Part 8

What was I doing in Port Willin? Oh well—why not? I’ll own it does sound an unlikely spot, but when you are an impermanent movable, as I am, it’s just those unlikely spots that have a trick of holding you. I arrived, intending to stay a week and go on to Fiji. But I had letters to one or two people, and the morning of my arrival, hanging over the side of the ship while we were waiting in the stream, with nothing on earth to do but stare, I took an extraordinary fancy to the shape—to the look of the place.

It’s a small town, you know, planted at the edge of a fine deep harbour like a lake. Behind it, on either side there are hills. The houses are built of light painted wood. They have iron roofs coloured red. And there are big dark plumy trees massed together, breaking up those light shapes, giving a depth—warmth—making a composition of it well worth looking at.... Well, we needn’t go into that— But it had me that fine morning. And the first days after my arrival, walking, or driving out in one of the big swinging, rocking cabs, I took an equal fancy to the people.

Not quite all of them. The men left me cold. Yes, I must say, colonial men are not the brightest specimens. But I never struck a place where the average of female attractiveness was so high. You can’t help noticing it, for a peculiarity of Port Willin is the number of its teashops and the vast quantity of tea absorbed by its inhabitants. Not tea only—sandwiches, cream cakes, ices, fruit salad with fresh pineapples. From eleven o’clock in the morning you meet with couples, and groups of girls and young married women hurrying off to their first tea. It was a real eleven o’clock function. Even the business men knocked off and went to a café. And the same thing happened in the afternoon. From four until half-past six the streets were gay as a garden. Which reminds me, it was early spring when I arrived and the town smelled of moist earth and the first flowers. In fact, wherever one went one got a strong whiff, like the whiff of violets in a wood, which was enough in itself to make one feel like lingering....

There was a theatre too, a big bare building plastered over with red and blue bills which gave it an oriental look in that blue air, and a touring company was playing “San Toy.” I went my first evening. I found it, for some reason, fearfully exciting. The inside smelled of gas, of glue and burnt paper. Whistling draughts cut along the corridors—a strong wind among the orchestra kept the palms trembling, and now and again the curtain blew out and there was a glimpse of a pair of large feet walking rapidly away. But what women! What girls in muslin dresses with velvet sashes and little caps edged with swansdown! In the intervals long ripples of laughter sounded from the stalls, from the dress-circle. And I leaned against a pillar that looked as though it was made of wedding-cake icing—and fell in love with whole rows at a time....

Then I presented my letters, I was asked out to dine, and I met these charmers in their own homes. That decided it. They were something I had never known before—so gay, so friendly, so impressed with the idea of one’s being an artist! It was rather like finding oneself in the playground of an extremely attractive girls’ school.

I painted the Premier’s daughter, a dark beauty, against a tree hung with long bell-like flowers, as white as wax. I painted a girl with a pig-tail curled up on a white sofa playing with a pale-red fan ... and a little blonde in a black jacket with pearl-grey gloves.... I painted like fury.

I’m fond of women. As a matter of fact I’m a great deal more at ease with women than I am with men. Because I’ve cultivated them, I suppose. You see, it’s like this with me. I’ve always had enough money to live on and the consequence is I have never had to mix with people more than I wished. And I’ve equally always had—well, I suppose you might call it a passion—for painting. Painting is far and away the most important thing in life—as I see it. But—my work’s my own affair. It’s the separate compartment which is me. No strangers allowed in. I haven’t the smallest desire to explain what it is I’m after—or to hear other men. If people like my work I’m pleased. If they don’t—well, if I was a shrugging person, I’d shrug. This sounds arrogant. It isn’t; I know my limitations. But the truth about oneself always sounds arrogant, as no doubt you’ve observed.

But women—well, I can only speak for myself—I find the presence of women, the consciousness of women, an absolute necessity. I know they are considered a distraction, that the very Big Pots seal themselves in their hives to keep away. All I can say is work without women would be to me like dancing without music or food without wine or a sailing boat without a breeze. They just give me that ... what is it? Stimulus is not enough; inspiration is far too much. That—well, if I knew what it is, I should have solved a bigger problem than my own! And problems aren’t in my line.

I expected a mob at my Private View, and I got it, too.... What I hadn’t reckoned on was that there would be no men. It was one thing to ask a painter fellow to knock you up something to the tune of fifty guineas or so, but it was quite another to make an ass of yourself staring. The Port Willin men would as soon have gazed into shops. True, when you came to Europe, you visited the galleries, but then you shop-gazed too. It didn’t matter what you did in Europe. You could walk about for a week without being recognized.

So there were little Field and I absolutely alone among all that loveliness; it frightened him out of his life, but I didn’t mind, I thought it rather fun, especially as the sightseers didn’t hesitate to find my pictures amusing. I’m by no means an out-and-out modern, as they say; people like violins and landscapes of telegraph poles leave me cold. But Port Willin is still trying to swallow Rossetti, and Hope by Watts is looked upon as very advanced. It was natural my pictures should surprise them. The fat old Lady Mayoress became quite hysterical. She drew me over to one drawing, she patted my arm with her fan.

“I don’t wonder you drew her slipping out,” she gurgled. “And how depressed she looks! The poor dear never could have sat down in it. It’s much too small. There ought to be a little cake of Pear’s Soap on the floor.” And overcome by her own joke, she flopped on the little double bench that ran down the middle of the room, and even her fan seemed to laugh.

At that moment two girls passed in front of us. One I knew, a big fair girl called May Pollock, pulled her companion by the sleeve. “Daphne!” she said. “Daphne!” And the other turned towards her, then towards us, smiled and was born, christened part of my world from that moment.

“Daphne!” Her quick beautiful smile answered....

* * * * *

Saturday morning was gloriously fine. When I woke up and saw the sun streaming over the polished floor I felt like a little boy who has been promised a picnic. It was all I could do not to telephone to Daphne. Was she feeling the same? It seemed somehow such a terrific lark that we should be going off together like this, just with a couple of rucksacks and our bathing suits. I thought of other week-ends, the preparation, the emotional tension, the amount of managing they’d needed. But I couldn’t really think of them; I couldn’t be bothered, they belonged to another life....

* * * * *

It seemed to me suddenly so preposterous that two people should be as happy as we were and not be happier. Here we were, alone, miles away from everybody, free as air, and in love with each other. I looked again at Daphne, at her slender shoulders, her throat, her bosom, and, passionately in love, I decided, with fervour: Wouldn’t it be rather absurd, then, to behave like a couple of children? Wouldn’t she even, in spite of all she had said, be disappointed if we did?...

* * * * *

And I went off at a tremendous pace, not because I thought she’d run after me, but I did think she might call, or I might look round....

* * * * *

It was one of those still, hushed days when the sea and the sky seem to melt into one another, and it is long before the moisture dries on the leaves and grasses. One of those days when the sea smells strong and there are gulls standing in a row on the sand. The smoke from our wood fire hung in the air and the smoke of my pipe mingled with it. I caught myself staring at nothing. I felt dull and angry. I couldn’t get over the ridiculous affair. You see, my _amour propre_ was wounded.

* * * * *

Monday morning was grey, cloudy, one of those mornings peculiar to the sea-side when everything, the sea most of all, seems exhausted and sullen. There had been a very high tide, the road was wet—on the beach there stood a long line of sickly-looking gulls....

When we got on board she sat down on one of the green benches and, muttering something about a pipe, I walked quickly away. It was intolerable that we should still be together after what had happened. It was indecent. I only asked—I only longed for one thing—to be free of this still, unsmiling and pitiful—that was the worst of it—creature who had been my playful Daphne.

* * * * *

For answer I telephoned her at once and asked if I might come and see her that evening. Her voice sounded grave, unlike the voice I remembered, and she seemed to deliberate. There was a long pause before she said, “Yes—perhaps that would be best.”

“Then I shall come at half-past six.”

“Very well.”

And we went into a room full of flowers and very large art photographs of the Harbour by Night, A Misty Day, Moonrise over the Water, and I know I wondered if she admired them.

“Why did you send me that letter?”

“Oh, but I had to,” said Daphne. “I meant every word of it. I only let you come to-night to.... No, I know I shall disappoint you. I’m wiser than you are for all your experience. I shan’t be able to live up to it. I’m not the person for you. Really I’m not!”...

FATHER AND THE GIRLS

At midday, Ernestine, who had come down from the mountains with her mother to work in the vineyards belonging to the hotel, heard the faint, far-away _chuff-chuff_ of the train from Italy. Trains were a novelty to Ernestine; they were fascinating, unknown, terrible. What were they like as they came tearing their way through the valley, plunging between the mountains as if not even the mountains could stop them? When she saw the dark, flat breast of the engine, so bare, so powerful, hurled as it were towards her, she felt a weakness; she could have sunk to the earth. And yet she must look. So she straightened up, stopped pulling at the blue-green leaves, tugging at the long, bright-green, curly suckers, and, with eyes like a bird, stared. The vines were very tall. There was nothing to be seen of Ernestine but her beautiful, youthful bosom buttoned into a blue cotton jacket and her small, dark head covered with a faded cherry-coloured handkerchief.

_Chiff-chuff-chaff._ _Chiff-chuff-chaff_, sounded the train. Now a wisp of white smoke shone and melted. Now there was another, and the monster itself came into sight and snorting horribly drew up at the little, toy-like station five minutes away. The railway ran at the bottom of the hotel garden which was perched high and surrounded by a stone wall. Steps cut in the stone led to the terraces where the vines were planted. Ernestine, looking out from the leaves like a bright bird, saw the terrible engine and looked beyond it at doors swinging open, at strangers stepping down. She would never know who they were or where they had come from. A moment ago they were not here; perhaps tomorrow they would be gone again. And looking like a bird herself, she remembered how, at home, in the late autumn, she had sometimes seen strange birds in the fir tree that were there one day and gone the next. Where from? Where to? She felt an ache in her bosom. Wings were tight-folded there. Why could she not stretch them out and fly away and away?...

§

From the first-class carriage tall, thin Emily alighted and gave her hand to Father whose brittle legs seemed to wave in the air as they felt for the iron step. Taller, thinner Edith followed, carrying Father’s light overcoat, his field-glasses on a strap, and his new Baedeker. The blond hotel porter came forward. Wasn’t that nice? He could speak as good English as you and me. So Edith had no trouble at all in explaining how, as they were going on by the morning train tomorrow, they would only need their suit-cases, and what was left in the compartment. Was there a carriage outside? Yes, a carriage was there. But if they cared to walk there was a private entrance through the hotel gardens.... No, they wouldn’t walk.

“You wouldn’t care to walk, would you, Father dear?”

“No, Edith, I won’t walk. Do you girls wanna walk?”

“Why no, Father, not without you, dear.”

And the blond hotel porter leading, they passed through the little knot of sturdy peasants at the station gate to where the carriage waited under a group of limes.

“Did you ever see anything as big as that horse, Edith!” cried Emily. She was always the first to exclaim about things.

“It is a very big horse,” sang Edith, more sober. “It’s a farm horse, from the look of it and it’s been working. See how hot it is.” Edith had so much observation. The big, brown horse, his sides streaked with dark sweat, tossed his head and the bells on his collar set up a loud jangling.

“Hu-yup!” called the young peasant driver warningly, from his seat on the high box.

Father, who was just about to get in, drew back, a little scared.

“You don’t think that horse will run away with us, do you, Edith?” he quavered.

“Why no, Father dear,” coaxed Edith. “That horse is just as tame as you or me.” So in they got, the three of them. And as the horse bounded forward his ears seemed to twitch in surprise at his friend the driver. Call that a load? Father and the girls weighed nothing. They might have been three bones, three broomsticks, three umbrellas bouncing up and down on the hard seats of the carriage. It was a mercy the hotel was so close. Father could never have stood that for more than a minute, especially at the end of a journey. Even as it was his face was quite green when Emily helped him out, straightened him, and gave him a little pull.

“It’s shaken you, dear, hasn’t it?” she said tenderly.

But he refused her arm into the hotel. That would create a wrong impression.

“No, no, Emily. I’m all right. All right,” said Father, as staggering a little he followed them through big glass doors into a hall as dim as a church and as chill and as deserted.

My! Wasn’t that hall cold! The cold seemed to come leaping at them from the floor. It clasped the peaked knees of Edith and Emily; it leapt high as the fluttering heart of Father. For a moment they hesitated, drew together, almost gasped. But then out from the Bureau a cheerful young person, her smiling face spotted with mosquito bites, ran to meet them, and welcomed them with such real enthusiasm (in English too) that the chill first moment was forgotten.

“Aw-yes. Aw-yes. I can let you ave very naice rooms on de firs floor wid a lif. Two rooms and bart and dressing-room for de chentleman. Beautiful rooms wid sun but nort too hot. Very naice. Till tomorrow. I taike you. If you please. It is dis way. You are tired wid the churney? Launch is at half-pas tvelf. Hort worter? Aw-yes. It is wid de bart. If you please.”

Father and the girls were drawn by her cheerful smiles and becks and nods along a cloister-like corridor, into the lift and up, until she flung open a heavy, dark door and stood aside for them to enter.

“It is a suite,” she explained. “Wid a hall and tree doors.” Quickly she opened them. “Now I gaw to see when your luggage is gum.”

And she went.

“Well!” cried Emily.

Edith stared.

Father craned his thin, old neck, looking, too.

“Did you—ever see the like, Edith?” cried Emily, in a little rush.

And Edith softly clasped her hands. Softly she sang “No, I never did, Emily. I’ve never seen anything just like this before.”

“Sims to me a nice room,” quavered Father, still hovering. “Do you girls wanna change it?”

Change it! “Why, Father dear, it’s just the loveliest thing we’ve ever set eyes on, isn’t it, Emily? Sit down, Father dear, sit down in the armchair.”

Father’s pale claws gripped the velvet arms. He lowered himself, he sank with an old man’s quick sigh.

Edith still stood, as if bewitched, at the door. But Emily ran over to the window and leaned out, quite girlish....

For a long time now—for how long?—for countless ages—Father and the girls had been on the wing. Nice, Montreux, Biarritz, Naples, Mentone, Lake Maggiore, they had seen them all and many, many more. And still they beat on, beat on, flying as if unwearied, never stopping anywhere for long. But the truth was—Oh, better not enquire what the truth was. Better not ask what it was that kept them going. Or why the only word that daunted Father was the word—home....

Home! To sit around, doing nothing, listening to the clock, counting up the years, thinking back ... thinking! To stay fixed in one place as if waiting for something or somebody. No! no! Better far to be blown over the earth like the husk, like the withered pod that the wind carries and drops and bears off again.

“Are you ready, girls?”

“Yes, Father dear.”

“Then we’d better be off if we’re to make that train.”

But oh, it was a weariness, it was an unspeakable weariness. Father made no secret of his age; he was eighty-four. As for Edith and Emily—well, he looked now like their elder brother. An old, old brother and two ancient sisters, so the lovely room might have summed them up. But its shaded brightness, its beauty, the flutter of leaves at the creamy stone windows seemed only to whisper “Rest! Stay!”

Edith looked at the pale, green-panelled walls, at the doors that had lozenges and squares of green picked out in gold. She made the amazing discovery that the floor had the same pattern in wood that was traced on the high, painted ceiling. But the colour of the shining floor was marvellous; it was like tortoiseshell. In one corner there was a huge, tilted stove, milky white and blue. The low wooden bed, with its cover of quilted yellow satin, had sheaves of corn carved on the bed posts. It looked to fanciful, tired Edith—yes,—that bed looked as if it were breathing, softly, gently breathing. Outside the narrow, deep-set windows, beyond their wreaths of green, she could see a whole, tiny landscape bright as a jewel in the summer heat.

“Rest! Stay!” Was it the sound of the leaves outside? No, it was in the air; it was the room itself that whispered joyfully, shyly. Edith felt so strange that she could keep quiet no longer.

“This is a very old room, Emily,” she warbled softly. “I know what it is. This hotel has not always been a hotel. It’s been an old château. I feel as sure of that as that I’m standing here.” Perhaps she wanted to convince herself that she was standing there. “Do you see that stove?” She walked over to the stove. “It’s got figures on it. Emily,” she warbled faintly, “It’s 1623.”

“Isn’t that too wonderful!” cried Emily.

Even Father was deeply moved.

“1623? Nearly three hundred years old.” And suddenly, in spite of his tiredness, he gave a thin, airy, old man’s chuckle. “Makes yer feel quite a chicken, don’t it?” said Father.

Emily’s breathless little laugh answered him; it too was gay.

“I’m going to see what’s behind that door,” she cried. And half running to the door in the middle wall she lifted the slender steel catch. It led into a larger room, into Edith’s and her bedroom. But the walls were the same and the floor, and there were the same deep-set windows. Only two beds instead of one stood side by side with blue silk quilts instead of yellow. And what a beautiful old chest there was under the windows!

“Oh,” cried Emily, in rapture. “Isn’t it all too perfectly historical for words, Edith! It makes me feel——” She stopped, she looked at Edith who had followed her and whose thin shadow lay on the sunny floor. “Queer!” said Emily, trying to put all she felt into that one word. “I don’t know what it is.”

Perhaps if Edith, the discoverer, had had time, she might have satisfied Emily. But a knock sounded at the outer door; it was the luggage boy. And while he brought in their suitcases there came from downstairs the ringing of the luncheon bell. Father mustn’t be kept waiting. Once a bell had gone he liked to follow it up right then. So without even a glance at the mirror—they had reached the age when it is as natural to avoid mirrors as it is to peer into them when one is young—Edith and Emily were ready.

“Are you ready, girls?”

“Yes, Father dear.”

And off they went again, to the left, to the right, down a stone staircase with a broad, worn balustrade, to the left again, finding their way as if by instinct—Edith first, then Father, and Emily close behind.

But when they reached the _salle à manger_, which was as big as a ball-room, it was still empty. All gay, all glittering, the long French windows open on to the green and gold garden, the _salle à manger_ stretched before them. And the fifty little tables with the fifty pots of dahlias looked as if they might begin dancing with....

ALL SERENE

At breakfast that morning they were in wonderfully good spirits. Who was responsible—he or she? It was true she made a point of looking her best in the morning; she thought it part of her duty to him—to their love, even, to wear charming little caps, funny little coats, coloured mules at breakfast time, and to see that the table was perfect as he and she—fastidious pair!—understood the word. But he, too, so fresh, well-groomed and content, contributed his share.... She had been down first, sitting at her place when he came in. He leaned over the back of her chair, his hands on her shoulders; he bent down and lightly rubbed his cheek against hers, murmuring gently but with just enough pride of proprietorship to make her flush with delight, “Give me my tea, love.” And she lifted the silver teapot that had a silver pear modelled on the lid and gave him his tea.

“Thanks.... You know you look awfully well this morning!”

“Do I?”

“Yes. Do that again. Look at me again. It’s your eyes. They’re like a child’s. I’ve never known anyone have such shining eyes as you.”

“Oh, dear!” She sighed for joy. “I do love having sweet things said to me!”

“Yes, you do—spoilt child! Shall I give you some of this?”

“No, thank you.... Darling!” Her hand flew across the table and clasped his hand.

“Yes?”

But she said nothing, only “Darling!” again. There was the look on his face she loved—a kind of sweet jesting. He was pretending he didn’t know what she meant, and yet of course he did know. He was pretending to be feeling “Here she is—trust a woman—all ready for a passionate love scene over the breakfast table at nine o’clock in the morning.” But she wasn’t deceived. She knew he felt just the same as she did. That amused tolerance, that mock despair was part of the ways of men—no more.

“May I be allowed to _use_ this knife please, or to put it down?”

Really! Mona had never yet got accustomed to her husband’s smile. They had been married for three years. She was in love with him for countless reasons, but apart from them all, a special reason all to itself, was because of his smile. If it hadn’t sounded nonsense she would have said she fell in love at first sight over and over again when he smiled. Other people felt the charm of it, too. Other women, she was certain. Sometimes she thought that even the servants watched for it....

“Don’t forget we’re going to the theatre to-night.”