Part 3

“Not a bit of it. I don’t think you realise that what interests me most in your serial is not what de Jones does but why he does it. What it is that attracts him so in Mrs. Kerr. It must be nearly twenty years now since he first met her, I believe, in Russia. Or was she already married? And now I realise. You have conveyed her character wonderfully well. I think it is that extraordinary irresponsibility, that--that--that something else. It’s there, I feel it, though I can’t for the moment describe the peculiar fascination. What else can it be? Is she still so good-looking?”

“Good-looking, no, but attractive. Her daughters have it from her.”

“He always goes back to her. It is the second time he is married. My niece should never have married him. But there is genius in him. He could have been a second Newton if he had wanted to. As it is he is a Genius of the Untried. They are all like that, the whole family. I have a great affection for him. But Eleonor is determined to divorce him. He’ll be quite penniless unless I find him something to do. But go on. What happened to the woman?”

“I lost sight of them soon after that dance, and Frau König told me they had gone off to Abbazia, while Lord de Jones had returned to England. I enquired about her own affairs. ‘Everything now depends on the knitting machine, which is due to arrive in March.’

“‘And your fiancé in Paris?’

“‘He is saving money for the factory. But imagine!’ she exclaimed, ‘in his last letter--so pathetic--he writes that the franc, owing to the political machinations of the Cartel des Gauches, has all gone to pieces and reduced the potential capital of our knitting factory.’

“We spoke of Mrs. Kerr. ‘Your Mrs. Kerr,’ said Tamara Leonidovna, ‘is a goose. Just a Great Big Goose.... What a fool that woman is! Not a cent in her pocket, not an idea in her top storey beyond dancing and pleasing men--at her age! A newly married man, too--just because he is a lord! Openly, before her daughters! What matter that she is divorced? I, too, am divorced and six years younger than she is, but I keep myself back.’ A look of strain came into her face. ‘I don’t let myself go.’ She set her jaw, clenched her fists. ‘I try to keep myself in check. I have more pride, more self-respect than ... than.... When he comes back from Paris then ... then ... then yes.’”

“Go on,” said Lord Ottercove.

IV.

DOGS AND NIGHTINGALES

“I saw nothing of them till the spring, when I had a surprise visit from Mrs. Kerr, looking considerably dilapidated. ‘Ach, Ferdinand Ferdinandovich, you won’t believe what I have been through in these two months! If I were a writer like you I would write a novel in the _genre_ of Dostoevski, so true, and yet incredible, so poignant! I have begun a diary. I will bring it to you this afternoon. You can make use of it for your books.

“‘Lord de Jones lent me some money to go and have a thorough change and rest, and so Zita, Eva, John and I went to Abbazia. A lovely coast. Blue sea, sunshine, casino, roulette, _chemin de fer_, baccarat. A real change and rest for the nerves. All day we gamble, and at night dancing, flirtations. Both girls passionate gamblers, also John. But luck went against us and we found we had no more money to go on with. I pawned some of my things and we lived very comfortably for a time at the Grand Hotel--dancing, music, sea bathing twice a day and getting to know lots of very agreeable young men on the beach, and at night moonlight walks in the wood--in couples: Zita with the Italian boy; Eva with the young Dane; and I with the Spaniard Rodrigo. Or to the cinema--always in couples, Rodrigo looking at me with great passionate eyes. Very delightful and charming. When the money was exhausted, I found a post as housekeeper in a small pension overlooking the sea--very artistically situated--and Zita, Eva and John were taken in by a lady friend of Rodrigo’s, a very nice, quiet, well-read woman. I was busy all day in the kitchen which gives out into the garden, and the children, looking so gay and fresh in their white summer things, would be coming to see me all the time. And I’d say to them, “Go and play in the garden,” and I would give them things through the window, as the lady friend of Rodrigo’s could not provide them with food. “There you are, children, take this and this and this,” and I’d give them cakes, coffee, sugar, sweets, dainties, pastry, everything, and they’d take it home and eat it and come back for more. And I’d give them more through the window, all kinds of preserved meats and provisions: “Here you are, children,” and they never went short of anything while I was housekeeper there. But--but would you believe it, Fyodor Frederickovich? The landlady, seeing me give nourishment to my children, gave me the sack. If it had been for myself, I understand, but for the children! I have noticed a strange insensibility in those people, a hardness, a general--how shall I say?--unfeelingness. No love, no understanding of children. I just looked at her like that--I could say nothing. I could not have expressed what was in my heart. A feeling of sorrow, not of anger. And as I took my things and passed her on the doorstep I just turned my head to her: “In Russia this could not have been,” and went without a word.

“‘Outside, in the street, the children around me, I stop and ask: “All-wise and loving God,” I ask, “why dost Thou punish me so? _Why?_”

“‘From there I got into the Grand Hotel as “Kaffee-Köchin” and all day long I had to boil coffee, first for the clients, then for the hotel staff--all day long boil coffee and nothing but coffee. They gave me a tiny little room on the roof, overlooking an unfinished church, and at night dogs would come to sleep in that church and howl hungrily--dogs; and up in the trees, nightingales. I opened the window. Below in the square, lilac shrubs in bloom. The scent of lilac. And thoughts, like a bevy of bees, stung my heart. I remembered our dear Russia when I was a young girl, my mother a young woman, my father, my two brothers, and how I felt and how I hoped. It all came back--Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevski--and hot tears streamed down my cheeks. “Dear God,” I said, “to think what was once! and what is now! Come back, days of youth, of my innocence, and hot faith in the divinity of Thy Creation, Thy Love! Vague dreams of my heart, virgin and untouched, of my unsullied soul, come back, come back!...” The breath of Spring. Dogs, an unfinished church, you know ... and those nightingales, all the night through. Dogs and nightingales.

“‘All day long I boiled coffee. I went by the name of “Frau Kaffeeköchin,” for I alone in the whole hotel was to boil coffee and I wasn’t to do anything else. From six in the morning till ten at night I boiled coffee. But at half past ten I would put on my yellow satin gown and sit out on the Casino terrace, order a vermouth, light a cigarette, and never in a thousand years would it occur to anyone that the smart, elegantly gowned, romantic-looking woman sitting out on the Casino terrace and looking, you might say, like a Queen of the Steppes, was the Frau Kaffeeköchin of the Grand Hotel. And one night as I sit there, an old beggar, sick, filthy, stenchy, all in rags, and barefoot, comes up to me. “Here, beggar,” I give him a copper, and he holds out his hand and introduces himself: “Captain of the Imperial Russian Navy, Nobleman Khan Balalykin.” Yes, Khan Balalykin--a Tartar Prince! And, do you know, Ferdinand Ferdinandovich, he fell in love with me? What am I to do? Where I go he follows me. “No,” he says, “I cannot live without you,” and looks at me with soft, love-lorn eyes. And also calls me “My Queen of the Steppes.” Or quotes a lyric from Lermontov. Well, we made a night of it, and spoke of Russia. Next morning I return to the hotel to work; he after me, right into the kitchen. “Sit down, Captain,” I say, “here is meat, bread, cheese, butter, beer. Eat and drink, it will do you good, restore your strength a bit.” He tucked in, oblivious of everything, poor old man, he looked so starved; but here the head cook, a huge great man, comes in--a great big animal with a short, thick neck, just like an ox--horrible!--an obnoxious big bully, the real cave man. And, would you believe it, Ferdinand Fyodorovich, begins to remonstrate with Captain Khan Balalykin, who is peacefully tucking in at the table? But I wasn’t going to be bullied by this ox of a man. “Don’t you dare shout at me,” I screamed, “I’m not afraid of you. I care that much for your being head cook. In Russia at one time one used to beat one’s cook when one wasn’t satisfied with him, and I, the daughter of Pàvel Yàkovlevich Sabolenko, won’t stand any of your nonsense, I can tell you!” Well, I thought this would pacify him a little. But no! The ox shouts and storms more than ever and begins to insult Captain Khan Balalykin. Well, I wasn’t going to have my guest reviled and insulted. He may look dirty and all that, which is not surprising in his sphere as a beggar, but he is a real gentleman of the old school, a captain of the Russian Navy, graduated with Honours at the Imperial Naval Academy, and the bully is a common ignorant Austrian cook. I took the big brass pan with the potatoes and crashed it to the ground: I was so angry. Well, he begins shouting madder than ever and kicks Captain Khan Balalykin out of the kitchen and then fetches in the manager and points at me and the potatoes on the floor and screams: “It’s she!” And the pair of them begin to scream at me together, though I can scream as loud as they together. “No--it’s _he!_--_he!_--_he!_” I scream, and go for both of them with my fists. Insulting a distinguished Russian officer, an old nobleman, Khan Balalykin, a graduate of the Imperial Naval Academy: I _was_ so wild!

“‘Well, do you know, Fyodor Ferdinandovich, the manager being hand in glove with the head cook, gave me the sack. I pawned my last ruby ring and we all came back this morning. In Milan we ran across Fräulein von Wiesendorf, and we all came back together.’

“‘And how is she?’ I asked.

“‘Well, it seems from all the drinking bouts during the _Fasching_ and the late hours Fräulein von Wiesendorf got the colics and a sort of nervous breakdown. Her father, who is Comptroller of Public Morals, alarmed at his daughter’s condition, called in the doctor, who examined Fräulein von Wiesendorf and found symptoms of the beginnings of consumption and ordered her _immediately_, without a moment’s loss or hesitation, at railway speed to Italy. “As fast as the train will carry you!” he said. Fräulein von Wiesendorf throws a few odd things into a bag and darts off, helter-skelter, to Italy and arrives, holus-bolus, in Genoa and as she has no means takes a post as governess to children. Nine children of assorted ages. She has to teach and feed and wash for them and take them out for walks, and the children all veritable devils, real Machiavellis, cruel, mischievous, teasing her, and the parents exigent and stingy. In a month poor Fräulein von Wiesendorf was worn to a shadow; a doctor was called in, examined her and--“Back home!” he said, “at full tilt! As fast as you can fly!” She arrived in hot haste this morning. To-morrow night we are making a last night of it, and the day after I am off to Abbazia.’

“‘What! again!’

“‘To get the ruby ring back from the pawn-shop. I’ve borrowed some money here on the strength of my caracole coat.’

“‘And how are Zita, Eva and John?’

“‘The children are so happy. As we had no quarters to go to on arrival we went and sat in the Hofpark and we’ve chummed up with four Bulgarian students: two small ones, a thin one, and a big one. The two small ones have fallen in love with Zita and Eva. the thin one with Fräulein von Wiesendorf, and the big one with me. I must be off now to look for a room for the children, and don’t forget to ask them for my diary.’”

V.

PALE PRIMROSES THAT DIE UNMARRIED

“I met Zita, Eva and John a few days later crossing the Maria-Theresienstrasse on their way to their sparse meal at the cheap restaurant under the arch. They were rather short of money, but full of enthusiasm on account of the Bulgarian students. ‘We spend all our time with them in the Hofpark,’ they told me. Later I saw them home to their room--a poor room tucked away behind someone else’s kitchen; one narrow bed for the two girls and a little sofa for John. ‘And doesn’t your father bother about you?’ I asked.

“‘Daddy’s gone back to Ireland.’

“We decided, in the absence of the mother, to make a climbing expedition to the top of the Patscherkofl mountain and arranged to meet at four o’clock next morning. It was still dark as we set out, clad in the appropriate mountaineering fashion: alpenstock and rucksack; the girls in Tyrolese peasant dress: short skirt, tight waist; John and I in blue coat and leather shorts, and leaving the still somnolent streets of the town behind us, began the ascent. At Igls we halted and breakfasted, then continued by the steep side wind through pine woods, as the red sun rose to meet us. John ran in front and behind, and Zita and Eva walked sprightly on either side of me, and we spoke of how nice it would be to make a hut in the pine woods or live in a cave. And to all Zita’s ‘I’s’ Eva said ‘we.’ By midday we reached Heiligwasser, famed for the miraculous cure of the sick, and unpacked our rucksacks for lunch; then continued the winding ascent. The Inn Vale now stretched deep beneath us. More mountains, like ghost ships on an uncharted sea, loomed into sight as we climbed the spiral grass-edged path, encountering more flowers on our way: snow-drops, buttercups, daisies, bluebells, primulas, violets, while little brooks scurried down head over heels to announce that Spring was already come. An hour’s distance from our goal, we spread out our mantles on the green slope of a sheltered warm valley where daffodils grew in profusion by the side of a brook and stretched our limbs and dozed rapturously in the sun.

“Profusion is not a good thing. So I mused, watching the two sisters, each so exquisite in her own way that at once when you began to focus your attention on the one, you were diverted from her by the other. They thus neutralised each other’s charm to a great extent and dissipated your affection. And lying with them in the sun I watched them lustless, in benignant peace. How beautiful life could be for a space!

“Rising, we set out on the last but one stage in our journey, climbing hills without paths, cutting across pastures where frisky young cows, turned irresponsible on these heights, jumped over the moon; now clearing gurgling brooks which still ran hurry-scurry down to the valleys to tell the glad tidings; now stooping to drink the cool water. By two we reached the top of the shaggy mountain slope: above loomed the gleaming naked dead rock of the summit. A separate journey, after an hour’s repose.

“At the Gasthaus we drank beer and booked accommodation for the night; then lay on the edge of a plateau projecting perilously over the void and looked down at Innsbruck, miniature like on a map, the river Inn bedded in the soft, green folds of the valley, the parcelled fields, the dotted villages, the spired churches, all lucent and serene in the spring sun. Leaving John asleep in the tavern, we climbed the steep rocky way to the peak, clinging to loose stones and sending them rolling a mile or two till they rebounded with a heavy earthen thud in the abyss. No more shrubs or alpine roses; nor a human habitation anywhere. The last was the Gasthaus, which is now lost to sight. On we climb till, in the first dusk, we reach the flat rocky mountain-top: there is nowhere higher to go. The girls frolic and gambol like frisky gazelles: the air is amazingly light. But I sat away on a rock, struck speechless by the mighty spectacle. The neighbouring mountain-peaks, all level now and grandly equal, looked on into the gathering dusk, heavy with a silent utterance.

“What is it when, the veil lifted, he beholds how lovely it all was in the beginning?...

“But as the rocky summits, like ghostly dreadnaughts anchored in doom’s waters, closed their eyes in the ensuing gloom, we hastened to retrace our steps towards the Gasthaus. Zita was in a hurry to get back to John. The paths diverged to all sides of us. We were afraid lest darkness should overtake us before we reached the Gasthaus, and, agreeing all on the necessity for haste, disagreed as to which path we ought to follow. Zita thought she knew a shorter way to the inn than the one we had come by, whereat Eva and I doubted, and stuck to the old path, or what we imagined to be the old path, which led us untowardly down the steep edge of the mountain, as Zita quickly vanished on the other side. When you look at a hill from below, it all seems perfectly easy and simple: you either walk up or else you walk down, according to whether you wish to find yourself at the top or the bottom. But as you begin to descend you find that the hill has a trick of breaking into new hills, new valleys, new precipices, that, having at length reached the foot of your hill, you are still at the top of another, and rounding it to get into the valley, you are thwarted by another precipice. Once Zita appeared far away, it seemed on the edge of a fourth hill; then vanished. We shouted as loud as our voices would carry; the wind took our words but brought us none back. Dusk fell upon us rapidly, and stones rolled dangerously beneath our feet, as we felt our way down the slippery steep rock. Soon it was too dark to move at all. We sat down on a stony slope, and Eva cried. I could have done so myself, with the exhaustion and nervous tension and vexation of it all; but her tears accomplished the trick for me. We were even too tired to eat. It was fresh in the dark, but not cold. We thought that Zita was back now and asleep with John at the inn. We spread our mantels and, sooner than we knew, we slept.

“In the night there was a storm, and we ran hand in hand down the slippery stones in search of shelter; and then hid ourselves under a rock.

“At dawn we were up, and having eaten of the contents of our rucksacks, we set afoot in search of the path, keeping together for fear of worse things. When a moving dot of a figure appeared across the wide gulf that separated us from another chain of rocks, we shouted and waved, and the figure waved back. Thinking it must be a man from the Gasthaus, we waved more and shouted ourselves hoarse. Manœuvring, the figure and we came nearer; we could dimly hear it shouting to us, presumably explaining the direction. Then, as it neared, we recognised Zita’s scarf flying in the wind, and then her voice asking for the way. We began a mad rush to each other across trackless slopes of naked rock, till, meeting finally on neutral ground in a small valley, she told us of the fearful night she spent alone and burst into sobs. With breaks for food, we continued our search, all keeping together, till the sun sank behind the mountains and the shadows crept up and, once again, it was night.

“We slept huddled together, and thought of John alone at the inn. Still, the Wirt would take care of him, and, compared with us, he was comfortable.

“In the course of next day we reconnoitred all round the summit and found ourselves trapped: very evidently the one pass connecting the rock with the main body of the hill had fallen away. We were cut off from the rest of the world, isolated on the naked rock which, like a tooth, sloped down at an angle we could not hope to descend without being swept into the precipice by the stones which barely piled on its steep sides and every now and then rolled off into the abyss. This was, we realised, what must have happened to the one connecting link by which we had ascended to the peak of the mountain, now clearly inaccessible except possibly by air.

“We began to ration our supplies and wait for relief. Surely the people at the Gasthaus where John still waited for us would do something? By the following day we began to doubt whether our provisions could possibly last out another day. Doubtless the Gasthaus people were searching for us; but how would they reach us with the pass missing? Where could they get an aeroplane? Munich was the nearest centre. Or perhaps John, quicksilver that he was, had left soon after us and the people at the inn concluded that we had all returned to Innsbruck.

“The day after was glorious and hot, and towards midday we had cleared our last supplies. We lay on the ground and felt very still and odd. I watched Zita lying on her belly, her long legs stretched out and apart. The sun was beating on us. Luckily there was no lack of water. How long could one last out on water? And would the rescue come at all? We did not say it to one another. We seemed to know and feel it that the other understood. They were young; it was a pity. For it seemed, though the weather was so beautiful, uncommonly like the end. The spring, and they so young. And death yawning to claim our bones. Somehow as I lay there watching them, these lines from Shakespeare swung back into my heart--

“‘_Pale primroses,_ _that die unmarried, ere_ _they can behold_ _Bright Phoebus in his strength,_ _a malady_ _Most incident to maids...._’

At that moment Zita turned a look, molten gold from the sun, upon me. Why should she?

“We kissed under the hot rays of the sun, taking the last it had to offer us before it withdrew its rays to shine on us no more.

“And then it was that Eva, whom I had forgotten, caught my look and said:

“‘Me too.’”

* * * * *

Lord Ottercove interrupted the reading with an astonished--“Ha!”, sprang up with that agility characteristic of him and which testified to his success, went over to the sideboard and mixed himself some whisky. Frank must have discerned disapproval in the gurgling notes of the whisky as it poured down into his lordship’s cavity, for, “Dammit, sir,” he protested, “the sun, spring, death crouching at you, the end of life in time, and these pale primroses to die unmarried--”

“Are you--I don’t quite understand--defending the book or your conduct?”

“That is--”

“Yes?” The noble lord now looked like a magistrate.

“I don’t think this is a fair question.”

“I agree.--Go on.”

“Reading?”

“Of course.”

“I think I’ve read enough.”

“My dear fellow, you can’t stop like that. I am dying to know what happened.”

“What happened?... Dammit, sir,” Dickin said, “is a fellow to blame for getting saved?”

“All saved?”

“All. They came and found us the day after. A picnic party from Innsbruck. The pass had not been destroyed as we imagined, and indeed there were several passes. We’d made a mistake. I am not very clever at mountaineering, you know. Nor the girls, either. John, as we had suspected, had slipped down to Innsbruck almost immediately on waking, thinking we had gone back to town. So all’s well that ends well.”

“Rather terrible that, what?” said Lord Ottercove.

“Dammit, sir, I appeal to your idealism. Yawning death. Pale primroses to die unmarried.... No escape. I tell you we thought we were for ever lost.”

“Didn’t you think so too readily?”

“I deprecate this attempt to abuse the autonomy of a work of literature.”

“So it is merely literature?”

“I don’t think it’s fair to my characters of you to ask.”

“Read on!” laughed Lord Ottercove.

VI.

THE QUEEN OF THE STEPPES

“In the autumn I was in Vienna. One day as I returned from a walk the maid in the _pension_ told me that two ladies were waiting for me in my room. Who but Mrs. Kerr and Eva! My first thought was: Does the mother know? But from her ebullient flow I soon perceived that all was well.