The Little Nugget

  Chapter 7

  Looking at it now I can see that the days which followed Audrey'sarrival at Sanstead marked the true beginning of our acquaintanceship.Before, during our engagement, we had been strangers, artificiallytied together, and she had struggled against the chain. But now,for the first time, we were beginning to know each other, and werediscovering that, after all, we had much in common.

  It did not alarm me, this growing feeling of comradeship. Keenlyon the alert as I was for the least sign that would show that Iwas in danger of weakening in my loyalty to Cynthia, I did notdetect one in my friendliness for Audrey. On the contrary, I washugely relieved, for it seemed to me that the danger was past. Ihad not imagined it possible that I could ever experience towardsher such a tranquil emotion as this easy friendliness. For thelast five years my imagination had been playing round her memory,until I suppose I had built up in my mind some almost superhumanimage, some goddess. What I was passing through now, of course,though I was unaware of it, was the natural reaction from thatstate of mind. Instead of the goddess, I had found a companionablehuman being, and I imagined that I had effected the change myself,and by sheer force of will brought Audrey into a reasonablerelation to the scheme of things.

  I suppose a not too intelligent moth has much the same views withregard to the lamp. His last thought, as he enters the flame, isprobably one of self-congratulation that he has arranged hisdealings with it on such a satisfactory commonsense basis.

  And then, when I was feeling particularly safe and complacent,disaster came.

  The day was Wednesday, and my 'afternoon off', but the rain wasdriving against the windows, and the attractions of billiards withthe marker at the 'Feathers' had not proved sufficient to make meface the two-mile walk in the storm. I had settled myself in thestudy. There was a noble fire burning in the grate, and thedarkness lit by the glow of the coals, the dripping of the rain,the good behaviour of my pipe, and the reflection that, as I satthere, Glossop was engaged downstairs in wrestling with my class,combined to steep me in a meditative peace. Audrey was playing thepiano in the drawing-room. The sound came to me faintly throughthe closed doors. I recognized what she was playing. I wondered ifthe melody had the same associations for her that it had for me.

  The music stopped. I heard the drawing-room door open. She cameinto the study.

  'I didn't know there was anyone here,' she said. 'I'm frozen. Thedrawing-room fire's out.'

  'Come and sit down,' I said. 'You don't mind the smoke?'

  I drew a chair up to the fire for her, feeling, as I did so, acertain pride. Here I was, alone with her in the firelight, and mypulse was regular and my brain cool. I had a momentary vision ofmyself as the Strong Man, the strong, quiet man with the iron gripon his emotions. I was pleased with myself.

  She sat for some minutes, gazing into the fire. Little spurts offlame whistled comfortably in the heart of the black-red coals.Outside the storm shrieked faintly, and flurries of rain dashedthemselves against the window.

  'It's very nice in here,' she said at last.

  'Peaceful.'

  I filled my pipe and re-lit it. Her eyes, seen for an instant inthe light of the match, looked dreamy.

  'I've been sitting here listening to you,' I said. 'I liked thatlast thing you played.'

  'You always did.'

  'You remember that? Do you remember one evening--no, youwouldn't.'

  'Which evening?'

  'Oh, you wouldn't remember. It's only one particular evening whenyou played that thing. It sticks in my mind. It was at yourfather's studio.'

  She looked up quickly.

  'We went out afterwards and sat in the park.'

  I sat up thrilled.

  'A man came by with a dog,' I said.

  'Two dogs.'

  'One surely!'

  'Two. A bull-dog and a fox-terrier.'

  'I remember the bull-dog, but--by Jove, you're right. A fox-terrierwith a black patch over his left eye.'

  'Right eye.'

  'Right eye. They came up to us, and you--'

  'Gave them chocolates.'

  I sank back slowly in my chair.

  'You've got a wonderful memory,' I said.

  She bent over the fire without speaking. The rain rattled on thewindow.

  'So you still like my playing, Peter?'

  'I like it better than ever; there's something in it now that Idon't believe there used to be. I can't describe it--something--'

  'I think it's knowledge, Peter,' she said quietly. 'Experience.I'm five years older than I was when I used to play to you before,and I've seen a good deal in those five years. It may not bealtogether pleasant seeing life, but--well, it makes you play thepiano better. Experience goes in at the heart and comes out at thefinger-tips.'

  It seemed to me that she spoke a little bitterly.

  'Have you had a bad time, Audrey, these last years?' I said.

  'Pretty bad.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'I'm not--altogether. I've learned a lot.'

  She was silent again, her eyes fixed on the fire.

  'What are you thinking about?' I said.

  'Oh, a great many things.'

  'Pleasant?'

  'Mixed. The last thing I thought about was pleasant. That was,that I am very lucky to be doing the work I am doing now. Comparedwith some of the things I have done--'

  She shivered.

  'I wish you would tell me about those years, Audrey,' I said.'What were some of the things you did?'

  She leaned back in her chair and shaded her face from the firewith a newspaper. Her eyes were in the shadow.

  'Well, let me see. I was a nurse for some time at the LafayetteHospital in New York.'

  'That's hard work?'

  'Horribly hard. I had to give it up after a while. But--it teachesyou.... You learn.... You learn--all sorts of things. Realities.How much of your own trouble is imagination. You get real troublein a hospital. You get it thrown at you.'

  I said nothing. I was feeling--I don't know why--a littleuncomfortable, a little at a disadvantage, as one feels in thepresence of some one bigger than oneself.

  'Then I was a waitress.'

  'A waitress?'

  'I tell you I did everything. I was a waitress, and a very badone. I broke plates. I muddled orders. Finally I was very rude toa customer and I went on to try something else. I forget what camenext. I think it was the stage. I travelled for a year with atouring company. That was hard work, too, but I liked it. Afterthat came dressmaking, which was harder and which I hated. Andthen I had my first stroke of real luck.'

  'What was that?'

  'I met Mr Ford.'

  'How did that happen?'

  'You wouldn't remember a Miss Vanderley, an American girl who wasover in London five or six years ago? My father taught herpainting. She was very rich, but she was wild at that time to beBohemian. I think that's why she chose Father as a teacher. Well,she was always at the studio, and we became great friends, and oneday, after all these things I have been telling you of, I thoughtI would write to her, and see if she could not find me somethingto do. She was a _dear_.' Her voice trembled, and she loweredthe newspaper till her whole face was hidden. 'She wanted me tocome to their home and live on her for ever, but I couldn't havethat. I told her I must work. So she sent me to Mr Ford, whom theVanderleys knew very well, and I became Ogden's governess.'

  'Great Scott!' I cried. 'What!'

  She laughed rather shakily.

  'I don't think I was a very good governess. I knew next tonothing. I ought to have been having a governess myself. But Imanaged somehow.'

  'But Ogden?' I said. 'That little fiend, didn't he worry the lifeout of you?'

  'Oh, I had luck there again. He happened to take a mild liking tome, and he was as good as gold--for him; that's to say, if Ididn't interfere with him too much, and I didn't. I was horriblyweak; he let me alone. It was the happiest time I had had forages.'

  'And when he came here, you came too, as a sort of ex-gover
ness,to continue exerting your moral influence over him?'

  She laughed.

  'More or less that.'

  We sat in silence for a while, and then she put into words thethought which was in both our minds.

  'How odd it seems, you and I sitting together chatting like this,Peter, after all--all these years.'

  'Like a dream!'

  'Just like a dream ... I'm so glad.... You don't know how I'vehated myself sometimes for--for--'

  'Audrey! You mustn't talk like that. Don't let's think of it.Besides, it was my fault.'

  She shook her head.

  'Well, put it that we didn't understand one another.'

  She nodded slowly.

  'No, we didn't understand one another.'

  'But we do now,' I said. 'We're friends, Audrey.'

  She did not answer. For a long time we sat in silence. And then thenewspaper must have moved--a gleam from the fire fell upon her face,lighting up her eyes; and at the sight something in me began tothrob, like a drum warning a city against danger. The next momentthe shadow had covered them again.

  I sat there, tense, gripping the arms of my chair. I was tingling.Something was happening to me. I had a curious sensation of beingon the threshold of something wonderful and perilous.

  From downstairs there came the sound of boys' voices. Work wasover, and with it this talk by the firelight. In a few minutessomebody, Glossop, or Mr Abney, would be breaking in on ourretreat.

  We both rose, and then--it happened. She must have tripped in thedarkness. She stumbled forward, her hand caught at my coat, andshe was in my arms.

  It was a thing of an instant. She recovered herself, moved to thedoor, and was gone.

  But I stood where I was, motionless, aghast at the revelationwhich had come to me in that brief moment. It was the physicalcontact, the feel of her, warm and alive, that had shattered forever that flimsy structure of friendship which I had fancied sostrong. I had said to Love, 'Thus far, and no farther', and Lovehad swept over me, the more powerful for being checked. The timeof self-deception was over. I knew myself.