Part 7

Then came the marvellous event. Her Aunt Harriet, Mrs. Comstock, her mother's sister, and a rich widow, asked her to come and stay with her for a month in London. Mrs. Comstock was a good-natured, chattering widow, fond of food and bright attire; Mrs. Moon hesitated about committing Lucy to her care, but she felt perhaps it would do the child no harm to give her a peep at worldly ways, before the long black arms of Simon Laud closed her in for ever. Lucy was terrified and delighted both at once. It meant that she would see London, where she had never in all her life been. Even the war had not altered her. She had worked in the village institute, knitted and sewed, helped in the village concerts. The war had seemed very remote to her. She had lost no one whom she loved. She was vaguely distressed by it, as she might have been by the news of an earthquake at Naples. The Moon household believed in tranquillity. Mr. Moon was engaged in a series of village addresses on "The Nativity." The war, after all, he felt, "is probably a blessing in disguise!"

So Lucy saw it. I think, as the day of her departure drew near, that she had some slight premonition of future events. The village, the fields, the lanes, the church, were touched suddenly by some new and pathetic splendour. The spring came late to Yorkshire that year, and the lanes were coloured with a faint shadow of purple behind the green, so light and shining that it seemed to be glass in its texture. The bright spaces of the moon were uncertain in their dim shadows, and there were soft spongy marshes where the frost had released the underground streams, and long stretches of upland grass, grey-white beneath the pale spring skies. Space was infinite. The village, tucked under the rim of the moor with its grey church, its wild, shaggy, tiny graveyard, its spreading village street, was like a rough Yorkshire child huddling for protection beneath its father's shoulder. This had pathos and an appeal for love, and a cry of motherhood. The clouds, carried by the fresh spring wind, raced above the church steeple, swinging the young birds in their flight, throwing joyfully, contemptuously, shadows across the long street, shadows coloured and trembling like banners.

Lucy had known these beauties all her life; now they appealed to her with a new urgency. "When you come back," they seemed to say to her, "we shall not be the same. Now you are free as we. When you come back you will be a prisoner."

It was strange to her, and horrible, that the thought of her approaching marriage should haunt her as it did. There were things about it that she had not realised. She had not understood that her parents, the village, her relations would all make so momentous an affair of it. When Mr. Laud had proposed to her, and she had accepted him, it had seemed to her a matter simply between themselves. Now everyone had a concern in it; everyone accepted it as so absolutely settled. Did Lucy for a single instant contemplate the breaking of an engagement she saw with an almost agonised terror the whole village tumbling upon her head. The very church steeple would fall down and crush her. She was beginning too, to see her father and mother now in a new light. They had always been very sweet to her, and she had loved them dearly, but they had been sweet to her, she could not help but see, very largely because she had shown so absolute an obedience. Her mind now would persistently return to certain occasions in her young history when she had hinted ever so slightly at having an opinion of her own. Had that opinion been given a moment's opportunity? Never. Never once.

Of her two parents, her father was perhaps the more resolute. His mild, determined surprise at the expression of an individual opinion was a terrible thing to witness. He did wish not to be dogmatic with her, but, after all, things were as they were. How could bad be good or good bad? There you were. A thing was either right, or it wasn't.... _There_ you were.

And so around Lucy and her Simon a huge temple was erected by the willing hands of her parents, relations, and friends. There _she_ was right inside with the doors locked and the windows closed, and Simon with his long black arms, his large nose, and his damp red mouth waiting for her.

It was her own fault. There was nothing to be done.

It must not be supposed, however, that she was unhappy when she set off on her London visit. She was entirely resigned to the future; she loved her mother and father and the village, and Mr. Laud had been assigned to her by God. She would enjoy her month, and then make the best of it. After all, he would not want always to kiss her. She knew enough about married life to be sure of that.

She went up to London with a neat black trunk, a new hat with roses on it, and a little umbrella, green and white, that her mother gave her.

Mrs. Comstock had a flat at Hortons, in Duke Street.

To Lucy Duke Street meant nothing. Jermyn Street meant nothing. Even Piccadilly did not mean very much. St. James's Palace, however, did mean a good deal, and the first sight of that pearl-grey dignity and beauty, with the round friendly clock, little clouds like white pillows in the blue sky above, the sentry in his box, the grace and courtesy of the Mall, these brought a sob into her throat, and made her eyes dry and hot.

That sight of the palace gave her the setting for the rest of the wonderful new world. Had Mrs. Comstock allowed her, she would have spent the whole of her time in those fascinating streets. Piccadilly frightened her a little. The motor-omnibuses and cars rushed so fiercely along, like pirates on a buccaneering expedition, and everyone was so haughty, and the shops so grand.

But it never ceased to be marvellously romantic to her that you could so swiftly slip through an alley and be hushed at once with a lovely tranquillity, no sound reaching you but the cry of the flower-man, the distant honk of a taxicab, the bells of St. James's Church, the distant boom of Westminster. All the shops in these streets round Hortons seemed to her romantic fancy to be coloured a rich old walnut. And against this background there was every kind of treasure--prints of coaches stuck deep in snowdrifts, of huntsmen leaping over hedges, of fishermen wading deep in tranquil rivers, of Oxford colleges and Westminster Abbey--all these, printed in deep old rich colours, blue and red and orange, colours so deep and rich that they seemed to sink far down into the page. There were also the jewels and china and boxes--old Toby jugs and delicate cups and saucers, and amber-bead necklaces, and Chinese gods, and cabinets of rich red lacquer. She had a permanent picture of these treasures in the old dark shops, and from the house's bachelors, young and old, plain and handsome, but all beautifully dressed, stepping in and out, going, she supposed, to their clubs and dinners and games, carrying with them everywhere that atmosphere of expensive cigars and perfectly-pressed clothes and innumerable baths.

She gathered all this in the first day or two of her stay, and it was as delightful and personal to her, as though she herself had been God, and had created it all.

Hortons, in its own turn, was delighted with _her_. It had never seen anything so fresh and charming in all its long life. It had often received beautiful women into its capacious heart, and it had known some very handsome men, but Lucy was lovely. Mr. Nix, who could be on occasions a poet, said of her that she made him think of "strawberries and junket and his own self at twenty." He did not say this to Mrs. Nix.

To Lucy, the only thing that was wrong with Hortons was her aunt. She disliked Mrs. Comstock from the very first moment. She did not like the way that she was over-dressed, the way that she talked without looking at you, the way that she spoke so crossly to her maid, the way that she loved her food, the way that she at once implied that it was wonderfully fortunate for Lucy to have her to come to.

She discovered at once that her aunt was on the side of her parents with regard to Mr. Simon Laud. Mrs. Comstock's opinion was that Lucy might consider herself very fortunate to have been selected by so good a man, that she must do her best to deserve her good fortune, because girls nowadays don't find it easy to pick up men. Men know too much!

"To pick up men!" What a horrible phrase! And Lucy had not picked up Simon Laud. She had been picked up--really against her will. Lucy then discovered that her Aunt Harriet--that is, Mrs. Comstock--had invited her to London for this month in order to have a companion. She had a paid companion--Miss Flagstaff--but that unfortunate woman had at last been allowed a holiday. Here was a whole month, then, and what was poor Mrs. Comstock to do? Why, of course, there was that niece up in Yorkshire. The very thing. She would do admirably.

Lucy found that her first duty was to read every morning the society papers. There was the _Tatler_ with Eve's letter. There was the _Queen_ and the _Lady's Pictorial_, and several other smaller ones. These papers appeared once a week, and it was Lucy's duty to see that they stretched out, two hours every morning, from Saturday to Saturday.

Aunt Harriet had society at her fingers' ends, and the swiftly succeeding marriages of Miss Elizabeth Asquith, Miss Violet Keppel, and Lady Diana Manners just about this time gave her a great deal to do. She had a scrap-book into which she pasted photographs and society clippings. She labelled this "Our leaders," and Lucy's morning labours were firmly linked to this scrap-book. Once she pasted an impressionist portrait of Miss Keppel upside-down into the book, and saw for a full five minutes what Aunt Harriet was like when she was really angry.

"I'd better go back to Hawkesworth!" Lucy cried, more defiant than she would ever have suspected she could be. However, this was not at all what Aunt Harriet wanted; Lucy was making herself extremely useful. Lucy did not want it either. So peace was made. One result of this snipping up of society was that Lucy began to be strangely conscious of the world that was beating up around her.

A strange, queer, confused, dramatic world! For positively the first time she was aware of some of the things that the war had done, of what it had meant to many people, of the chasms that it had made in relationships, the ruins in homes, and also of the heroisms that it had emphasised--and, beyond all these individual things, she had a sense of a new world rising painfully and slowly from the chaos of the old--but rising! Yes, even through these ridiculous papers of her aunt's, she could feel the first stirrings, the first trumpetings to battle, voices sounding, only a little distance from her, wonderful new messages of hope and ambition.

This affected her; she began to wonder how she could, through all these four years of war, have stayed so quietly in her remote Hawkesworth. She began to despise herself because she had stayed.

This excitement developed quickly into the same kind of premonition that she had had before leaving Hawkesworth. Something was about to happen to her! What would it be? She awoke every morning with a strange, burning excitement in her throat, a confused, thick beating of the heart.

Meanwhile, her month was drawing to its close, the days speeding on through a glittering pageant of wonderful May weather, when the town sparkled and quivered like a heap of quartz.

Simon Laud wrote that he was coming up to London to fetch her, to take her back with him to Hawkesworth--"that he could not wait any longer without seeing his pet."

When Lucy read those words she was strangely tranquillised. She did not know what it was that, during these days, she had been wanting. What so strangely had she been expecting? Whom?...

Her inexperience cried out to Simon Laud to come and defend her. She had a time of true terror, frightened by Aunt Harriet, by London, by strikes and wars and turbulences, above all, by her own self, and by the discontents and longings and desires to which some influence seemed to be urging her.

She wrote her first loving letter to Simon. She told him that she hoped that they would be married very soon, and that indeed he was to come and fetch her. It would be lovely to go back to Hawkesworth with him. And when she had posted her letter, she sat on her bed in her little room in Hortons with her face in her hands and cried bitterly, desperately--why, she did not know. Mrs. Comstock saw that she had been crying, and was moved by the child-like simplicity and innocence of "poor stupid Lucy," as she called her to herself. She was moved to unusual generosity, and suggested that they should go that night to a symphony concert at the Queen's Hall--"Although they are going to play Brahms, which I can't say that I approve of, because he was surely a German, if anyone ever was, and haven't we got plenty of good music of our own, I wonder? Anyway, you needn't listen to the Brahms, Lucy, if you don't want to. You won't understand him, anyway. I expect he's one of the most difficult of the composers, although he _is_ dead."

Lucy paid small attention. She had been out only twice with her aunt in the evening during her London stay, once to a lecture on "Y.M.C.A. Work at the Front," and once to a musical play, _Monsieur Beaucaire_. She had liked the lecture, but she had adored _Beaucaire_, and she thought that perhaps the Queen's Hall would be something of the same kind.

She had never in all her life been to a "Symphony Concert."

Aunt Harriet, armour-plated with jewellery, made an exciting contrast with Lucy, whose blazing red-gold hair, large, rather puzzled eyes, and plain white dress, needed exotic surroundings to emphasise their true colour.

"You look very pretty, dear," said Aunt Harriet, who had made that evening a little money on the Stock Exchange, and was happy accordingly, "and quite excited, just as though you were expecting to see your Simon."

"I wish he could have arrived to-night instead of to-morrow," said Lucy.

But did she? As they drove through the streets scattered with star-dust, watched by a crimson moon, she sighed with that strange confusion of happiness and unhappiness that seemed always to be hers now. What was going to happen? Who was coming?... Only Simon?

She felt a return of her earlier breathless excitement as they pushed their way through the crowd in the lobby. "Stalls this way.... Downstairs to the stalls." "To your right, madam. Second on your right!" "Tickets, please ... tickets, please!"

Mrs. Comstock was a redoubtable general on these occasions, and pushed people aside with her sharp elbows, and flashed indignant glances with her fine eyes, and spread back her shoulders, and sparkled her rings....

Lucy wished that her aunt would not figure so prominently. She had perhaps never before disliked her so thoroughly as she did to-night. Then, out of the confusion and noise, there came peace. They were settling down into their seats, and on every side of them were space and light and colour, and a whispering murmur like the distant echo of the sea on Scarborough beach. Lucy was suddenly happy. Her eyes sparkled, her heart beat high. She looked about her and was pleasantly stirred by the size of the building. "Not so large as the Albert Hall," she had heard someone say. Why, then, how truly enormous the Albert Hall must be--and she thought suddenly, with a little kindly contempt, of Simon, and how very small he would seem placed in the middle of the stalls all by himself.

The musicians began to file into their seats; the lights turned up; the strangest discordances, like the voices of spirits in a lost world, filled the air; everywhere clumps of empty seats vanished ... people, people from the ceiling to the floor.... A little man stepped forward, stood upon his platform, bowed to the applause, held with uplifted baton a moment's silence, then released upon the air the accustomed harmonies of _Ruy Blas_.

To Lucy, who knew so little of life, that flooding melody of sound was the loveliest discovery. She sat back very straight, eyes staring, drinking it in, forgetting at once the lighted hall, her aunt, everything. Only Simon Laud persisted with her. It seemed as though to-night his figure refused to leave her.

He did not--oh! how instantly she knew it--fit in at all with the music. It was as though he were trying to draw her away from it, trying to persuade her that she did not really like it. He was interfering with her happiness, buzzing at her ear like an insect. She shook her head as though to drive this something away, and, even as she did so, she was aware that something else was happening to her.

Someone was looking at her. She felt a truly desperate impatience at this second interruption. Someone was trying to force her to turn her head--yes, to the right. She was looking straight in front of her, down to where the hard, thick back of the little conductor seemed to centralise into itself, and again to distribute all the separate streams of the music. Lucy was staring at that back as though her maintaining her connection with it was her only link with the music. How tiresome that she should not be allowed to concentrate on her happiness! She violently dismissed the shadowy Simon; but he was there, just behind her left shoulder. Then, with another effort of will, she forced away from her that attraction on the right. She _would_ not look! In all probability, it was imagination. She had known in Hawkesworth, in church, at the Penny Readings, that sensation that people were staring at her; simply her self-consciousness. She drove it off; it came closer to her. It was as though a voice were saying in her ear: "You _shall_ look to the right.... You _shall_ look to the right...."

"I won't!... I won't!" she replied, setting her teeth. Then, to her own pain and distress, she began to blush. She had always detested her inevitable blushing, despised herself for her weakness; she could not fight it; it was stronger than she. Surely all the hall was looking at her. She felt as though soon she would be forced to run away and hide in the comforting darkness of the street.

The music ceased; the little man was bowing; the tension was lifted; everywhere a buzz of talk rose, as though everyone for the last ten minutes had been hidden beneath a glass cover that was suddenly raised. Late comers, with anxious glances, peered about for their seats. Lucy turned around.

She saw at once that indeed it was true that someone had been staring at her. Someone was staring at her now. She stared in return. She knew that she should not. Her mother had always taught her that to stare at a stranger was almost the worst thing that you could do. Nevertheless, Lucy glanced. She could not help herself. He was looking at her as though he knew her. When she looked in her turn the start that he gave, the way that a half-smile hovered about his lips, was almost an acknowledgment of recognition. And had she not known him before? He seemed so familiar to her--and yet, of course, he could not be. The conviction that she had been staring suddenly overwhelmed her with shame, and she turned away. But now he was impressed upon her brain as though she were looking at a picture of him--his large, rather ugly, but extremely good-humoured face, his fair, rather untidy hair, his fair eyebrows, his short, closely-clipped moustache, his black dinner-jacket, and black bow tie--above all, that charming, doubtful, half-questioning smile.

But why, if they had never met before, did he stare like that? Why did ...?

The applause had broken out again. A tall man holding a violin was bowing. The Brahms violin concerto began.

She sat there in a puzzled and bewildered state. What had happened to her? Who had come to her, lifting her, it seemed, out of her own body, transforming her into some other creature? Was she feeling this merely because a man had stared at her? She felt, as she sat there, the blush still tingling in her cheeks, as though some precious part of her that had left her many years ago had now suddenly returned to her.

She was Lucy Moon, the whole, complete Lucy Moon, for the first time....

The first movement of the symphony ended. She looked at once to her right. His eyes were resting on her. She smiled.

How could she? Did she not know, had she not been told ever since she could remember, that the most terrible thing that a girl could do was to smile at a stranger? But he was _not_ a stranger. She knew everything about him. She knew, although she had never heard him speak, just what the tone of his voice would be, rough, a little Scotch, and north country mixed ... not many words; he would be shy and would stammer a little. At the end of the second movement she smiled again. He smiled back and raised his eyebrows in a laughing question.

At the end of the symphony the air crackled with applause. The violinist returned again and again, bowing. He seemed so small, and his magnificent evening dress did not suit him. Evening dress, did not suit Simon either. The applause died away. The orchestra disappeared through the back of the hall.

"So hot," said Aunt Comstock, whom, until now, Lucy had utterly forgotten. "A breath of air outside...."

They went into the passage. People were walking up and down. They halted beside a swaying door. Mrs. Comstock stood there, her purple bosom heaving up and down. "No air.... Can't think why they don't...."

Her fine eyes flashed. She had seen Mrs. Norris. Are not those things arranged by God? Mrs. Norris, whom she had not seen for so many months. Are not these things arranged by God? Lucy's friend was at her elbow. He was as she had known that he would be; kind-eyed, clumsy perhaps, his voice rough and hesitating.... He was alone. He stood turned a little away from her, and she, as though she had been practising these arts all her life, looked at the pea-green Mrs. Norris, and the pearls that danced on her bony neck. The voices crept towards one another. No one would have known that Lucy's mouth moved at all.

"Can't we get away somewhere?"

"I'm with my aunt."

"I _must_ see you."

"Yes."

"I _must_."

"I'm with my----"

"I know."

"Perhaps at the end----"

"No, give me somewhere to write to."

"It's----"

Aunt Comstock's voice came sailing like a pirate's ship.

"Amy, this is my niece, Lucy."

"How do you do? Are you enjoying London, dear?"

He was gone. Oh, he was _gone_! And no address.

She could have slain those two women, one so fat, and one so thin--willingly, stabbed them. Perhaps she would lose him now.

They returned. "Something of Bizet's. He was French, Lucy. French or a Spaniard.... Fancy Amy Norris--lost her looks, poor dear. Ah! I shall like this. Better than that German."

Lucy heard no more music. Her heart beat in her throat, choking it. Life had rushed towards her and filled her, or was it that she had entered into life? She did not know. She only felt intensely proud, like a queen entering her capital for the first time.... The concert was over. Her aunt was a long time putting on her cloak; people stood in their way, stupid, heavy, idiotic people. When they came into the hall he was not there.... Yes ... he was close to them. For a moment, in the thick crowd, he caught her hand. At the touch of his fingers, rough and strong, upon hers, she seemed to soar above the crowd and to look down upon them all with scornful happiness. He said something that she could not catch, and then Aunt Comstock had hatefully enveloped her. They were in a taxi, and all the world that had been roaring around her was suddenly hushed. They reached Hortons. Lucy drank her hot milk. Her aunt said:

"I do hope you enjoyed your concert, darling.... The Bizet was best."