Part 10

“Why, how clearly it’s written!” The Baxter girl peered at it. “That’s quite a beautiful hand. That’s not Madala’s scrawl.”

The blonde lady looked at them through half-shut lids.

“Ah! It’s been written slowly——”

“As if she loved writing it!” The Baxter girl flushed. “Did _she_ know about that sort of thing—that sentimental sort of thing? I should have thought her too—oh, too splendid, removed—you know what I mean.”

“I don’t suppose she talked about it,” said Anita coldly. “She was not of your generation.” And then, to the others—“I assure you, this letter shook me. Even I never dreamed of this side of her. Listen.” She read aloud in her measured voice—

“Dearest—

I wanted your letter so. I reckoned out the posts, and the distances, and your busyness. I thought that in two days you would probably write, and then I gave you another day’s grace because you hate writing letters, and because I thought you couldn’t dream how much I missed you—how much, how _soon_, I wanted to hear. And then to get your letter the very next day, before I could begin to look for it (but I did look!). Why, you must have written as soon as the train was out of the station! You missed me just as much then?

But it’s a mad letter, you know. It makes me laugh and cry. It’s so sensible—and so silly. ‘Fame,’ ‘career,’ ‘reputation,’ ‘position’—why do you fling these words at me? _I_ am making a sacrifice? Darling, haven’t you eyes? Don’t you understand that you’re my world? All these other things, since I’ve known you, they’re shadows, they’re toys, I don’t want them. The reviews of my new book—I’ve never been so delighted at getting any—but why? D’you know why? To show them to you—to watch you shake with laughter as you read them. When a flattering letter turns up, I save it to show you as if it were gold, because I think—‘Perhaps it’ll make him think more of me.’ Isn’t it idiotic? But I do. And all the while I glory in the knowledge that all these things, all the fuss and fame, don’t mean a brass button to you—or to me, my dear, or to me.

And yet you write me a solemn letter about ‘making a sacrifice,’ ‘abdicating a position.’

Don’t be—humble. And yet I like you in this mood. Because it won’t last! I won’t _let_ it. It’s I who am not good enough. If you knew how I tip-toe sometimes. You’re so much bigger than I am. I lie in bed at nights, and all the things I’ve done wrong in my life, all the twisty, tortuous, feminine things, all the lies and cowardices and conceits, come and sting me. I’m so bitterly ashamed of them. I feel I’ve got to tell you about them all, and yet that if I do you’ll turn me out of your heart. If you did that—if you were disappointed—if you got tired of me—it turns me sick with fear.

I’m a fool to tear myself. I know you love me. And when you’re with me I forget all that. I’m just happy. When you’re there it’s like being in the blazing sunshine. Can ‘celebrity’ give me that sunshine? Can ‘literature’ All my emptiness? Are the books I write children to love me with your eyes? Oh, you fool!

Oh, of course, I know you don’t mean it. It’s just that you think you ought to protest. But suppose I took you at your word? Suppose I said that, on careful consideration, I felt that I wanted to lead my own life instead of yours? that—how does the list run?—my Work, my Circle of Friends, my Career, were too much to give up for—you? What would you say—no, do? for even I, (and the sun’s in my eyes) even I can’t call you eloquent! But what would you do if I wouldn’t come to you?

Oh, my darling, my darling, you needn’t be afraid. I’d rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God——

I’m changed. What have you done to me? Other people notice it. My friends are grown critical of me. Only yesterday someone (no one you know) sneered at me—‘In love? Oh well, you’ll get over it. It’s a phase.’ You know, they don’t understand. I’m not ‘in love,’ but I love you. There’s the difference. I love you. I shall love you till I die. Till——? As if death could blot you out for me! I used to believe in death. I used to believe it ended everything. But now, since I’ve known you, I can never die. You’ve poured into me an immortal spirit——”

“Go on,” breathed the Baxter girl.

“It breaks off there. It’s not signed. It was never sent.”

“She had that much wisdom, then.” The blonde lady’s laughter came to us over Mr. Flood’s shoulder. “That’s not the letter to send to any man. Giving herself away?—giving us all away——”

“To any man? To what man? There’s the point. You see the importance. It’s the heart of the secret. Who is it? For whom was she ready to give up, in her own words, name, friends, career——?”

“Well, practically she did that, didn’t she, when she married Carey? She buried herself in the country. She didn’t write a line. You said yourself that she put her career behind her. Why shouldn’t it be written to Carey?”

“Oh, don’t be absurd. It’s Carey that makes it impossible. How could Carey have written a letter needing such an answer? Little he cared. What was her genius to him? Isn’t it obvious, isn’t it plain as print, that Carey happened, Carey and all he stands for, _after_ the writing of this letter, because of some hitch? Why wasn’t the letter sent? What happened? What folly? What misunderstanding? What disillusionment? What realization of danger?—to send her, with that letter half written, into Carey’s arms? Carey, that stick, that ordinary man! And on the top of it _The Resting-place_ comes out, the _cri du cœur_—or, if you like, Lila, the satire—(for I’m beginning to believe you’re right) the satire of _The Resting-place_. I tell you, I smell tragedy.”

“It’s supposition, it’s mere supposition,” said Miss Howe impatiently.

“Isn’t all detective work supposition to begin with? Wait till I’ve made my book. Wait till I’ve sifted my evidence, till I’ve ranged it, stick and brick, step by step, up, up, up, to the letter.”

Suddenly from where he sat, half way between me and them, Kent spoke—

“Anita, you can’t publish that letter.”

Her face, all their faces, turned towards us. She stared.

“Why not?” And then—“Why do you sit out there? Come here. Come into the light.”

He did not stir.

She frowned, puckering her eyes.

“Such a fog,” she said fretfully. “I can’t see you. Can’t you keep that door shut, Jenny?” Then—“Well, Kent—why not? Why not?”

He said slowly—

“It’s not decent.”

She flared at once.

“Decent! Not decent! What on earth do you mean?”

He kept her waiting while he thought it out.

“I mean—it’s not right, it’s not fair. To whomever it was written, that’s her business, not our business. And that letter——It’s vile, anyway, publishing her letters.”

She stared at him in a sort of angry bewilderment.

“But why? I shall write her life. One always does print letters.”

“Not that sort of letter,” he said.

“But don’t you see,” she cried, “that _that_ letter, just _that_ letter——”

He said—

“That’s why. How dare you read that letter here—aloud—tonight? It—it’s ghoulish.”

“Kent!” There was outrage in her voice.

“But, Kent——” Miss Howe intervened—“we knew her—we care—it’s in all reverence——”

And Mr. Flood—

“My dear man, she’s not a private character. The lives that will be written! Anita’s may be the classic, but it won’t be the only one. Letters are bound to be printed—every scrap she ever wrote. Nobody can stop it. It’s only a question of time. The public has its rights.”

“To what?” He turned savagely. “You’ve had her books. She’s given enough. Will you leave her nothing private, nothing sacred?”

“But, Kent, can’t you see——” Anita had an air of pushing Miss Howe and Mr. Flood from her road—“aren’t you artist enough to see——? A writer, a woman like Madala, she has no private life. She lives to write. She lives what she writes. She _is_ what she writes. She gives her soul to the world. She leaves her riddle to be read. Don’t you see? to be read. That’s what I’m doing. That’s what I’m going to do—read her—for the rest of you, for the public. Because—because they care, because we all care. It’s done in all honour. It’s a tribute. And for what I am going to do, such a letter is the key.”

She spoke softly, sweetly, persuasively. She wooed him to agree with her. She was extraordinarily eager for his approval. And the approval of the others she did win. They were all murmuring agreement.

His eyes strayed over them, undecidedly, seeking—not help. I do not know what he sought, but his eyes found mine.

“_You_——” he said to me—“would you want your letter——?”

Anita’s voice thrust in sharply. In the instant the pleading, the beauty, the woman, was gone from it. It was cold and shrill.

“Jenny’s views can hardly concern us.”

But he did not listen to her. He had drawn some answer from me that satisfied him. He got up.

“Oh,” I cried beneath my breath, and I think I touched his arm—“you won’t let her?”

He shook his head. Then he went across to where Anita stood, her eyes on him, on me, while she listened to Miss Howe whispering at her shoulder.

“Look here, Anita!” he began.

“I’m looking,” she said.

He checked a moment, puzzled. Then he went on—

“That letter—you can’t print it. You’ve no right. It’s not your property.”

She waved it aside.

“I shall be literary executor. She promised. It’s mine if it’s anyone’s. It’s no good, Kent, it goes into the book. Nothing can alter that. Nothing——”

Then she stopped dead. There was that same odd look in her eye as there had been when she watched us—that flicker of curiosity, and behind it the same gleam of inexplicable anger.

“Look here——” she said very deliberately—“look _you_ here—what has it got to do with you?”

It was not the words, it was the tone. It was shameless. It was as if she had cried aloud her hateful questions—‘Did you love her?’ ‘What was there between you?’ ‘I want to know it all. It tears me not to know.’ But what she said to him, and before he could answer, was—

“If, of course—anyone—had any right—could prove any right——” She broke off, watching him closely. But he said nothing. “If,” she said, and poked with her finger, “if that letter—if you recognized it—if that were the rough draft of a letter that had been sent——”

He stared down at her. His face was bleak.

“You’ll get no copy from me, Anita!”

“Oh!” She caught her breath, fierce and wicked as a cat with a bird, yet shrinking as a cat does, supple, ears flat. “I only meant—I said _right_. If anyone—if you could satisfy me—if you have any right——”

He said—

“I have no right.”

“Oh well, then!” She shrugged her shoulders.

“But,” he held stubbornly to his purpose, “whoever has a right to it—you can’t print that letter.”

She laughed at him.

“You’ll see! You’ll see!”

“Yes,” he said, “I’ll see.”

They held each other’s eyes, angry, angry. I felt how Kent Rehan loathed her. And she—yes, she must have hated him. She was all bitterness and triumph and defiance. Yet all the time I was wanting to catch him by the arm and say—‘Be kind to her. Say something kind and she’ll give in.’ I knew it. He had only to say in that instant—‘Anita, I beg of you——’ and she would have given him the letter. I knew it. I know it. I don’t know how I knew it, but I was sure. But he was a man: of course he saw nothing. He was very angry. He looked big and fine. I wondered that she could stand outfacing him.

But she, for answer, picked up the letter, and affected to search through it.

“Had I finished? Where was I? Ah, yes—‘An immortal spirit——’”

His hand came down heavily and swept the light table aside.

“You can’t do it. You shan’t do it. By God you shan’t.”

How it happened I couldn’t see. He was too quick. But at one moment she held the letter, and in the next he had it, and was kneeling at the grate, while she cried out—

“Kent!” And then—“Lila! Jasper! Stop him!”

Nobody could have stopped him. There was no flame, but the fire still burned, a caked red and black lump, smouldering on cinders. He picked it up—with his naked hands—thrust in the crumpled stiff paper, and smashed it down again, so that the lump split, and still held it pressed down, with naked hands, till the sheet had charred and shrivelled into nothing. I suppose it all happened in a few seconds, but it seemed like hours. I was in a train smash once: I wasn’t hurt; but I remember that I came out of it with just the same sense of being battered and aged. This scene I had only watched: I had not shared in it: I was still in the little outer room. Yet I was shaken. I heard Mr. Flood call out—“Kent, you crazy fool!” I heard Anita—“Let me _go_, Lila!” And then the women were between me and him, and I could only see their backs, and there was a babel of voices, and I found myself sitting like a fool, clutching at the arms of my chair, and saying over and over again—“Oh, his hands, his hands, his poor hands!” The tears were running down my cheeks.

But nobody noticed me. They were all too busy. The group had shifted a little. The Baxter girl was edged out of it, and I watched her for a moment as she sat down again, her cheeks flaming, her eyes as bright as wet pebbles. She looked—it’s the only word—consumptive with excitement. Every now and then she tried not to cough. I heard her saying—“It’s the fog, it’s the awful fog!” defensively. But nobody listened. They were all watching Anita.

Anita was dreadful. She was tremulous with anger. She was like a pendulum with the check taken away. Her whole body shook. She couldn’t finish her sentences. She talked to everyone at once.

Miss Howe had her by the arm. Miss Howe was trying to quiet her—

“My dear woman—steady now! You don’t want a row, you know! You’ve got the rest of the papers.” But she might have talked to the wind.

“He comes into my house—my property—in my own house——It’s an outrage! Kent, it’s an outrage!”

Kent Rehan rose to his feet. It was like a rock breaking through that froth of women. He stood a moment, nervously, brushing the black from his hands and wincing as he did so. Then he looked up. His eyes met her. He flushed.

“Kent! Kent!” She flung off Miss Howe.

The intensity of reproach in her voice startled me, and I think it startled him. I found myself thinking—‘All this anger for what? for a burnt paper? It’s impossible! But then—then what’s the matter with her?’

He said awkwardly—

“I’m sorry, Anita.”

“_You!_” she cried, panting—“_You_, to interfere! D’you know what you’ve done, what you’ve tried to do? Will you take everything, you and he? Haven’t I my work too? Oh, what you’ve had from her, what you’ve had from her! And now you cheat me!”

He was bewildered. He said again—

“I’m sorry, Anita.”

She came close to him. Her little hands were clenched. There was a wail in her voice—

“You! Aren’t you friends with me? Didn’t I share her with you? Isn’t she my work too? What would you say if I came to your house and saw your work, your life work that she’d made possible, your pictures that are her, all her—and slashed them with a knife? What would you do if I’d done that, if I’d cut it to ribbons, your _Spring Song_?”

That moved him. I saw a sort of comprehension lighting his stubborn face. The artist in her touched the artist in him. Of what lay behind the artist he had no knowledge. But he said, quite humbly—

“Anita, I’m sorry!”

Yet I knew that he was not sorry for what he had done.

“Sorry! Sorry! Much good your sorrow does!” she shrilled, and I saw him stiffen again. She was strange. She valued him, that was so plain, and yet, it almost seemed in self-defence, she was always at her worst with him. “Sorry! It was the key of the book. You’ve spoilt my book.”

“Nita! Nita! One letter!” Miss Howe was almost comical in her dislike of the scene. “As if you couldn’t pull it off without that.” She pulled her aside, lowering her voice—“Nita, what’s the use of a row? Pull yourself together. Put yourself in his place. Besides—you can’t afford——” She looked at Kent significantly. Anita’s pale glance followed her and so their eyes met again. She was angry and sullen and irresolute. Another woman would have been near tears.

“Kent,” she began. And then—“Kent—if we quarrel——We’re too old to quarrel——If you had a shadow of excuse——”

He waited.

She took fire again because he did not meet her half way.

“But if you think you’ve stopped me——” she cried. She broke off with a laugh and a new idea—“As if,” she said slowly and scornfully, “as if Madala would have cared!”

He said distinctly—

“You didn’t know her. You’d never understand——”

“Ah,” she said, pressing forward to him, “why do you take that tone? What is it I don’t understand? If you’d help me with what you know, it could be big stuff. I’d forgive you for the letter if you’d work with me.” She hung on his answer.

But he only said, not looking at her, in the same tone—

“You’d never understand.” And then, with an effort—“I’ll go, Anita. I’m going. I’d better go.”

Without waiting for her answer he went across the room to the little sofa near me where the hats and coats lay piled. I heard him fumbling for his things.

But Anita went back to the others. The watching group seemed to open to receive, to enclose her. Her head had touched the lamp as she passed under it, and set it swaying wildly, so that I could scarcely see their faces in that shift of light and shadow through the thickened air. But I heard her angry laugh, and her voice overtopping the murmur—“Mad! He was always mad! If he weren’t such an old friend——” And then the Baxter girl’s voice—“Think of the sketches there must be!” And Miss Howe—“What I say is—you don’t want to quarrel!” And hers again—“Did you hear him? _I_ not understand Madala! Mad, I tell you! If I don’t know Madala——”

It was at that moment that I looked up and saw a woman standing in the doorway.

“Anita!” I murmured warningly. But my voice did not reach her, and indeed, she and the little gesticulating group in the further room seemed suddenly far away. The air had been thickening for the last hour, and now, with the opening of the door, the fog itself came billowing in on either side of the newcomer as water streams past a ship. It flooded the room, soundlessly, almost, I remember thinking, purposefully, as if it would have islanded us, Kent and me. It affected me curiously. I felt muffled. I knew I ought to get up and call again to Anita or attend to the visitor myself, but the quiet seemed to dull my wits. I found myself placidly wondering who she was and why she did not come in; but I made no movement to welcome her. I just sat still and stared.

She was a tall girl—woman—for either word fitted her: she had brown hair. She was dressed in—I should have said, if you had asked me, that I could remember every detail, and I can in my own mind; but when I try to write it down, it blurs. But I know that there was blue in her dress, and bright colours. It must have been some flowered stuff. She looked—it’s a silly phrase—but she looked like a spring day. I wanted her to come into the room and drive away the fog that was making me blink and feel dizzy. There was a gold ring on her finger: yes, and her hands were beautiful—strong, white hands. In one she held the brass candle-stick that stood in the hall, and with the other she sheltered the weak flame from the draught. Yet not only with her hand. Her arm was crooked maternally, her shoulder thrust forward, her hip raised, in a gesture magnificently protecting, as though the new-lit tallow-end were fire from heaven. Her whole body seemed sacredly involved in an act of guardianship. But half the glory of her pose—and it was lovely enough to make me catch my breath—was its unconsciousness; for her attention was all ours. Her eyes, as she listened to the group by the hearth, were sparkling with amusement and that tolerant, deep affection that one keeps for certain dearest, foolish friends. It was evident that she knew them well.

“Can’t you keep that door shut, Jenny? The draught——”

Anita’s back was towards me. Her voice, as she spoke over her shoulder, rang high, muffled, imperious, and—I laughed. In a flash the stranger’s eyes were on me, and I found myself thrilling where I sat, absurdly startled for the moment, because—she knew me too! She knew me quite well. She was smiling at me, not vaguely as who should say—‘Oh, surely I’ve seen you somewhere?’ but with intimate, disturbing knowledge. It was the glance that a doctor gives you, the swift, acquainted glance that, without offence, deciphers you. I was not offended either, only curious and—attracted. She looked so friendly. I half began to say—‘But when? but where?’ but her bearing overruled me. Her mouth was pursed conspiratorially: if her hand had been free she would have put a finger to her lip. I smiled back at her, flattered to be partner in her uncomprehended secret. But I was curious—oh, I was curious! It was incredible to me that Anita and the rest should stand, subduing their voices to the soft, thick stillness that she and the fog between them had brought into the room, and yet remain unconscious of her vivid presence. I was longing to see their faces when they should at last turn and see her, and yet, if you understand, I was afraid lest they should turn too soon and break the pleasant numbness that was upon me. And upon them—the spell was upon them too. It was the look in her eyes, not glamorous, but kind. It healed. It passed like a drowse across the squabblers at the table: it stilled Anita’s feverish monologue. Indeed the room had grown very still. There was no sound left in it but the slurring of the lamp. It rested upon Kent as he stood in dumb misery, and I watched the strained lines of his body slacken and grow easier beneath it. At that—at that ease she gave him—suddenly I loved her.

And as if I had spoken, as if I had touched her with my hand, her eyes, that had grown heavy with his trouble, turned, brightening, upon me, as if I were the answer to a problem, the lifting of a care. But what the problem was I could not then tell; for, staring as she made me—as she made me—into her divining eyes, I saw in them not her thought but my own at last made clear to me—my dream, my hope, my will and my desire, newborn and naked, and, I swear it, bodiless to me before that night and that hour. It was too soon. I was not ready. It shamed me and I flinched, my glance wandering helplessly away like a dog’s when you have forced it to look at you. And so noticed, idly, uncomprehending at first, and then with a stiffening of my whole body, that her hand did not show as other hands, blood-red against the light she screened, but coldly luminous, like the fingers of a cloud through which the moon is shining: and that her breast was motionless, unstirred by any breath.

Then I was afraid.

I felt my skin rising. I felt my bones grow cold. I could not move. I could not breathe. I could not think.

A voice came out of the fog that had thickened to a wall between the rooms—a voice, thin, remote, like a trunk call—

“_Can’t_ you keep that door shut, Jenny? The draught——” and was cut off again by the sudden crash of an overturned chair. There was a rush and a cry—a madman’s voice, shouting, screaming, groaning—

“Madala Grey! My God, Madala Grey!” and Kent’s huge body, hurling against the door, pitched and fell heavily.

For the door was shut.

I ran to him. He was shaken and half stunned, but he struggled to his feet. It was dreadful to see him. He was like a frightened horse, shivering and sweating. His lips were loose and he muttered unevenly as if the words came without his will. I caught them as I helped him; the same words—always the same words.