Part 15

But this morning she had been awakened by one great slam of the front door. Bang. The flat shook. What was it? She jerked up in bed, clutching the eiderdown; her heart beat. What could it be? Then she heard voices in the passage. Marie knocked, and, as the door opened, with a sharp tearing rip out flew the blind and the curtains, stiffening, flapping, jerking. The tassel of the blind knocked—knocked against the window. “Eh-h, _voilà!_” cried Marie, setting down the tray and running. “_C’est le vent, Madame. C’est un vent insupportable._”

Up rolled the blind; the window went up with a jerk; a whitey-greyish light filled the room. Monica caught a glimpse of a huge pale sky and a cloud like a torn shirt dragging across before she hid her eyes with her sleeve.

“Marie! the curtains! Quick, the curtains!” Monica fell back into the bed and then “Ring-ting-a-ping-ping, ring-ting-a-ping-ping.” It was the telephone. The limit of her suffering was reached; she grew quite calm. “Go and see, Marie.”

“It is Monsieur. To know if Madame will lunch at Princes’ at one-thirty to-day.” Yes, it was Monsieur himself. Yes, he had asked that the message be given to Madame immediately. Instead of replying, Monica put her cup down and asked Marie in a small wondering voice what time it was. It was half-past nine. She lay still and half closed her eyes. “Tell Monsieur I cannot come,” she said gently. But as the door shut, anger—anger suddenly gripped her close, close, violent, half strangling her. How dared he? How dared Ralph do such a thing when he knew how agonizing her nerves were in the morning! Hadn’t she explained and described and even—though lightly, of course; she couldn’t say such a thing directly—given him to understand that this was the one unforgivable thing.

And then to choose this frightful windy morning. Did he think it was just a fad of hers, a little feminine folly to be laughed at and tossed aside? Why, only last night she had said: “Ah, but you must take me seriously, too.” And he had replied: “My darling, you’ll not believe me, but I know you infinitely better than you know yourself. Every delicate thought and feeling I bow to, I treasure. Yes, laugh! I love the way your lip lifts”—and he had leaned across the table—“I don’t care who sees that I adore all of you. I’d be with you on mountain-top and have all the searchlights of the world play upon us.”

“Heavens!” Monica almost clutched her head. Was it possible he had really said that? How incredible men were! And she had loved him—how could she have loved a man who talked like that. What had she been doing ever since that dinner party months ago, when he had seen her home and asked if he might come and “see again that slow Arabian smile”? Oh, what nonsense—what utter nonsense—and yet she remembered at the time a strange deep thrill unlike anything she had ever felt before.

“Coal! Coal! Coal! Old iron! Old iron! Old iron!” sounded from below. It was all over. Understand her? He had understood nothing. That ringing her up on a windy morning was immensely significant. Would he understand that? She could almost have laughed. “You rang me up when the person who understood me simply couldn’t have.” It was the end. And when Marie said: “Monsieur replied he would be in the vestibule in case Madame changed her mind,” Monica said: “No, not verbena, Marie. Carnations. Two handfuls.”

A wild white morning, a tearing, rocking wind. Monica sat down before the mirror. She was pale. The maid combed back her dark hair—combed it all back—and her face was like a mask, with pointed eyelids and dark red lips. As she stared at herself in the blueish shadowy glass she suddenly felt—oh, the strangest, most tremendous excitement filling her slowly, slowly, until she wanted to fling out her arms, to laugh, to scatter everything, to shock Marie, to cry: “I’m free. I’m free. I’m free as the wind.” And now all this vibrating, trembling, exciting, flying world was hers. It was her kingdom. No, no, she belonged to nobody but Life.

“That will do, Marie,” she stammered. “My hat, my coat, my bag. And now get me a taxi.” Where was she going? Oh, anywhere. She could not stand this silent flat, noiseless Marie, this ghostly, quiet, feminine interior. She must be out; she must be driving quickly—anywhere, anywhere.

“The taxi is there, Madame.” As she pressed open the big outer doors of the flats the wild wind caught her and floated her across the pavement. Where to? She got in, and smiling radiantly at the cross, cold-looking driver, she told him to take her to her hairdresser’s. What would she have done without her hairdresser? Whenever Monica had nowhere else to go to or nothing on earth to do she drove there. She might just have her hair waved, and by that time she’d have thought out a plan. The cross, cold driver drove at a tremendous pace, and she let herself be hurled from side to side. She wished he would go faster and faster. Oh, to be free of Princes’ at one-thirty, of being the tiny kitten in the swansdown basket, of being the Arabian, and the grave, delighted child and the little wild creature. . . . “Never again,” she cried aloud, clenching her small fist. But the cab had stopped, and the driver was standing holding the door open for her.

The hairdresser’s shop was warm and glittering. It smelled of soap and burnt paper and wallflower brilliantine. There was Madame behind the counter, round, fat, white, her head like a powder-puff rolling on a black satin pin-cushion. Monica always had the feeling that they loved her in this shop and understood her—the real her—far better than many of her friends did. She was her real self here, and she and Madame had often talked—quite strangely—together. Then there was George who did her hair, young, dark, slender George. She was really fond of him.

But to-day—how curious! Madame hardly greeted her. Her face was whiter than ever, but rims of bright red showed round her blue bead eyes, and even the rings on her pudgy fingers did not flash. They were cold, dead, like chips of glass. When she called through the wall-telephone to George there was a note in her voice that had never been there before. But Monica would not believe this. No, she refused to. It was just her imagination. She sniffed greedily the warm, scented air, and passed behind the velvet curtain into the small cubicle.

Her hat and jacket were off and hanging from the peg, and still George did not come. This was the first time he had ever not been there to hold the chair for her, to take her hat and hang up her bag, dangling it in his fingers as though it were something he’d never seen before—something fairy. And how quiet the shop was! There was not a sound even from Madame. Only the wind blew, shaking the old house; the wind hooted, and the portraits of Ladies of the Pompadour Period looked down and smiled, cunning and sly. Monica wished she hadn’t come. Oh, what a mistake to have come! Fatal. Fatal. Where was George? If he didn’t appear the next moment she would go away. She took off the white kimono. She didn’t want to look at herself any more. When she opened a big pot of cream on the glass shelf her fingers trembled. There was a tugging feeling at her heart as though her happiness—her marvellous happiness—were trying to get free.

“I’ll go. I’ll not stay.” She took down her hat. But just at that moment steps sounded, and, looking in the mirror, she saw George bowing in the doorway. How queerly he smiled! It was the mirror of course. She turned round quickly. His lips curled back in a sort of grin, and—wasn’t he unshaved?—he looked almost green in the face.

“Very sorry to have kept you waiting,” he mumbled, sliding, gliding forward.

Oh, no, she wasn’t going to stay. “I’m afraid,” she began. But he had lighted the gas and laid the tongs across, and was holding out the kimono.

“It’s a wind,” he said. Monica submitted. She smelled his fresh young fingers pinning the jacket under her chin. “Yes, there is a wind,” said she, sinking back into the chair. And silence fell. George took out the pins in his expert way. Her hair tumbled back, but he didn’t hold it as he usually did, as though to feel how fine and soft and heavy it was. He didn’t say it “was in a lovely condition.” He let it fall, and, taking a brush out of a drawer, he coughed faintly, cleared his throat and said dully: “Yes, it’s a pretty strong one, I should say it was.”

She had no reply to make. The brush fell on her hair. Oh, oh, how mournful, how mournful! It fell quick and light, it fell like leaves; and then it fell heavy, tugging like the tugging at her heart. “That’s enough,” she cried, shaking herself free.

“Did I do it too much?” asked George. He crouched over the tongs. “I’m sorry.” There came the smell of burnt paper—the smell she loved—and he swung the hot tongs round in his hand, staring before him. “I shouldn’t be surprised if it rained.” He took up a piece of her hair, when—she couldn’t bear it any longer—she stopped him. She looked at him; she saw herself looking at him in the white kimono like a nun. “Is there something the matter here? Has something happened?” But George gave a half shrug and a grimace. “Oh, no, Madame. Just a little occurrence.” And he took up the piece of hair again. But, oh, she wasn’t deceived. That was it. Something awful had happened. The silence—really, the silence seemed to come drifting down like flakes of snow. She shivered. It was cold in the little cubicle, all cold and glittering. The nickel taps and jets and sprays looked somehow almost malignant. The wind rattled the window-frame; a piece of iron banged, and the young man went on changing the tongs, crouching over her. Oh, how terrifying Life was, thought Monica. How dreadful. It is the loneliness which is so appalling. We whirl along like leaves, and nobody knows—nobody cares where we fall, in what black river we float away. The tugging feeling seemed to rise into her throat. It ached, ached; she longed to cry. “That will do,” she whispered. “Give me the pins.” As he stood beside her, so submissive, so silent, she nearly dropped her arms and sobbed. She couldn’t bear any more. Like a wooden man the gay young George still slid, glided, handed her her hat and veil, took the note, and brought back the change. She stuffed it into her bag. Where was she going now?

George took a brush. “There is a little powder on your coat,” he murmured. He brushed it away. And then suddenly he raised himself and, looking at Monica, gave a strange wave with the brush and said: “The truth is, Madame, since you are an old customer—my little daughter died this morning. A first child”—and then his white face crumpled like paper, and he turned his back on her and began brushing the cotton kimono. “Oh, oh,” Monica began to cry. She ran out of the shop into the taxi. The driver, looking furious, swung off the seat and slammed the door again. “Where to?”

“Princes’,” she sobbed. And all the way there she saw nothing but a tiny wax doll with a feather of gold hair, lying meek, its tiny hands and feet crossed. And then just before she came to Princes’ she saw a flower shop full of white flowers. Oh, what a perfect thought. Lilies-of-the-valley, and white pansies, double white violets and white velvet ribbon. . . . From an unknown friend. . . . From one who understands. . . . For a Little Girl. . . . She tapped against the window, but the driver did not hear; and, anyway, they were at Princes’ already.

The Escape

It was his fault, wholly and solely his fault, that they had missed the train. What if the idiotic hotel people had refused to produce the bill? Wasn’t that simply because he hadn’t impressed upon the waiter at lunch that they must have it by two o’clock? Any other man would have sat there and refused to move until they handed it over. But no! His exquisite belief in human nature had allowed him to get up and expect one of those idiots to bring it to their room. . . . And then, when the _voiture_ did arrive, while they were still (Oh, Heavens!) waiting for change, why hadn’t he seen to the arrangement of the boxes so that they could, at least, have started the moment the money had come? Had he expected her to go outside, to stand under the awning in the heat and point with her parasol? Very amusing picture of English domestic life. Even when the driver had been told how fast he had to drive he had paid no attention whatsoever—just smiled. “Oh,” she groaned, “if she’d been a driver she couldn’t have stopped smiling herself at the absurd, ridiculous way he was urged to hurry.” And she sat back and imitated his voice: “_Allez, vite, vite_”—and begged the driver’s pardon for troubling him. . . .

And then the station—unforgettable—with the sight of the jaunty little train shuffling away and those hideous children waving from the windows. “Oh, why am I made to bear these things? Why am I exposed to them? . . .” The glare, the flies, while they waited, and he and the stationmaster put their heads together over the time-table, trying to find this other train, which, of course, they wouldn’t catch. The people who’d gathered round, and the woman who’d held up that baby with that awful, awful head. . . . “Oh, to care as I care—to feel as I feel, and never to be saved anything—never to know for one moment what it was to . . . to . . .”

Her voice had changed. It was shaking now—crying now. She fumbled with her bag, and produced from its little maw a scented handkerchief. She put up her veil and, as though she were doing it for somebody else, pitifully, as though she were saying to somebody else: “I know, my darling,” she pressed the handkerchief to her eyes.

The little bag, with its shiny, silvery jaws open, lay on her lap. He could see her powder-puff, her rouge stick, a bundle of letters, a phial of tiny black pills like seeds, a broken cigarette, a mirror, white ivory tablets with lists on them that had been heavily scored through. He thought: “In Egypt she would be buried with those things.”

They had left the last of the houses, those small straggling houses with bits of broken pot flung among the flower-beds and half-naked hens scratching round the doorsteps. Now they were mounting a long steep road that wound round the hill and over into the next bay. The horses stumbled, pulling hard. Every five minutes, every two minutes the driver trailed the whip across them. His stout back was solid as wood; there were boils on his reddish neck, and he wore a new, a shining new straw hat. . . .

There was a little wind, just enough wind to blow to satin the new leaves on the fruit trees, to stroke the fine grass, to turn to silver the smoky olives—just enough wind to start in front of the carriage a whirling, twirling snatch of dust that settled on their clothes like the finest ash. When she took out her powder-puff the powder came flying over them both.

“Oh, the dust,” she breathed, “the disgusting, revolting dust.” And she put down her veil and lay back as if overcome.

“Why don’t you put up your parasol?” he suggested. It was on the front seat, and he leaned forward to hand it to her. At that she suddenly sat upright and blazed again.

“Please leave my parasol alone! I don’t want my parasol! And anyone who was not utterly insensitive would know that I’m far, far too exhausted to hold up a parasol. And with a wind like this tugging at it. . . . Put it down at once,” she flashed, and then snatched the parasol from him, tossed it into the crumpled hood behind, and subsided, panting.

Another bend of the road, and down the hill there came a troop of little children, shrieking and giggling, little girls with sun-bleached hair, little boys in faded soldiers’ caps. In their hands they carried flowers—any kind of flowers—grabbed by the head, and these they offered, running beside the carriage. Lilac, faded lilac, greeny-white snowballs, one arum lily, a handful of hyacinths. They thrust the flowers and their impish faces into the carriage; one even threw into her lap a bunch of marigolds. Poor little mice! He had his hand in his trouser pocket before her. “For Heaven’s sake don’t give them anything. Oh, how typical of you! Horrid little monkeys! Now they’ll follow us all the way. Don’t encourage them; you _would_ encourage beggars”; and she hurled the bunch out of the carriage with, “Well, do it when I’m not there, please.”

He saw the queer shock on the children’s faces. They stopped running, lagged behind, and then they began to shout something, and went on shouting until the carriage had rounded yet another bend.

“Oh, how many more are there before the top of the hill is reached? The horses haven’t trotted once. Surely it isn’t necessary for them to walk the whole way.”

“We shall be there in a minute now,” he said, and took out his cigarette-case. At that she turned round towards him. She clasped her hands and held them against her breast; her dark eyes looked immense, imploring, behind her veil; her nostrils quivered, she bit her lip, and her head shook with a little nervous spasm. But when she spoke, her voice was quite weak and very, very calm.

“I want to ask you something. I want to beg something of you,” she said. “I’ve asked you hundreds and hundreds of times before, but you’ve forgotten. It’s such a little thing, but if you knew what it meant to me. . . .” She pressed her hands together. “But you can’t know. No human creature could know and be so cruel.” And then, slowly, deliberately, gazing at him with those huge, sombre eyes: “I beg and implore you for the last time that when we are driving together you won’t smoke. If you could imagine,” she said, “the anguish I suffer when that smoke comes floating across my face. . . .”

“Very well,” he said. “I won’t. I forgot.” And he put the case back.

“Oh, no,” said she, and almost began to laugh, and put the back of her hand across her eyes. “You couldn’t have forgotten. Not that.”

The wind came, blowing stronger. They were at the top of the hill. “Hoy-yip-yip-yip,” cried the driver. They swung down the road that fell into a small valley, skirted the sea coast at the bottom of it, and then coiled over a gentle ridge on the other side. Now there were houses again, blue-shuttered against the heat, with bright burning gardens, with geranium carpets flung over the pinkish walls. The coast-line was dark; on the edge of the sea a white silky fringe just stirred. The carriage swung down the hill, bumped, shook. “Yi-ip,” shouted the driver. She clutched the sides of the seat, she closed her eyes, and he knew she felt this was happening on purpose; this swinging and bumping, this was all done—and he was responsible for it, somehow—to spite her because she had asked if they couldn’t go a little faster. But just as they reached the bottom of the valley there was one tremendous lurch. The carriage nearly overturned, and he saw her eyes blaze at him, and she positively hissed, “I suppose you are enjoying this?”

They went on. They reached the bottom of the valley. Suddenly she stood up. “_Cocher! Cocher! Arrêtez-vous!_” She turned round and looked into the crumpled hood behind. “I knew it,” she exclaimed. “I knew it. I heard it fall, and so did you, at that last bump.”

“What? Where?”

“My parasol. It’s gone. The parasol that belonged to my mother. The parasol that I prize more than—more than . . .” She was simply beside herself. The driver turned round, his gay, broad face smiling.

“I, too, heard something,” said he, simply and gaily. “But I thought as Monsieur and Madame said nothing . . .”

“There. You hear that. Then you must have heard it too. So _that_ accounts for the extraordinary smile on your face. . . .”

“Look here,” he said, “it can’t be gone. If it fell out it will be there still. Stay where you are. I’ll fetch it.”

But she saw through that. Oh, how she saw through it! “No, thank you.” And she bent her spiteful, smiling eyes upon him, regardless of the driver. “I’ll go myself. I’ll walk back and find it, and trust you not to follow. For”—knowing the driver did not understand, she spoke softly, gently—“if I don’t escape from you for a minute I shall go mad.”

She stepped out of the carriage. “My bag.” He handed it to her.

“Madame prefers . . .”

But the driver had already swung down from his seat, and was seated on the parapet reading a small newspaper. The horses stood with hanging heads. It was still. The man in the carriage stretched himself out, folded his arms. He felt the sun beat on his knees. His head was sunk on his breast. “Hish, hish,” sounded from the sea. The wind sighed in the valley and was quiet. He felt himself, lying there, a hollow man, a parched, withered man, as it were, of ashes. And the sea sounded, “Hish, hish.”

It was then that he saw the tree, that he was conscious of its presence just inside a garden gate. It was an immense tree with a round, thick silver stem and a great arc of copper leaves that gave back the light and yet were sombre. There was something beyond the tree—a whiteness, a softness, an opaque mass, half-hidden—with delicate pillars. As he looked at the tree he felt his breathing die away and he became part of the silence. It seemed to grow, it seemed to expand in the quivering heat until the great carved leaves hid the sky, and yet it was motionless. Then from within its depths or from beyond there came the sound of a woman’s voice. A woman was singing. The warm untroubled voice floated upon the air, and it was all part of the silence as he was part of it. Suddenly, as the voice rose, soft, dreaming, gentle, he knew that it would come floating to him from the hidden leaves and his peace was shattered. What was happening to him? Something stirred in his breast. Something dark, something unbearable and dreadful pushed in his bosom, and like a great weed it floated, rocked . . . it was warm, stifling. He tried to struggle to tear at it, and at the same moment—all was over. Deep, deep, he sank into the silence, staring at the tree and waiting for the voice that came floating, falling, until he felt himself enfolded.

. . . . .

In the shaking corridor of the train. It was night. The train rushed and roared through the dark. He held on with both hands to the brass rail. The door of their carriage was open.

“Do not disturb yourself, Monsieur. He will come in and sit down when he wants to. He likes—he likes—it is his habit. . . . _Oui, Madame, je suis un peu souffrante. . . . Mes nerfs._ Oh, but my husband is never so happy as when he is travelling. He likes roughing it. . . . My husband. . . . My husband. . . .”

The voices murmured, murmured. They were never still. But so great was his heavenly happiness as he stood there he wished he might live for ever.

Transcriber’s Note

Images of the source text used in this transcription are available through the Internet Archive.

The following changes to the text were noted:

p. 2: Two subdued chirrups: “Thank you, Mrs. Samuel Josephs”—Added a period after “Josephs”.

p. 3: The buggy tiwnkled away in the sunlight—Changed “tiwnkled” to “twinkled”.

p. 14: lifted up his oat tails.—Changed “oat” to “coat”.

p. 101: the _garçon_ was hauing up the boxes—Changed “hauing” to "hauling".

p. 169: I have sung that music many times.”—Inserted a closing single quotation mark before the closing double quotation mark.

p. 154: It doesn’t matter at all, darling.” said the good friend.—Changed period after “darling” to a comma.

p. 187: “That,” she said, “is most becoming,”—Comma after “becoming” changed to a period.

p. 190: opening the French window to let Klaymongso into the garden, cries.—Changed the period after “cries” to a colon.

p. 201: What a _genius_ Mr Peacock was.—Inserted a period after “Mr”.

p. 202: There she was—off again Now she—Inserted a period after “again”.

p. 210: “That's where the ice pudding is to be,” said Cook—Added a period to the end of the sentence.