Part 4

"But there was to be no hurry about the affair, Mrs. Richmond had decided from the first; and I could imagine her bustling that decision about her mind, as a sort of anodyne for she didn't quite know what. They had been engaged already six months, and she, watching her only child's happiness very, very carefully, had gained from her care not less than certainty about the felicity of Fay's choice. There was in Carlo no note that jarred, as there often is even in the best of men; besides, he could so perfectly accommodate one's every mood, and yet lose not a fraction of his dignity in such complaisance; for, having so absolutely thrown himself at Fay's feet, she hadn't really been able to help allowing him to stay there--'as who wouldn't?' Mrs. Richmond demanded comfortably.

"No, there was to be no hurrying. Carlo had been persuaded by her determination--Mrs. Richmond rather stressed her influence here--and the marriage would not take place for another six months from then; for she preferred that Fay should have reached a decent one-and-twenty before setting out on the conquest of Italy.

"'But she is an odd girl, with a terrible capacity for loyalty--I suppose that's the word,' she added. 'With more loyalty than a human being can comfortably hold, I sometimes imagine.' A note of self-deprecatory anxiety in her voice conflicted oddly in one's ears with the 'happy-ever-after' tone of her previous sentences; and to help her out of her ensuing silence, I ventured that surely it was just Fay's loyalty (if that was the word), which even a stranger could feel, that made her so unusually, well, attractive for her years.

"'Of course, of course....' Mrs. Richmond assented heavily; then turned in her chair directly round on me. 'But, my dear man, don't you see that when it's carried to excess it can make a very treacherous quality? When, let's say, it becomes a leading principle in life for a girl who, after all, needs only a working amount of it, all sorts of troublesome things might happen--I mean, of course, that it's just conceivable as a theory in a foolish moment such as this.... Poor Howard! to be burdened by a mother with her child's virtues for lack of any real faults! It's a sweet thought, that way.

"'You see,' she said wistfully, 'people sometimes break after the strain of too much loyalty--I've adopted that word now. They don't take things easily enough, until, one day, they suddenly break and take things too easily! I've seen it happen, a dear sweet woman.... I'm talking so intimately to you because I expect you to understand, and not be too brilliantly conclusive to yourself about it. Of course you know that I am not talking directly of Fay, for it's absurd to suppose that there ever could be a strain on her loyalty about anything, but about my own theories. I've got lately into the habit, from so much watching, of doing her introspection for her, just as I still like doing her hair for her sometimes--for it's a shame that a mere maid should have all the fun, isn't it?'

"But, after all, it was not to run so smoothly for dear Mrs. Richmond; her half-articulate anxiety--I can't really call it self-reproach--seemed to have held a parallel justification in its subject. Fay, knowing nothing of her good mother's shouldering of her burden, had done her own introspection as well as she could by herself; and came, as girls will, upon its results inconveniently as the marriage grew nearer--instead of having thought of it all _before_ as her mother had done for her!

"I had a very good view of the pattern they unknowingly worked between them because, in my curious too-quickly developed position in that house, I was again made the _confidant_. I was, 'Since mother has quarrelled with all her "in-laws," the only sensible man about the premises,' Fay herself said once; a bloodless and unenviable prerogative so unsuitable to Vitiali's temper that he had never troubled to stoop down to claim it from the heights where his good fortune had enthroned him. For who, able to be something better, would trouble himself to hold the mean place of 'the sensible man about the premises?' I've never been lured into it since, anyway.

"It was about a month later that, after a week in which I had not seen them, I called one afternoon and came face to face with Vitiali by the drawing-room door, which he had just closed behind him.

"I'm so glad you have come, Howard,' he said, with his affectionate smile, retaining my hand in his; we were great friends, you understand. 'I have just left Fay, looking exactly as though she were going to write a book or a tragedy. Oh, so serious!

"'Come on, quickly,' he said, catching me by the arm and hurrying me to the door. 'Let her see you before she takes a pen in her hand--let her see a man who actually has written something, and take warning.

"'Of course, you don't look like an author, old man,' he soothed my protest. 'You look just like any one else, but more sympathetic. That is why I am asking you to make Fay look not so serious--Oh, it's terrible, that quiet Fay seriousness!' He held me at arm's length with a sudden gesture. 'Can you make a woman laugh?' he asked.

"'I can do nothing else,' I answered.

"'Then, Howard, I shall count you not a good friend if Fay is not smiling all over her face when I come back to-night to take them out to dinner.' He had a delightful way of mock solemnity, which seemed to suit particularly his dark mobile features.

"'Quick, now, before she takes up that horrible pen!' and he opened the door and thrust me into the room. 'God be with you,' he whispered behind the closing door.

"What poor Carlo had helplessly called her 'seriousness' I had remarked about Fay just lately; and the forced comedy of my entrance to combat it was part of the woe-begone air with which he usually tried to appease and lighten it.... It was, as I had noticed, as though a fleeting shadow of thought, in brushing across her face, had been seduced to stay beyond its first impulse; and there's nothing in the world so satisfying to watch as a young serious loveliness, so it be without guile. I, as sometimes the four of us sat at the play (when of course I was Mrs. Richmond's companion in particular), in a side glance at her would catch the shadow of that thought, and it was as a delicate engravure on a lovely face; and I'd wonder what problem that dear mind was trying to work out--of course, bravely! You see? She was the sort of girl to induce a generous epithet about her every action, the sort that even great writers seldom show as anything but lay figures, simply because it needs a rare personal quality to create a perfect description of beauty together with simplicity and genuineness. I can't even attempt to do that, I'm content just to envy my youth her company, and curse it for its commonplace vigour which, ambitious in a busy world, thought of that girl as a playmate, instead of--oh, instead of as a mate!

"'I'm here, to-day, as a clown,' I said, as I walked towards her at the writing table by the window. They affected quills in that house, and as she turned round in her chair she had the end of one thoughtfully between her teeth.

"'You don't have to be a clown,' she denied, quite vigorously. 'Even though Carlo did make a speech to you just outside--and isn't he a sweet when he's fussed!'

"'And with reason. For the point of his speech was that you had been pulling a long face at him, and no decent Italian likes to have his women pulling long faces.'

"'It wasn't at _him_, Howard. Could any woman pull one of those faces you refer to at Carlo? Obviously he's too dear to be treated as an ordinary man....'

"'Well, I did say I was only a clown,' I murmured humbly.

"'No, to-day you are an uncle, Uncle Howard,' she said, puckering her eyebrows as though in examination of me for that post. 'Yes, you've got to be the sort of uncle that real uncles never are.'

"'This is one of my serious days,' she explained. 'I'm sorry, Howard, but it is. I'm not old enough yet to have a plain day, so I've got to put up with a serious one instead now and again. There's no sugar or chocolate on any of the cakes I think about to-day.'

"'I remember a tale by a man called Henry Harland about a woman who once had a plain day--' I was beginning vaguely.

"'You mustn't remember it because I'm not a bit interested in her,' she stopped me. 'If you please, we will discuss myself Entirely. Do you mind very much, Howard?'

"'Not very much,' I said.

"And suddenly she jumped up and caught me tightly by the arm, the whole smile and impulse exquisitely childish. 'Oh, my dear, what shall I do when I'm married to a foreigner and no strong, silly, sensible Englishman about the house to play with!' Quick words they were, tumbling over one another--and then she let go my arm, for that inevitable flush was tingeing her cheeks.

"'You see, one thinks of that,' she went on, more sedately. 'It simply creeps over me, the thought of who poor Fay is going to talk nonsense with in the "near future." It's difficult to talk nonsense with most people, isn't it? Yes, say it is.... You know you get that feeling yourself, Howard--you know very well that it isn't with every chit of a girl you can talk the sort of stuff you do with me. Just try, anyway, and see what you get!'

"'Of course, I can with Carlo too,' she said. 'But it's different. Rather like work. Why, it took me months and months to make him understand that I didn't hate him when I laughed at him! And one only really laughs at people one's very fond of, after all.... I suppose it's different because he's in love with me,' she added, and waited for me to find a query in her eyebrows; but I didn't answer it.

"'Italians are very odd,' she said. 'I know all about them now. They simply mustn't be laughed at--it's a sort of threat they hold over you, poor dears! I'm always making a sunny day into a rainy day for Carlo.... When I said "foreigner" I didn't, of course, mean to imply that he was an ordinary foreigner,' she added very decidedly.

"'Even if he had no money,' I agreed, 'he could never be anything worse than an "alien." With a face like that he simply couldn't be "undesirable."

"'What is it, Fay?' I asked suddenly. 'You've got the air of a woman "leading up to something." There is an important look in your eye.'

"She smiled a little plaintively. 'It's not very important,' she said. 'I'm worrying about myself, that's all. To-day, and yesterday, and other days before, I've been wondering whether I am or am not going to marry Carlo.'

"'But, Fay, of course you are!' I was startled enough to cry.

"'Yes,' she nodded. 'That is exactly what mother would say, except that she would say it in a bigger way; but she doesn't know.... I'm worrying about it a lot, Howard. I simply don't know which to do.'

"She had startled me into the attitude of uncle she had desired of me. I stood on the hearth, just by her chair, and really felt very serious. Suddenly, and with both hands, she had given me a responsibility. She had half turned a key and shown me a place of discomfort for three people whom I was really fond of. And I wanted, intensely, to help--not only Fay, but her mother. If this was only a passing indecision I decided that her mother must never hear of it, for I already knew of her infinite capacity to worry herself.... But it doesn't matter what in particular I said. I probably bent over from my place on the hearth, and spoke into her eyes, telling her that this wasn't a game. She simply must make up her mind--now! To go on doubting was, after all, so unfair to Carlo!

"'It can't all be so indefinite,' I urged rather impatiently. 'I mean, my child, that you must know whether you do or don't like him enough.'

"'But I do, I like him frightfully,' she protested. 'You don't quite understand, Uncle Howard. I'm not worrying so much about his part of it as about mine. I'm sure about him, you see. He is the sweetest and dearest young man in the world, and I know that I can be happy with him--even though he does look sulky when I laugh at him. But Italian sulks are so much more attractive than the home product.... Yes, I like him very, very much, and I know very, very clearly that I'm not in love with him--'

"She was too sensible a girl for me to take up that cue in the conventional way; but there was no other way in which to answer it, so I didn't.

"'But I'm not an idiot. I don't quarrel with that especially,' she said, 'because I will probably never like any one I can marry half as much. No, it's quite easy to just marry Carlo, he fits in so well.'

"'Well, if that's so, I wonder what on earth we are talking about!' I had to say. And she shook her head at me helplessly.

"'You make an awfully good uncle, Howard, you are so terribly stupid! Didn't I tell you ages ago that this discussion was to be limited strictly to Fay? So Carlo, for the moment, is just a man who has bought a ring. I, the Queen of Sheba, come to Solomon for wisdom, but with one fat worry instead of jewels and things....'

"How surprised she would have been if I had said, 'My dear, even Solomon was not more grateful.' But I wanted to.

"'I seem very meek and mild, but I'm really very full of myself,' she explained shyly. 'I've been introspecting, you see, and of course I've made an awful mess of it. Knowing oneself doesn't help, it simply complicates.... I've found, for instance, that once I do a thing--well, it's done! It's like a thing written in a book (or in a play by you!), always there, by me. I mean that once I've stuck myself to a thing, I am--do you mind?--a "sticker." I don't change or break away--I can't. And it's very frightening and discouraging to realize that, because it sort of cuts away from under the feet all the trap-doors which other people can escape through. I feel very pathetic ... and even you don't know what I'm talking about.'

"'But I do, Fay, I do!' I said quickly. And I knew even better than she, with her mother's self-deprecatory confidence on 'loyalty' in my ears!

"'The feeling,' she went on encouraged, 'is that, not quite like other people, once I'm married--well, just suppose that I even in the least bit wanted to get unmarried again! I couldn't. It's like a Roman Catholic marriage, for ever and ever. Of course,' she added quickly, sincerely, 'it's the very dimmest nightmare. I'm quite happy to marry Carlo, and I can't really imagine that I could begin to be unhappy with him--but just suppose! I'm much too fond of him even now to want to hurt him, and as I grow fonder of him I shall never be able to hurt him. Never. His eyes wouldn't let me....'

"And as I looked at her I couldn't help thinking that the world would be a splendid place if women realised the responsibility of being loved as did this girl. For that, mainly, was what it was, the burden of the responsibility of being utterly loved for the first time.

"But I didn't give way to that sort of thing. I seem to remember talking a great deal of sense that afternoon, but sense which I tried to frame illogically enough not to appear too disagreeable. I simply can't help feeling a little proud of my own share in that afternoon. I remember that I said quite sternly that it was very strange for a girl like her to have wandered so far ahead, strange and not very fitting. 'Because, don't you see, Fay, it's all very unfair to Carlo and to your own affection for him? You say you are frightfully fond of him, you let him feel that you are, and then, if you please, your mind goes searching on ahead concocting plots as to what you will or will not do when you are not so fond of him. If you are fond enough of him now, as you say you are, it's simply dishonest of you, Fay, to go on playing draughts with those vague doubts about a very vague future. It's the sort of thing women do when they are thinking of marrying a fourth husband.... If you go on like this, when you are an old woman you will be very superstitious and quite unbearable. For it's not much more than a superstition now, and you are treating yourself very cruelly to make it the keystone of your "serious day." I've never felt less sympathetic about a thing in all my life!'

"And so I went on, bartering my mess of pottage for the homely position of 'Uncle' Howard. And as she looked up at me and listened, her eyes grew not so serious, until they laughed outright.

"'Oh, dear, I'm sure you're right,' she said at last; 'but I don't in the least agree with what you say.... But anyway I've gained something by boring you with it all, Howard. The whole thing seems so very unimportant and silly now I've told it to some one else.' And then she added, with a manner: 'The serious day has nothing further on which to proceed, so ... let's have tea! And muffins! It's simply impossible not to have muffins to-day, Howard.'

"She was a dear, that girl! And a little later, as I walked up Piccadilly towards my flat, I suddenly found myself staring hard at an empty 'crawler,' with the tremendous thought in my head that it was a great shame that England should lose such a girl to a foreigner and a foreign country! It began to seem wrong, somehow....

"I saw very little of them between then and the marriage. August and part of September took them up to Scotland, while I stayed in London and worked. How I must have enjoyed working in those days! And when they came back I was busy with the production of a new play, and they too, I supposed, with the usual preparations. But Vitiali used often to drop in at my rooms at odd hours, and I asked him once if Fay had ever looked serious enough since that afternoon to write a tragedy; he showed his teeth in a smile, and said that I must have done her a great deal of good that day, 'Because, my dear Howard, she has never been gayer and more light-hearted as lately. I am very happy....' He could say those things, he had a way of charming you with his simplicity; and, anyway, there is nothing more charming in the world than a cultured foreigner--except, of course, a cultured Englishman.

"Two nights before the wedding day, after ten o'clock, Fay rang me up on the telephone. 'I hope I am disturbing you,' she began sweetly.

"'I just want to know, Howard,' the voice said, 'if you really are coming to see me married.'

"'Well, I've intimated to your mother my decision to be present, and I've committed myself in writing, what's more.'

"'Don't be silly, my dear! Whoever takes any notice of what _you_ write? You write much too well.'

"'It's only that I had a vague idea,' she explained very gently, 'that you wouldn't be there.' Then, somehow, there was a short silence. That telephone silence, full of dim murmurings and the attention of two people!

"'Why?' I asked abruptly.

"'Don't be snappy with me, please, Howard,' the voice begged. 'I just wanted to know for certain, that's all.'

"Queer things happen sometimes on a clear telephone about half-past ten at night. Voices seem to take their clothes off....

"'Well, as a matter of fact,' I began slowly.

"'Yes?' It was scarcely a word, but a light low tremor of a question.... I put my lips very close to the mouthpiece and formed my words very clearly:--

"'Why don't you want me to come, Fay?'

"I'm not sure about the little gasp, but only about the little voice, after a long second, saying, 'I don't know why, Howard.'

"'Now that you've asked me I realise that I never intended to come,' I confessed. 'And I'm damned if I know why, either!... If I come at all I shall be among the crowd outside, admiring you and Carlo.'

"'But aren't you quite, quite sure that at the last moment you won't regretfully find it impossible to come at all?' the voice seemed to plead.

"'I'm beginning not to be sure of anything to-night,' I said fretfully.

"'Poor Howard!' Ah, I knew that voice, the firmer one with the little caress of mischief over it! I made a quick grab at it.

"'I say, you're going to write to me quite a lot, aren't you?'

"'Not one line,' she answered firmly.

"'But, Fay, you can't disappear from my life like that!' I protested heatedly. 'Of course you are going to write to me, aren't you?'

"'I don't intend to,' she said sweetly, 'but I suppose I will, sometime.... Don't you know, Howard,' the voice asked, as though getting farther and farther away, 'that you don't deserve a letter from me, ever?' No words of mine could hold that voice near, it was disappearing, a faint thing growing fainter, like phantom in a wind.

"'And you don't deserve ever to see me again.... Good-bye, Howard.'

"'Fay!' I cried. Her name seemed to be on the wall before me, a written word. And I couldn't reach it, couldn't! Her receiver clicked--like a far away door clicking behind some one who has left a room empty of all that matters. And I was realising that only then! There was no more Fay Richmond! That voice over the telephone, with an unrealised shade and quiver in it, had wrenched aside in my consciousness what the eyes and body of that voice had seemed to leave intact for so long! As though a sudden ray of sunshine had awakened a man whom an alarm-clock had left sleeping. There was no more Fay Richmond! I didn't go to the wedding.

"I haven't, even now, the least sympathy with myself. Nor would I have with you, say, if you had grossly bungled your affairs in the same way. It's a deficiency for which there is not the shadow of an excuse, that mean, ungenerous, deficiency which blinds a man to the necessities of his own happiness--until, since life is always farce or melodrama, it's too late!

"She did not write to me. The 'sometime' of her concession faded with the months into a dream, perhaps to come true, sometime!... I wrote only once to her, a dishonest letter, which I did my best to fill with the spirit of my past--and how long passed!--'avuncular' relations with her. And yet nothing happened since the day when the Queen of Sheba had come to Solomon with 'one fat worry,' nothing at all! Not even the first syllable of a word of love--not, by a thousand miles, even the shadow of an attempted or desired kiss! Only, to account for it all, a voice on a telephone one night, a so familiar voice changed by magic.... Changed in itself or in my mind? I simply didn't ask! But, however it was, from that strange thing the god worked a stranger, for I knew that when she read that letter she would know that it was dishonest, unreal.

"She must have known! Or else, sixteen months later.... That 'sometime' letter of hers had come at last! A treasure, stamped from Vienna where (so Mrs. Richmond had written me from Tonbridge, her new home since the disposal of the house of Rutland Gate) Carlo was now attached. It was a very short letter something like this:

"'I am coming to England for a week,' she wrote, 'to see mother in her new home in the country. But, if you don't mind, there are other folk I would like to see, too!... Carlo is getting more and more of a personage, and simply can't leave Vienna, so I won't be able to stay away more than a week, from next Thursday as ever is, Howard! But as I don't know what day I will be in London, you will please institute no inquiries about me until you hear from me. I will ring you up at about 10:30 on any of my seven nights, so that we can arrange to meet somewhere. Of course, I could write to you, but I want to wonder, as I take up the receiver, whether you will recognise my voice. But you won't dare not to, will you, Howard?' That is only a reason in a letter, I said to myself, for I can hear her adding, 'And so, my dear, if there's anything gay enough to keep you out after ten-thirty on any of those nights, then you will miss Fay--now won't you?'