooked up at him piteously. He saw the silver of tears among the moonlitivory of her face. His heart tightened with tenderness, and he laughed,then bent to kiss her.
'The key of the castle,' he said. He put his face against hers, and felton his cheek the smart of her tears.
'It's all very grandiose,' he said comfortably, 'but it does fortonight, all this that I say.'
'It is true for ever,' she declared.
'In so far as tonight is eternal,' he said.
He remained, with the wetness of her cheek smarting on his, looking fromunder his brows at the white transport of the water beneath the moon.They stood folded together, gazing into the white heart of the night.