“But I don't like the idea of Rod being on his own like that,” said Daphne, following her own thoughts. “I wish
you
could go with him, Mark.” She became suddenly excited. “Yes, that would be splendid. Why didn't we think of that last night? Will you, Mark? Will you?”
Mark shook his head. “An impecunious journalist ⦔ he began. But realizing in time that an avowal of poverty
would come ill from host to guest, he abandoned his sentence and plunged back into the middle of things. “Let's get back to the point. You and Master X. You're really in love with each other?”
She nodded.
“You're lovers?”
“Of course not.” Her cheeks were suddenly scarlet.
“Why not?”
“Is that your advice?” she asked frigidly.
“In effect, yes. Or it would be, if it weren't my strict rule never to give advice. If all you want is an adolescent romance, a tragic renunciation, and something to be wistful about in your middle age, I've nothing to say. But if there's more to it than that, why not try it out, put it to the test?”
“Behind Rod's back? Is that your idea of honour?”
“It's my idea of common sense. Of course if you think it would be kinderâkinder to Rod, I meanâyou could consult Rod first. I'm sure he'd be interested in the project.”
“What a cynic you are!”
She had often called him a cynic, but this time there was real reproach in her voice. He glanced at her in momentary contrition. How pretty she is, he thought. How pretty and how ⦠But he couldn't find the word he wanted, and his thoughts, swerving at the check, rode off on another tack. It would be quite fun to go to Heidelberg with old Rod. I wonder if it could be managed?
ON the banks of the Neckar the chestnut trees were in full bloom, and, though he had known it well in other days, Heidelberg was now agreeably strange to Roderick Strood. Strange, yet sufficiently familiar to induce a pang of recognition in a heart he had supposed to be moribund. Arriving on a Tuesday afternoon, he observed the brightness in the air, the pink and green of the trees, the flowing sunlight of the river; but he greeted these things with a dyspeptic eye, and feigned to ignore that hint of waking interest in his heart.
For many months now he had been in a state of anger with his universe. Life had denied him what he wanted, and he was resolved to refuse all substitutes in the shape of this accidental, this incidental, this impersonal beauty. But he considered himself to be a matter-of-fact person, was a great believer in reason and common sense, and he had come away for a change of scene, not because he believed in its efficacy but because it was recognized as the sensible thing to do. He took his medicine mechanically, without believing in its power to cure him. And his thoughts had turned towards Heidelberg for no better reason than that he had once, long ago, spent a student's year there. A happy year? Yes, happy for two reasons. Every year that had passed before his marriage now seemed to have been a period of freedom and bliss; and in those days the supreme happiness, though not achieved, was always just round the corner. At twenty a man looks forward with expectancy: at thirty-five he looks backward with regret. With such thoughts vaguely in mind he allowed himself to be driven across the bridge to the other side of the river, and thence to the Gasthaus zur Hirschgasse. At sight of the familiar place he experienced the momentary illusion of being back in the past, but his companion, Mark Perryman, was there to remind him of sober reality. In a general way he was glad of Mark's company, but at the moment the fellow struck a jarring note. He was not sorry when Mark declined to turn out, after their early evening meal, to accompany him to the Stadthalle, where Beethoven was to be played: he went alone, leaving Mark engaged on a piece of journalism. “I'd like to come,” said Mark, “but I feel like writing this stuff before it goes cold on me. I'm always in my shop, you must remember.” So in the luminous evening Roderick Strood walked back across the bridge. He noted again the beauty of the chestnuts, and said to himself: “How futile it all is! And why am I going to this concert?” ⦠Twelve hours later, looking on that scene with new eyes, he found a poignant meaning in its beauty, a meaning, a revelation, and a promise. In the interval he had heard some music and had a night of broken sleep, but Mark Perryman found difficulty in believing that these things alone had caused so great a change in his friend.
On the way out from England Strood had been an unresponsive companion, shut up in himself, moody to the point of moroseness. He had taken obscure offence at the sight of Cologne; the voyage up the Rhine had bored him almost beyond bearing (“Why the hell did we come this way?” he asked bitterly); and the arrival at Heidelberg, after so much tribulation, had seemed to give him no pleasure. Mark had never seen him so obviously out of sorts before: he could only conclude that Daphne had confessed her desire for divorce and that poor Roderick, knowing himself bereaved of her love, was in process of making terms with despair. And now, suddenly, he was friendly, gay, young again. What magic was there in Heidelberg that could work such a change? Roderick was so obliging as to tell him everythingâeverything essentialâin one unguarded sentence.
“Has it ever occurred to you, Mark, that there's something rather insipid about Englishwomen?”
So that's how it is, said Mark to himself. “I've noticed,” he answered, “that after living in Bedfordshire, the mountainous regions of Wales seem singularly agreeable.”
Roderick stared gravely, but his thoughts were elsewhere. “There was a young pianist at that concert the other night. She played some sonatas.”
“Good?” asked Mark.
“Marvellous, I thought. I don't pretend to be a judge, but she seems to me to be in the very first class.”
The young pianist's name was Elisabeth Andersch. By the most miraculous chance Roderick had observed her, the very morning after the concert, strolling by the riverside. He had introduced himself.
“Did you, indeed!” said Mark, raising his eyebrows in admiration. “You young chaps don't lose much time, I must say. Did she call the police?”
“I suppose,” said Roderick, “it
does
sound an audacious thing to do. But luckily I didn't think of that at the time. It was my one chance and I took it.”
“What did you say?” asked Mark. “You paid a formal German tribute to her performance, and remarked, apropos of nothing in particular:
Ich war Zu Heidelberg Student
. Was that it?”
Roderick's tolerant smile could not quite conceal his surprise. “You seem to know all about it.”
“Far from it,” said Mark modestly. “I'm only a learner.”
The silence that followed was so protracted that Mark began to fear that his banter had been ill received. But when at last Roderick spoke again it was made clear not only that he had taken it all in good part but that he was translated to a paradise far beyond the reach of humour.
“Look here, Mark. This is the most important thing that has ever happened to me.”
Mark was sobered by the avowal. He looked sympathetic, but answered nothing. What a trite situation, he thought. “Life is so flagrant a copy of fiction, isn't it?” he remarked. “And not the best fiction either.”
Roderick was not attending. “I've been waiting for this all my life,” he said, in a voice at once shy and defiant.
“Are you seeing her again?” asked Mark, feeling oddly at a loss for anything better to say.
Roderick looked at his watch. “In half an hour. You'll forgive my running away, my dear fellow?”
Only seven days of the holiday remained, Roderick being due back in London at the end of May. Mark had hoped to renew old times by having with his friend some of those tremendous conversations, so dear to young men, in which the nature of things is endlessly and excitingly explored. As fellow-undergraduates they had dedicated many a glorious hour to that pursuit. And there was indeed no dearth of conversation during this holiday: the thing resolved itself into one enormous rambling discussion of love and marriage, with special reference to Daphne Strood and Elisabeth Andersch. Mark felt his own position to be one of exquisite delicacy. Being in Daphne's confidence, he found it irksome to be prevented, by a point of honour, from assuring his friend that all would be well, and that Daphne, so far from being distressed, would sigh with relief to be rid of an unwanted husband. All that hints could do, he did: beyond that, nothing would have persuaded him to go. Roderick had reached the point of believing that his passion for Daphne had never been the real thing; he was for ever explaining his marriage away; but he seemed unable, without more help
than Mark was willing to give him, to leap to the idea that Daphne might be in the same state of mind about himself. He conceded the possibility that she might be generous, but he could not believe that she would release him without hesitation or distress. He was tortured by indecision, whether and when to tell her of this wonderful thing that had transfigured his life. For that this new passion was the real thing he couldn't for a moment doubt: he was as ingenuous about it as a schoolboy. Fräulein Andersch, by a coincidence in which it was impossible not to see the hand of a benign Providence, was on the point of going to England, where she intended to give a series of recitals; and there was no reason in the world why the affair should not prosper. No reason except Daphne.
“And as for Daphne,” said Mark, “she may take the whole thing more quietly than you fear. There may be aspects of Daphne's character that even
you
don't understand, Rod.”
“And that
you
do, I suppose?” bantered Roderick.
Mark grinned. He came, moreover, within measurable distance of blushing. “I wouldn't make such a bold claim as that. But it's perhaps not so preposterous a notion as it seems. Onlookers see most of the game, if my copy-books are to be believed.”
“So you think I ought to tell her?” asked Roderick.
Mark shook his head, smiling. “I never give advice.”
Roderick said no more. His mind followed, wincingly, a new train of thought, and for a moment he was back again, a small child, in the Vicarage orchard, clutching desperately at his father's hand.
BOARDING, at King's Cross, the train that was to carry her safely to the North-London suburb where she lived with Poor Mother, Lucy Prynne was quite unaware of the connexion, which time would make apparent, between herself and the Roderick Stroods. She had much to think about; but now, the tension of the day being relaxed, she was not so much thinking as watching the random thoughts drift in and
out of her mind. She was small and slim, and dressed with a neat homeliness, an absence of enterprise, that was part of her character. She sat very upright in her corner, with her back to the engine to avoid the flying smuts, and her glance rested incuriously, even blankly, on the familiar metropolitan landscape that moved past her. Her face, except for its city pallor, had all the qualities that make for prettiness; and, if it was not in fact pretty, that was because the vigilant spirit within her, the unconscious censor of her impulses, would not have it so. Cold blue eyes, a small straight unaggressive nose, delicate eyebrows set high on a fair brow, and a clear skin upon which her thirty-one years had made scarcely a mark, these were advantages which many a woman of her age might have envied her, and many a man might have observed with quickening interest. But the total effect was neutral rather than alluring, rather an absence of noticeable blemishes than the positive attraction of womanly bloom; and the small tight-shut mouth hinted at severity, gave her the air of being always afraid that some unauthorized person was about to speak to her.
Nearly twenty years had passed since Lucy Prynne had first tightened her lips against the world, and against the rebel within her that was secret even from herself; and it now made part of the habitual expression of her face in repose. Nearly twenty years, for she could not have been more than eleven when, with her father and brothers, but leaving Poor Mother unaccountably at home, she had spent that odd momentous fortnight at Netherclift-next-the-Sea. She remembered the queer name of the place, and she remembered, was not likely to forget, the very surprising surprise that Father had had in store for her. They took possession of their little bungalow on a Friday evening, and next morning at breakfast Father said, suddenly: “Lucy my love, there's a new auntie coming to see us to-day. Won't that be nice?” Father had large drooping moustaches and bushy eyebrows. When he smiled he exposed a gold tooth, and the nostrils of his blunt nose dilated in a manner that made him seem unexpectedly fierce. Lucy had never quite got used to him, so incalculable were his humours; and she was puzzled that he should single her out to be the special recipient of this piece of news when, as she
could see from their faces, it was equally news to Reggie and Tom, who were both her seniors. But obediently, timidly, she returned smile for smile, and when at tea-time the new auntie drove up in a cab from the station, whence Father had escorted her, she as obediently kissed the velvet cheek offered her, and said, repeating her drill: “Good afternoon, Aunt Lena.” Aunt Lena was as plump and vivacious as Mother was slim, gentle, apathetic. Her vivacity was rather unnerving after Mother's quiet ways, and her trick of never addressing children except in the third person was one that kept Lucy always at a distance, though the boys, who took everything as it came, voted her a decent sort. “I wonder if Lucy would like sixpence to buy sweeties with,” Aunt Lena would remark; and it took the child a long while to realize that this form of inquiry demanded an answer from herself. Aunt Lena shared Lucy's bedroom during the whole of the fortnight: a circumstance that afterwards gave the girl much food for puzzled thought. During the day Father had eyes for no one else. He and Aunt Lena went for long walks together every day, leaving the three children to their own devices.