Those few words; that quick handshake; and he was down the stairs, feeling
for the door-catch. In another moment the door closed behind him and he stood
shivering in the night air. He felt chilled and numb, with a little pinpoint
of misery somewhere inside him that was expanding with every second. The
world hung still and silent; it would take a minute or two, no doubt, for the
cab to arrive. He paced up and down a short stretch of pavement, trying not
to think, not even to feel.
Then, in the darkness of the yard whence he had come, a patch of light
shone suddenly; he stared round, and saw her standing at the doorway. Never
had his whole being swung into keener ecstasy than at such a reprieve—a
few pitiful seconds snatched from an eternity ahead. He went back, trying to
seem rather offhand and casual. “You shouldn’t,” he began,
but he could hardly control his voice, “you shouldn’t have
bothered to come down. It’s too cold for you to stand here. Do please
go back. The cab will be up in a minute—there’s really no
need—”
“Come here,” she whispered, clutching his sleeve. Dimly he
wondered, and when she drew him into the little lobby at the foot of the
stairs, the wondering grew to a tingling excitement. “That cab,”
he stammered, “I must keep a lookout for that cab…
“It won’t come…Howat, I never rang for it…I
couldn’t—I found I couldn’t…Are you very angry with
me?”
The world dizzied about him, and he took her closely into his arms with
all his senses brimming over. He did not and could not speak, but he knew
bewilderedly that he had wanted her like that. After a moment, and without a
word between them, they climbed the stairs and stood again in that warm,
companionable room; it seemed full of welcome now. He took her to him again
and the sweetness of her body streamed into his, and made him feel like a
youth about to conquer the world. She clung to him with that strange, simple
intentness that was in the way she talked and looked; he still could not
think of any words, but she said to him, in a calm whisper: “I do love
you so much, Howat. I can’t help it. It began all the time you were
giving me those lessons—all the time you weren’t taking any
notice of me. Of course it was absurd—that’s what I told myself
then—but now it doesn’t seem absurd any more. It’s
everything else that seems absurd now.”
“Yes, yes—I know.” His mind was tremulously aflame at
her confession, but especially at her mention of those earlier meetings;
somehow the realisation that her love had come spontaneously and long before
his, lifted him to a supreme pinnacle of rapture. “My dearest
child…” he began, and meant to say such infinities of things, but
found he could not progress beyond those few words. They drew away from each
other then, and she went on talking in abrupt but still calm sentences.
“Howat, I couldn’t help it. I. tried, but it was no use. And
I’m glad now that this has happened—yes, I’m glad, even if
you aren’t.”
“But I’m glad too.”
“Are you? You don’t think you’ll begin to hate me as
soon as you get back to Browdley?”
He said then, only just audibly: “Impossible to do
that—impossible…And as for Browdley—”
She watched him in gentle silence, and he saw the future dissolving into
new backgrounds of such impossibilities. He felt as if he were sitting in the
stalls of a theatre, seeing the curtain rise on the strangest and newest of
plays, the play of the life which he himself had yet to live. He returned her
gaze incredulously, and the thought came to him: Every day and night for so
many years I have praised God with my lips, but now for the first time I
praise Him with all my heart. He sank into a chair, silenced with
thankfulness, and she came to him then; she sat on the arm of the chair and
drew his head against her small firm bosom. “How tired you must be,
Howat,” she whispered. That enchantment of her bodily nearness soothed
him; he did feel tired, but somehow eager as well, and he knew that he could
rest, because she understood utterly both his eagerness and his tiredness. He
closed his eyes and visions crowded on him—of music and painting and
poetry and all the beauty of line and contour; a hundred sensuous images took
meaning, while tunes raced through his mind with sharp unlooked-for
harmonies; the whole world seemed on fire about him, while he, at its centre,
found peace on the breast of this girl. “I can’t go back,”
he stammered, huskily. “I can’t…Do you realise that? Do you
realise what you’ve done?”
“If I’ve done to you what you’ve done to me, then
I’m glad.”
“But I can’t go back now! Do you realise that?”
“To your hotel? Well, it doesn’t matter. You can stay here. We
can talk. I’m not sleepy.”
“It’s—it’s more than that I mean. Much more.
I’m thinking of Browdley…Oh, Elizabeth, I wish I’d known you
years and years ago!”
“Before I was born, that would have been!”
“Yes, I know. It’s monstrous, I admit—a child like you
and a man of my age. With a wife—children—and—and a chapel!
My God, a chapel—think of that! Tell me, how much does all this mean to
you? How long will it last? I want to know—is it just a fancy—the
sort of thing you feel in the mood for after Brahms? How much exactly does it
mean?”
She touched his forehead and then his hair with ’her fingertips.
“Everything, Howat. There’s only one thought in my mind, and
that’s how much I could be to you if you wanted me. Howat, I’m
not afraid.”
“
You’re not afraid!
” He drew her to him
exultantly and kissed her in the flush of splendour that her words had
evoked. “Elizabeth, do you mean that-absolutely? You strange
girl—you’re so cool and calm all the time, and it’s all so
marvellous—the most marvellous thing that’s ever happened to me.
Do you think I could dare to let it go now?”
“Not if you feel certain that it’s everything.
I’m
certain, in my own case, because I’ve never felt
anything like it before. That makes it so simple. But you, of
course—”
“And do you think I ever have, either?”
She gave him a single fearless glance that made him certain that there was
nothing in his life beyond her instant comprehension. “Haven’t
you?” she said softly, and he shook his head, knowing that she would
understand how true it was. Never before had there been in him this curious
ache that made him feel almost raw with tenderness at the sight of her
fingers stretched out on the arm of the chair or the delicate curving of her
nostril or the little side-tooth that wasn’t quite in line with the
others. He said, abruptly: “You were right when you said I’ve not
been happy. I’ve had some bad times. Did you ever hear about my two
boys? One died when he was twelve—he would have been clever, I think,
especially at music. The other, the elder, wasn’t so clever, but he was
a dear fellow—a bit wild at times, but there was no harm in
him—oh, no real harm at all. He didn’t like Browdley, and he was
rather bored at home—we got him a job in a bank, but he wouldn’t
stay—he went off to Canada then—I haven’t had any letter
for three years. Perhaps I’ll see him again sometime.”
“You were very fond of him?”
“Yes.” He added, fiercely: “He went off because he
couldn’t stand it. The routine of the bank, and then the routine of
home life—the chapel services and everything else—I can see now,
I ought to have taken his part more than I did. He told me, before he left,
that he couldn’t stand it. And I can’t stand it now, either. The
very thought of it turns me cold—to leave you and go back to that
life—my God, I
can’t
do it, Elizabeth. Do you think I
ought to?”
“Do you think I want you to?”
“But ought I—
ought
I?”
“I don’t think I’m ever sure what other people ought to
do, Howat.”
“That being more in my line of business, eh?” He laughed
sharply. “It used to be, but it isn’t any more. I’ve found
myself out. I see my chance now, just as you see yours. I want to take
it—oh, I want to take it so much—”
“And I want everything that
you
want—everything you
could possibly want.”
“I want
you
—I want—oh, my darling, we’ve
only our two lives and they belong to us more than to any other
person—shall we
run
for those lives of ours?”
“I know what you mean, Howat. I feel it, too—I feel it just
like that—it’s curious and rather dreadful, yet it makes me very
happy.” She stooped and laid her cheek against his. “I’ve
thought of it all, as well as you—probably long before you did, really
even to working out details. During dinner while we were talking I kept
thinking of it all, though it seemed such absolute nonsense then.” She
smiled and went on softly: “I was imagining the two of us in Vienna
together. Some big comfortable room with a piano in it, where you could
compose when you felt in the mood, and I could fiddle away. And again later
on, while I was making the coffee, I thought of it—a room perhaps
something like this, though with a real fire for preference, and all kinds of
interesting people dropping in at odd times to see us, and then afterwards,
when they’d gone, being by ourselves—and drinking
coffee—and talking—oh, plenty of talk—there’d always
be that, wouldn’t there? Howat, I can see it just exactly as it ought
to be—why couldn’t it all happen to us?”
He turned to her with a look of worship; he too was entranced by the
imagined picture of that room, and as for the music he would compose, it was
in his cars already. “It shall happen,” he whispered, and there
stole over him again that divine tenderness for her, making him aware, even
had he not earlier guessed it, that there was still something more; it was
not enough to have found the meaning of love, since on the very crest of
discovery a further peak swung into view.
He kissed her and whispered again, with this new certainty of desire:
“It shall happen,” and felt her tears warm and then cool upon his
face.
Later he began to tell her about his early life at Kimbourne…
It was early in the century when he had first arrived there. He was
sixteen then, a tall thin youth wearing a grammar-school cap of exuberant
hues that aroused the liveliest conjectures in the little Kentish village.
His father, after losing money in rash speculation, had been killed in the
South African War, and his mother had survived her husband by barely a year,
having tried vainly in the meantime to retrieve the family fortunes by
running a seaside boarding-house. The lawyer who wound up the estate had not
known quite what to do with Howat; he thought him a nice-looking and
decently-educated youth, but rather young to be flung into the world entirely
on his own; clearly it would be a good thing if he could be got into a family
for a few years; he would probably earn his keep, at least, as soon as he was
put to work. It so happened that about that time the lawyer was visiting a
client of his, a Mr. Coverdale, who was noted as a very religious and
philanthropic person; he mentioned Howat’s case, and Coverdale
suggested that the boy should come along to Kimbourne, at any rate for a
short holiday.
Howat walked from the station on a blazing June afternoon.
Coverdale’s house was about a mile out of the village a pleasant
detached property with verandahs and low windows and a big garden full of
flowers; the path from the garden gate to the porch was through an avenue of
tall hollyhocks. Howat was hot from the walk, and he was also very shy. The
house seemed grand to him after the miserable boarding-house basement, and he
felt shyer than ever when a rather plump and cheerful-looking woman
introduced herself as Mrs. Coverdale and asked him if he had had tea. He said
no, and she took him into a room which, to his rather faltering eyes at that
first sight of it, seemed entirely full of girls.
There were, indeed, seven of them, and they were presented one after
another. Howat was struck almost completely dumb; he had never had anything
to do with girls, and didn’t know in the least what to say to them. He
merely answered their questions when they asked if the train had been late,
and whether he liked the hot summer; for the rest of the time he sat silent
and uncomfortable. They chattered loudly all around him, and he wondered if
it would be very rude to ask permission to go to his bedroom and wash, but he
was too nervous to do so, and he actually made up his mind to run away to
London the following morning after breakfast. Soon, however, the girls
disappeared in ones and twos, leaving him alone with Mrs. Coverdale. He was
not so nervous with her; she had a very genial and easygoing manner, and
asked him scores of questions about himself, what his tastes were, what
subjects he had liked best at school, and so on. He told her he liked music,
and she said: “Ah, Mr. Coverdale will want you to play the harmonium
this evening, then.” The thought of that made him nervous again, and he
wished he had said nothing at all about music.
Towards seven o’clock a mysterious imminence made itself felt in the
atmosphere; there was a good deal of scurrying about on the part of the seven
girls, and at a certain moment one of them, who had apparently been looking
out of an upstairs window, called out: “Father’s coming!” A
few moments later a rather elderly man, grey-haired but very upright, walked
briskly between the two rows of hollyhocks and entered the house. He kissed
his wife and each one of his daughters very loudly, and then, on being made
aware of Howat’s presence, said gruffly: “How do you do, my
boy?” and shook hands with him. After that he led the way to the
dining-room and said a slow and solemn grace. There was little talking during
the meal; sometimes he made a remark to which someone gave answer, but there
was none of the chatter that had made the tea-table so noisy, and even Mrs.
Coverdale did not seem in such an easy-going mood.
Afterwards she mentioned that Ho wat had confessed to being
‘musical,’ and sure enough, Mr. Coverdale suggested that he
should ‘play a tune’ on the harmonium. For this purpose he was
conducted into a very primly furnished drawing-room, full of stuffed birds
and china ornaments; he was terribly nervous with all the family crowding
round him, and more especially because he had never played a harmonium
before. At first he failed to realise that he had to work the pedals, and
even when he had made this important discovery he found that some of the
notes wouldn’t sound, and that a rather rapid Chopin study hardly
suited the peculiarities of the instrument. He made what he felt to be a
complete hash of the whole thing, but to his surprise and relief everyone
appeared delighted, and Mr. Coverdale even went so far as to thank him in a
deep booming voice.