Part 11

"I'll go, of course. But tell me what it is that I've done. I haven't stolen anything or--or . . ."

"I cannot tell you what it is. It pains me too deeply to think of it. You--you have polluted the mind of my child who was entrusted to your care."

Annette understood. Deedy had been asking questions. She had been cross-examined, and the gentle art of making mountains out of molehills had been called into play. This sudden presentation of a new aspect of her escapade in swimming in the pool bewildered and crushed her. She could make nothing of it, could hardly grasp what was in the Red Queenish mind, and felt only the futility of saying anything.

"You will pack up your things to-night and be ready to catch the first train in the morning."

"Certainly."

"Have you no words of regret?"

"No."

Annette had no words of any sort. She only wanted to get away, only to get away and cry.

"I have written to your mother," said Mrs. Fender.

"Oh!" Annette gasped and she thought: "How mean! How mean! She will make mother think just the same as she does."

She rushed out of the room, upstairs, and flung herself on her bed and cried. She went on crying until she fell asleep and did not wake again until the early morning. It was raining, and she felt very miserable and began to cry again. She wept all through breakfast, wept as Mrs. Fender put money into her hand and gave her a frigid farewell. She wept because she did not see Deedy, and she wept because she did not want to see Deedy. She wept because she was leaving the beautiful hill and the beloved beck. She wept in the carriage all along the five miles to the station, and the rain came pouring down. The clouds were low on the fells. They almost seemed to reach the water of the lakes. All down the fells were little silver streams, and the water ran and trickled all over the roads. The light was dull and grey. The colour seemed to be washed out of everything. The lakes were black, and dour figures walked the roads.

In the train she had a compartment to herself and she wept until she could weep no more, and then miserably she looked out of the window at the miserable country, drenched and drowned. Soon she came to the sea, and that was so dismal that her sorrow overflowed and nothing but absurd laughter was left, and she laughed, and suddenly her thoughts woke again, and she said to herself that she was going home. Serge was at home, and a lot of people, and they had jolly fun together, and they were all happy because Gertrude was engaged, and because they were all happy no one would be unkind to her.

Blacker and blacker grew the skies as the train rolled southward, and the ascending smoke of thousands of chimneys met the downpouring rain. The smoke meant home to Annette, and she was glad of it. It was rather fun to be sent home suddenly like this. It was like the time when there had been measles at school and she had been sent home in the middle of term.

Soon between one town and another there was no country, no green save that of a football field here and there. Everywhere chimney stacks and the derricks of collieries, and great sidings full of trucks, and miles and miles of wet slate roofs, with here and there a dark church steeple or tower. At last she saw the tower of the Collegiate Church. The rain had ceased. A watery smoky sunbeam stole through the clouds to welcome her.

Her father was at the station to meet her. She threw her arms round his neck and hugged him. He kissed her warmly and said:

"Dear, dear. What a young woman you have grown!"

It came on to rain again, and in the four-wheeled cab Francis peered out of the window and said:

"It was like this when we came here from St. Withans."

"How is Ma?" asked Annette with sudden trepidation.

"It has been a great shock to her," said Francis, "and she has been very unhappy about it. We have agreed to say nothing to the others and to pretend that the little Fender girl is ill."

Annette was immensely relieved. She had been most alarmed at the thought of what Minna would say. She wanted reassuring, and she asked her father again:

"Are you angry with me?"

"I? No, no, my dear. Angry! What's the use? Perhaps you'll be happier at home."

"I think I will. I didn't do anything really. I only bathed without any clothes on."

"It is not a usual practice with governesses."

"I expect I ought never to have been a governess. I often used to feel much younger than Deedy."

"There's something in that, something in that. None of you seem to be properly grown up. I don't know what will happen to you all. . . . I expect your mother will talk to you about your ingratitude and wickedness. She and I don't agree about it."

They reached Fern Square. Mrs. Folyat had taken to her bed to nurse her grief, and also by way of impressing Annette with the awfulness of the thing she had done. Annette went up to her and endured an hour's tearful homily on the sinfulness of the flesh. She sat by her mother's bedside with her hands in her lap and her head bowed, and thought comically of Mrs. Fender reading "Enquire Within" and discovering from its pages how to treat wicked governesses.

On the way down the dark stairs she met a man with a beard whom she did not know.

"Hullo!" he said. "Who are you?"

"Annette."

He kissed her.

"I'm Serge. They didn't tell me you were coming home. Anything wrong?"

"I've lost my place."

"Did you like it?"

"Not much."

"Then it doesn't matter."

"Mother's terribly upset about it."

"That doesn't matter. She's always upset. We are a queer lot, and she hasn't the ghost of a notion how to handle us. She's baffled because we're not like people out of a novelette, angels engaged in dodging the wickedness of a horrid world."

Annette's own view of things was rather like that. She had always believed it to be her duty to keep herself unspotted by things temporal, though she had no idea how to set about it. Her mother had said many unjust and unfair things to her. She was feeling rather resentful and was pleased with the audacity of Serge's criticism. All her upbringing had been based on the sanctity of parental authority and the parental person, and she was fearful and fascinated by such defiance of it.

"Come up to my room," said Serge, "and let's have a look at you, and you can tell me about yourself--if you want to."

He took her arm and led her upstairs to the top of the house, where he had a room under a north skylight which served him as bed-room, sanctum, and studio. It was a litter of paper, boots, drawing-boards, drawings, pipes, and cigar-boxes. He put on an old dressing-gown, lit a pipe, and made Annette sit on the bed, and stood and looked at her. She felt very happy and smiled at him.

"You've got the most interesting face of the lot," he said presently, "though that isn't saying much. What's brought you home?"

She told him the whole story.

"I see. Poisoning the little beast's mind with the sight of your body. I see. It's part of the game to pretend that you haven't got such a thing. Sorry, but I find it quite impossible."

Annette's traditional modesty twinged, and she shifted a little uneasily on the bed. Serge marked that and went on:

"Sorry. I won't talk about it if it makes you uneasy. You believe in souls and bodies separate, the soul prisoned in the vile clay, and all that. I don't. I believe that the two things are one and indivisible. If you don't believe that, you are apt to take all the surface happenings of life much too seriously, and you lose all sense of proportion and humour and make the most ridiculous messes for yourself and everybody connected with you. Superficially considered, I am a bad egg, so are you. I'm getting on towards middle-age and can't make my own living, much less prevent other people making theirs, which is what success seems to mean in commercial life. As for you, you've been thrown out of your situation without a character, and it will be extremely difficult for you to find another. Looked at a little more closely and searchingly we are seen to be two wonderful people--all people are wonderful--with immense potentialities for happiness or unhappiness. Does all this bore you?"

"No. Please."

"What I'm really trying to get at is that there are only two kinds of people--the people to whom everything that happens is experience, and the people who turn everything that happens to them into a form of self-indulgence, even the most horrible, even the most painful things. Our father is the first kind of person, our mother is the second. Our father was really shattered by the death of our brother James. Our mother has been feeding herself fat on it ever since. Any love that they may have shared was buried in the grave with James. More briefly, the two kinds of people are those who can love and those who cannot. Gertrude is besotted about young Lawrie, but she is quite incapable of loving him. Minna could love a certain kind of man, one who could swamp her mockery with love. There aren't many of them."

Annette sat listening to him open-mouthed. He took paper and charcoal and did a rough sketch of her, but did not show it her.

"I like that story," he said. "It's the most satisfactory reason I ever heard for getting thrown out of a governess' job. You can't live in a house like this, or a place like this, and live without trouble. You have to fight for your life, or lose it. I'm going to work now. Get out. Go and make Minna talk about Bennett Lawrie. She's amusing."

"Thank you," said Annette.

IMBROGLIO

_Quisque suos patimer manes._ AENEID, vi.

ANNETTE was soon absorbed into the household. Mrs. Folyat never could keep any information to herself, and Gertrude and Mary quickly made Annette feel that she was in disgrace and saddled her with their domestic duties. Mary devoted herself entirely to music, rehearsing for concerts, and practising with amateur quartettes, and Gertrude gave all her time to her betrothed. She met him every day at his office and walked home with him, unless they were going to the theatre. Then they would dine out, Bennett having gone without his mid-day meal in order to have money enough. They had the whole of Sunday together always. He would accompany her to early celebration at St. Paul's, breakfast at Fern Square, go to St. Saviour's morning and evening, and spend the afternoon in the Park, for she had given up her Sunday-school class.

Their engagement was not yet announced, and he had not told his family, nor had Gertrude met any of his relations. Bennett's face had grown more and more melancholy, and Gertrude had not spoken to Minna for weeks because, whenever she brought her lover to the house, Minna persisted in singing:

The pain that is all but a pleasure we'll change For the pleasure that's all but pain, And never, oh, never this heart will range From that old, old love again.

Annette thought Bennett very handsome, and she was greatly impressed by his silence and tragic mien. She told herself that he must be enormously in love with Gertrude since his emotions weighed upon him so heavily, and she thought Minna odious for making fun of him. She was very happy herself. She liked doing the housework and being useful to the others, and though her mother and sister were rather tyrannical with her, she had discovered a warm corner in her father's heart in which to take refuge. Indeed her return had made a great difference to Francis. He sought her company and talked intimately with her and teased her, and showed her a side of himself that was hidden from the others. He would take her for long walks, and to see the queer characters among his poor, and often he would ask her to sit with him in his study while he was working. Sometimes, instead of working he would read aloud to her--Fielding, or Sterne, or the poets, and he would make translations of Italian or French poems, or the odes of Horace for her, and he would tell her that she was being much more use to the world teaching him, who was old enough to learn, than wasting time and her employer's money in pretending to instruct little girls.

Except with her father and occasionally with Serge Annette never went out and knew nothing of what was happening in the town, and had even no clear idea of its geography. She gave no thought to past or future, and was quite content to go on living in the tranquil present. She reverted to her childish belief that her father was the most wonderful man in the world, with Serge a good second, and if she could have spent her life in ministering to them both she would have been more than satisfied. She was rather afraid and shy of other women, but the helplessness of men appealed to her, and she loved repairing their garments, always so sadly in need of it, and she would darn socks that any other woman would have thrown away. Nobody praised her, and nobody took much account of what she did save only the one little servant, Ada, who adored her.

To Annette the most mysterious and awful person in the house was her brother Frederic. She could make nothing of him. He looked very pale and unwell, but became peevish under any comment on his appearance, however sympathetic. He was for the most part very silent when he was at home, though that was not often, but suddenly he would break into the wildest spirits and chatter and talk nonsense and laugh a great deal, and make fun of his mother and then be very affectionate with her, and it would seem that of all her children Frederic had the most affection from his mother. He would flatter her and talk about the great riches he was going to make and the wonderful lady he was going to marry, the daughter of a rich client, of whose estate he would be appointed trustee--when he had his own office. That was always the proviso--when he had his own office, and Annette was given to understand that it would be very soon, and then if there was one man more important than any other in the town, that man would be Frederic. Mrs. Folyat would listen excitedly to all this and shake her ringlets, and say to him:

"My dear, my dear, you must look after the girls."

"Of course," Frederic would respond, "rich husbands all round."

"But they must be gentlemen."

"Gentlemen! Of course."

And if Minna were there, she would say with honey and gall in her voice:

"Is Bennett Lawrie a gentleman?"

Mrs. Folyat would say, frigidly:

"He is very poor, but he is extremely well connected."

Frederic would swagger a little, and say:

"After all, you know, it was I who brought him to the house."

Then Minna:

"We all know that all Frederic's friends are gentlemen--and ladies."

It took Annette a little time to pick up the threads of all the family jokes and allusions, and to disentangle the personalities of the various outlying characters who were used for purposes of fun or bickering, or, occasionally, as a weapon to enforce silence. Not all of these personages came to the house, and some of them seemed only to have a shadowy existence in the family consciousness. There were two or three mysterious and almost mythical young men associated with Minna. Mary's personality seemed to be filled out with a vague widower of mature years, who made mincing machines and was said to propose to her once a fortnight, Gertrude was altogether submerged in Bennett Lawrie, while, whenever Frederic became too obstreperous or offensive it was enough to breathe the name "Annie" to reduce him to a laconic moroseness. This Annie was the more real of all these extra-familiar characters, and Annette was very curious about her. She kept cropping up at the most out of the way moments, as every member of the family found it necessary at one time or another to remind Frederic of her existence. She was never given any surname, nor, apparently, was it known where she lived or how, or what she was to Frederic, or Frederic to her. Annette associated her absurdly with Sister Anne in _Bluebeard_, and from that again jumped to the cloud which was no bigger than a man's hand. For no reason at all she regarded Annie as a figure of disaster and was vaguely sorry for her and pitied her. Her pity became concrete one day when an accident brought her nearer to Annie and gave her the whole story.

The lining of Frederic's office coat had worn to tatters. Going over his wardrobe Annette discovered this and took the coat into Serge's room, which she used when Serge was away at the Art School, and began to mend it. When she had repaired the lining she turned out the pockets, and among other papers--a theatre programme, two pawn-tickets, and a race-card--came on a grubby blotted letter written on cheap notepaper in a large wavering scrawl. Rather idly at first, and with no qualms or scruples--(all families read all letters that come into their hands)--she read it. There was neither address nor date. It was very short.

"DEAR FRED.--You must answer my letter, you must, you must. What am I to do? I can't prevent mother finding out soon, and she can't bear any more, she has had so much to bear. I can't tell her it's you, but it's the thinking I can't stand when you don't write to me. If you could only get me away somewhere, like you said you would. I'm just the same, but I can't write like I used to. It's the work in the house that's so awful, with the lodgers being beastly. Dear Fred, do please write to your ANNIE."

At first it conveyed nothing to Annette. She was conscious of suffering behind the words and rather stupidly fumbled about in her mind for what it was that Annie's mother must find out soon. Abruptly she came to it and dropped the letter, and hot tears came to her eyes, tears of shame. She had never come face to face with this thing before, and it horrified her, but through the horror of it was the knowledge that Annie was wanting Frederic to write to her, and she thought that she must find Frederic at once and tell him. Then she remembered that she ought not to have read the letter, and she thrust it back into the pocket of the coat and hurried back with it into Frederic's room. That done, she went downstairs, saying to herself:

"I wish I didn't know. I wish I didn't know."

With sudden self-criticism, half humorously, she added:

"But I do know, so it isn't any good wishing. I mustn't tell. I mustn't tell."

Her heart was fluttering as she entered the drawing-room, feeling that everybody must know the secret she had discovered. She was surprised to find her mother in her usual chair nodding over her book and Minna talking in the window-seat with a young gentleman, whom she introduced as Mr. Basil Haslam.

"Mr. Haslam is a friend of Serge's," said Minna, "and Mr. Haslam's brother is a great friend of Frederic's."

"Perhaps he knows," thought Annette.

But no. Basil Haslam bowed politely to Annette and took no further notice of her, and went on with his conversation with Minna. Annette went away and down to her father's study, and there she found Francis and Bennett Lawrie in earnest conclave. Did they know? They gave no sign. Francis was smoking, and tapping on the ground with his foot. Bennett was leaning forward and talking emphatically and waving his long hands rather wildly in the air.

"I can do it," he said. "I know I can. I shall never do any good in business. I must lead men. I must move them, lift them up, show them the way to higher things."

Annette stopped in the doorway, and said:

"Am I in the way?"

"Not at all," returned Francis. "Come in. Mr. Lawrie is being very entertaining. We were discussing the possibility of his taking Orders."

"That would be lovely," said Annette.

Bennett turned to her.

"You think I could do it, don't you?"

It was the first time he or any of the young men who came to the house had spoken to her directly, and Annette felt curiously grateful to him. She stammered:

"I . . . I'm sure you . . . you could."

"It's what I've wanted to do all my life, only I've always thought it impossible. You'll laugh, I know, sir, but I used to preach sermons when I was a boy, just to myself in my bed-room, and I made a little altar when I was sixteen. I never dared talk about it at home. They always laughed at me. I never dared tell them what I wanted to do. They said I must go into an office when I was sixteen, and I went there. . . . You know we, Gertrude and I, thought you would take me as curate as soon as I was ordained, and then when I got a living we could be married."

"I'm much obliged to you for letting me know your plans, but it means time and money. We could send you to a theological college, when you're . . . How old are you?"

"Nineteen," said Bennett, with a hot blush.

"Nineteen. When you're twenty-one. The money is the difficulty. I have very little."

"My uncles are both rich men. I'm sure they would help if you would speak for me, and tell them what you think."

"Oh! do!" said Annette.

Bennett darted a look of gratitude at her.

"What I think!" Francis smiled. "You haven't given me much time yet. I like you. I like your enthusiasm. I've no doubt you would make a good clergyman, but it is a very poorly paid profession . . ."

"That doesn't matter at all," cried Bennett. "It's the work that matters." And he rushed off into a long tirade which Annette thought very splendid, and Francis punctuated with thin blue puffs of smoke from his pipe.

"On the whole," said Francis, reflectively. "On the whole I think it would be better when I meet your father to say nothing about your relationship with my daughter."

Bennett seemed to be on the point of protesting. Francis hurried on:

"I take it seriously, I assure you. My daughter considers herself engaged to you. She is old enough to know her own mind. On the other hand, I don't think I can give you any official recognition until there is some more immediate prospect of your being able to provide a livelihood for the two of you."

Bennett was embarrassed by all this, and his enthusiasm oozed away and left him blank and expressionless. Fortunately--perhaps deliberately--he had his profile towards Annette, and she found it very beautiful. She had a queer feeling that her father was teasing the young man, and she wanted to defend and help him. His ambition was altogether laudable, and he was in love (so she believed); the two things were interdependent and both must be promoted. Had it been in her power she would have turned Bennett into a clergyman there and then, and handed him over to Gertrude with her blessing.

Gertrude came in just then and shattered Annette's bountiful altruism of desire by saying:

"You here!"

And Annette, who had been inflated by her dreams for Bennett and his fervency, felt at once like Cinderella, and she crept away to the kitchen, taking in her mind the picture of Gertrude embracing her father and Bennett shaking her father's hand.

At once the whole scene became curiously remote, as remote as Minna and Basil Haslam in the drawing-room, as remote as her mother nodding foolishly to the buzz of their whispered conversation, as remote as Deedy Fender and all her old life in Edinburgh and Westmoreland. Real only to her then were the happy days of her childhood in Cornwall, and joyous moments here and there--a wild scamper on Arthur's Seat; a long swim in the Firth of Forth, an affectionate talk with a girl at school, a word of praise from a mistress whom she had adored. Then, like tripping over a stone, she came back to Annie. Annie who was in sore trouble. Annie who wanted only a word from Frederic. . . . She heard Serge's step in the hall, on the stairs, then his big voice saluting Basil Haslam, and then the two of them go upstairs to the studio-bedroom at the top of the house. She heard Gertrude and Bennett come out of the study and go upstairs. They stopped on the landing, and she heard them kiss.