III
On leaving the concert Leila and Jimmy Fort had secured a taxi; a vehicle which, at night, in wartime, has certain advantages for those who desire to become better acquainted. Vibration, sufficient noise, darkness, are guaranteed; and all that is lacking for the furtherance of emotion is the scent of honeysuckle and roses, or even of the white flowering creeper which on the stoep at High Constantia had smelled so much sweeter than petrol.
When Leila found herself with Fort in that loneliness to which she had been looking forward, she was overcome by an access of nervous silence. She had been passing through a strange time for weeks past. Every night she examined her sensations without quite understanding them as yet. When a woman comes to her age, the world-force is liable to take possession, saying:
“You were young, you were beautiful, you still have beauty, you are not, cannot be, old. Cling to youth, cling to beauty; take all you can get, before your face gets lines and your hair grey; it is impossible that you have been loved for the last time.”
To see Jimmy Fort at the concert, talking to Noel, had brought this emotion to a head. She was not of a grudging nature, and could genuinely admire Noel, but the idea that Jimmy Fort might also admire disturbed her greatly. He must not; it was not fair; he was too old – besides, the girl had her boy; and she had taken care that he should know it. So, leaning towards him, while a bare-shouldered young lady sang, she had whispered:
“Penny?”
And he had whispered back:
“Tell you afterwards.”
That had comforted her. She would make him take her home. It was time she showed her heart.
And now, in the cab, resolved to make her feelings known, in sudden shyness she found it very difficult. Love, to which for quite three years she had been a stranger, was come to life within her. The knowledge was at once so sweet, and so disturbing, that she sat with face averted, unable to turn the precious minutes to account. They arrived at the flat without having done more than agree that the streets were dark, and the moon bright. She got out with a sense of bewilderment, and said rather desperately:
“You must come up and have a cigarette. It’s quite early, still.”
He went up.
“Wait just a minute,” said Leila.
Sitting there with his drink and his cigarette, he stared at some sunflowers in a bowl – Famille Rose – and waited just ten; smiling a little, recalling the nose of the fairy princess, and the dainty way her lips shaped the words she spoke. If she had not had that lucky young devil of a soldier boy, one would have wanted to buckle her shoes, lay one’s coat in the mud for her, or whatever they did in fairytales. One would have wanted – ah! what would one not have wanted! Hang that soldier boy! Leila said he was twenty-two. By George! how old it made a man feel who was rising forty, and tender on the off-fore! No fairy princesses for him! Then a whiff of perfume came to his nostrils; and, looking up, he saw Leila standing before him, in a long garment of dark silk, whence her white arms peeped out.
“Another penny? Do you remember these things, Jimmy? The Malay women used to wear them in Cape Town. You can’t think what a relief it is to get out of my slave’s dress. Oh! I’m so sick of nursing! Jimmy, I want to live again a little!”
The garment had taken fifteen years off her age, and a gardenia, just where the silk crossed on her breast, seemed no whiter than her skin. He wondered whimsically whether it had dropped to her out of the dark!
“Live?” he said. “Why! Don’t you always?”
She raised her hands so that the dark silk fell, back from the whole length of those white arms.
“I haven’t lived for two years. Oh, Jimmy! Help me to live a little! Life’s so short, now.”
Her eyes disturbed him, strained and pathetic; the sight of her arms; the scent of the flower disturbed him; he felt his cheeks growing warm, and looked down.
She slipped suddenly forward on to her knees at his feet, took his hand, pressed it with both of hers, and murmured:
“Love me a little! What else is there? Oh! Jimmy, what else is there?”
And with the scent of the flower, crushed by their hands, stirring his senses, Fort thought: ‘Ah, what else is there, in these forsaken days?’
To Jimmy Fort, who had a sense of humour, and was in some sort a philosopher, the haphazard way life settled things seldom failed to seem amusing. But when he walked away from Leila’s he was pensive. She was a good sort, a pretty creature, a sportswoman, an enchantress; but – she was decidedly mature. And here he was – involved in helping her to “live”; involved almost alarmingly, for there had been no mistaking the fact that she had really fallen in love with him.
This was flattering and sweet. Times were sad, and pleasure scarce, but – ! The roving instinct which had kept him, from his youth up, rolling about the world, shied instinctively at bonds, however pleasant, the strength and thickness of which he could not gauge; or, was it that perhaps for the first time in his life he had been peeping into fairyland of late, and this affair with Leila was by no means fairyland? He had another reason, more unconscious, for uneasiness. His heart, for all his wanderings, was soft, he had always found it difficult to hurt anyone, especially anyone who did him the honour to love him. A sort of presentiment weighed on him while he walked the moonlit streets at this most empty hour, when even the late taxis had ceased to run. Would she want him to marry her? Would it be his duty, if she did? And then he found himself thinking of the concert, and that girl’s face, listening to the tales he was telling her. ‘Deuced queer world,’ he thought, ‘the way things go! I wonder what she would think of us, if she knew – and that good padre! Phew!’
He made such very slow progress, for fear of giving way in his leg, and having to spend the night on a door-step, that he had plenty of time for rumination; but since it brought him no confidence whatever, he began at last to feel: ‘Well; it might be a lot worse. Take the goods the gods send you and don’t fuss!’ And suddenly he remembered with extreme vividness that night on the stoep at High Constantia, and thought with dismay: ‘I could have plunged in over head and ears then; and now – I can’t! That’s life all over! Poor Leila! Me miserum, too, perhaps – who knows!’
IV
When Leila opened her door to Edward Pierson, her eyes were smiling, and her lips were soft. She seemed to smile and be soft all over, and she took both his hands. Everything was a pleasure to her that day, even the sight of this sad face. She was in love and was loved again; had a present and a future once more, not only her own full past; and she must finish with Edward in half an hour, for Jimmy was coming. She sat down on the divan, took his hand in a sisterly way, and said:
“Tell me, Edward; I can see you’re in trouble. What is it?”
“Noel. The boy she was fond of has been killed.”
She dropped his hand.
“Oh, no! Poor child! It’s too cruel!” Tears started up in her grey eyes, and she touched them with a tiny handkerchief. “Poor, poor little Noel! Was she very fond of him?”
“A very sudden, short engagement; but I’m afraid she takes it desperately to heart. I don’t know how to comfort her; only a woman could. I came to ask you: Do you think she ought to go on with her work? What do you think, Leila? I feel lost!”
Leila, gazing at him, thought: ‘Lost? Yes, you look lost, my poor Edward!’
“I should let her go on,” she said: “it helps; it’s the only thing that does help. I’ll see if I can get them to let her come into the wards. She ought to be in touch with suffering and the men; that kitchen work will try her awfully just now: Was he very young?”
“Yes. They wanted to get married. I was opposed to it.”
Leila’s lip curled ever so little. ‘You would be!’ she thought.
“I couldn’t bear to think of Nollie giving herself hastily, like that; they had only known each other three weeks. It was very hard for me, Leila. And then suddenly he was sent to the front.”
Resentment welled up in Leila. The kill-Joys! As if life didn’t kill joy fast enough! Her cousin’s face at that moment was almost abhorrent to her, its gentle perplexed goodness darkened and warped by that monkish look. She turned away, glanced at the clock over the hearth, and thought: ‘Yes, and he would stop Jimmy and me! He would say: “Oh, no! dear Leila – you mustn’t love – it’s sin!” How I hate that word!’
“I think the most dreadful thing in life,” she said abruptly, “is the way people suppress their natural instincts; what they suppress in themselves they make other people suppress too, if they can; and that’s the cause of half the misery in this world.”
Then at the surprise on his face at this little outburst, whose cause he could not know, she added hastily: “I hope Noel will get over it quickly, and find someone else.”
“Yes. If they had been married – how much worse it would have been. Thank God, they weren’t!”
“I don’t know. They would have had an hour of bliss. Even an hour of bliss is worth something in these days.”
“To those who only believe in this ‘life – perhaps.”
‘Ten minutes more!’ she thought: ‘Oh, why doesn’t he go?’ But at that very moment he got up, and instantly her heart went out to him again.
“I’m so sorry, Edward. If I can help in any way – I’ll try my best with Noel to-morrow; and do come to me whenever you feel inclined.”
She took his hand in hers; afraid that he would sit down again, she yet could not help a soft glance into his eyes, and a little rush of pitying warmth in the pressure of her hand.
Pierson smiled; the smile which always made her sorry for him.
“Good-bye, Leila; you’re very good and kind to me. Good-bye.”
Her bosom swelled with relief and compassion; and – she let him out.
Running upstairs again she thought: ‘I’ve just time. What shall I put on? Poor Edward, poor Noel! What colour does Jimmy like? Oh! Why didn’t I keep him those ten years ago – what utter waste!’ And, feverishly adorning herself, she came back to the window, and stood there in the dark to watch, while some jasmine which grew below sent up its scent to her. ‘Would I marry him?’ she thought, ‘if he asked me? But he won’t ask me – why should he now? Besides, I couldn’t bear him to feel I wanted position or money from him. I only want love – love – love!’ The silent repetition of that word gave her a wonderful sense of solidity and comfort. So long as she only wanted love, surely he would give it.
A tall figure turned down past the church, coming towards her. It was he! And suddenly she bethought herself. She went to the little black piano, sat down, and began to sing the song she had sung to him ten years ago: “If I could be the falling dew and fall on thee all day!” She did not even look round when he came in, but continued to croon out the words, conscious of him just behind her shoulder in the dark. But when she had finished, she got up and threw her arms round him, strained him to her, and burst into tears on his shoulder; thinking of Noel and that dead boy, thinking of the millions of other boys, thinking of her own happiness, thinking of those ten years wasted, of how short was life, and love; thinking – hardly knowing what she thought! And Jimmy Fort, very moved by this emotion which he only half understood, pressed her tightly in his arms, and kissed her wet cheeks and her neck, pale and warm in the darkness.
V
1
Noel went on with her work for a month, and then, one morning, fainted over a pile of dishes. The noise attracted attention, and Mrs. Lynch was summoned.
The sight of her lying there so deadly white taxed Leila’s nerves severely. But the girl revived quickly, and a cab was sent for. Leila went with her, and told the driver to stop at Camelot Mansions. Why take her home in this state, why not save the jolting, and let her recover properly? They went upstairs arm in arm. Leila made her lie down on the divan, and put a hot-water bottle to her feet. Noel was still so passive and pale that even to speak to her seemed a cruelty. And, going to her little sideboard, Leila stealthily extracted a pint bottle of some champagne which Jimmy Fort had sent in, and took it with two glasses and a corkscrew into her bedroom. She drank a little herself, and came out bearing a glass to the girl. Noel shook her head, and her eyes seemed to say: “Do you really think I’m so easily mended?” But Leila had been through too much in her time to despise earthly remedies, and she held it to the girl’s lips until she drank. It was excellent champagne, and, since Noel had never yet touched alcohol, had an instantaneous effect. Her eyes brightened; little red spots came up in her cheeks. And suddenly she rolled over and buried her face deep in a cushion. With her short hair, she looked so like a child lying there, that Leila knelt down, stroking her head, and saying: “There, there; my love! There, there!”
At last the girl raised herself; now that the pallid, masklike despair of the last month was broken, she seemed on fire, and her face had a wild look. She withdrew herself from Leila’s touch, and, crossing her arms tightly across her chest, said:
“I can’t bear it; I can’t sleep. I want him back; I hate life – I hate the world. We hadn’t done anything – only just loved each other. God likes punishing; just because we loved each other; we had only one day to love each other – only one day – only one!”
Leila could see the long white throat above those rigid arms straining and swallowing; it gave her a choky feeling to watch it. The voice, uncannily dainty for all the wildness of the words and face, went on:
“I won’t – I don’t want to live. If there’s another life, I shall go to him. And if there isn’t – it’s just sleep.”
Leila put out her hand to ward of these wild wanderings. Like most women who live simply the life of their senses and emotions, she was orthodox; or rather never speculated on such things.
“Tell me about yourself and him,” she said.
Noel fastened her great eyes on her cousin. “We loved each other; and children are born, aren’t they, after you’ve loved? But mine won’t be!” From the look on her face rather than from her words, the full reality of her meaning came to Leila, vanished, came again. Nonsense! But – what an awful thing, if true! That which had always seemed to her such an exaggerated occurrence in the common walks of life – why! now, it was a tragedy! Instinctively she raised herself and put her arms round the girl.
“My poor dear!” she said; “you’re fancying things!”
The colour had faded out of Noel’s face, and, with her head thrown back and her eyelids half-closed, she looked like a scornful young ghost.
“If it is – I shan’t live. I don’t mean to – it’s easy to die. I don’t mean Daddy to know.”
“Oh! my dear, my dear!” was all Leila could stammer.
“Was it wrong, Leila?”
“Wrong? I don’t know – wrong? If it really is so – it was – unfortunate. But surely, surely – you’re mistaken?”
Noel shook her head. “I did it so that we should belong to each other. Nothing could have taken him from me.”
Leila caught at the girl’s words.
“Then, my dear – he hasn’t quite gone from you, you see?”
Noel’s lips formed a “No” which was inaudible. “But Daddy!” she whispered.
Edward’s face came before Leila so vividly that she could hardly see the girl for the tortured shape of it. Then the hedonist in her revolted against that ascetic vision. Her worldly judgment condemned and deplored this calamity, her instinct could not help applauding that hour of life and love, snatched out of the jaws of death. “Need he ever know?” she said.
“I could never lie to Daddy. But it doesn’t matter. Why should one go on living, when life is rotten?”
Outside the sun was shining brightly, though it was late October. Leila got up from her knees. She stood at the window thinking hard.
“My dear,” she said at last, “you mustn’t get morbid. Look at me! I’ve had two husbands, and – and – well, a pretty stormy up and down time of it; and I daresay I’ve got lots of trouble before me. But I’m not going to cave in. Nor must you. The Piersons have plenty of pluck; you mustn’t be a traitor to your blood. That’s the last thing. Your boy would have told you to stick it. These are your ‘trenches,’ and you’re not going to be downed, are you?”
After she had spoken there was a long silence, before Noel said:
“Give me a cigarette, Leila.”
Leila produced the little flat case she carried.
“That’s brave,” she said. “Nothing’s incurable at your age. Only one thing’s incurable – getting old.”
Noel laughed. “That’s curable too, isn’t it?”
“Not without surrender.”
Again there was a silence, while the blue fume from two cigarettes fast-smoked, rose towards the low ceiling. Then Noel got up from the divan, and went over to the piano. She was still in her hospital dress of lilac-coloured linen, and while she stood there touching the keys, playing a chord now, and then, Leila’s heart felt hollow from compassion; she was so happy herself just now, and this child so very wretched!
“Play to me,” she said; “no – don’t; I’ll play to you.” And sitting down, she began to play and sing a little French song, whose first line ran: “Si on est jolie, jolie comme vous.” It was soft, gay, charming. If the girl cried, so much the better. But Noel did not cry. She seemed suddenly to have recovered all her self-possession. She spoke calmly, answered Leila’s questions without emotion, and said she would go home. Leila went out with her, and walked some way in the direction of her home; distressed, but frankly at a loss. At the bottom of Portland Place Noel stopped and said: “I’m quite all right now, Leila; thank you awfully. I shall just go home and lie down. And I shall come to-morrow, the same as usual. Goodbye!” Leila could only grasp the girl’s hand, and say: “My dear, that’s splendid. There’s many a slip – besides, it’s war-time.”
With that saying, enigmatic even to herself, she watched the girl moving slowly away; and turned back herself towards her hospital, with a disturbed and compassionate heart.
2
But Noel did not go east; she walked down Regent Street. She had received a certain measure of comfort, been steadied by her experienced cousin’s vitality, and the new thoughts suggested by those words: “He hasn’t quite gone from you, has he?” “Besides, it’s war-time.” Leila had spoken freely, too, and the physical ignorance in which the girl had been groping these last weeks was now removed. Like most proud natures, she did not naturally think much about the opinion of other people; besides, she knew nothing of the world, its feelings and judgments. Her nightmare was the thought of her father’s horror and grief. She tried to lessen that nightmare by remembering his opposition to her marriage, and the resentment she had felt. He had never realised, never understood, how she and Cyril loved. Now, if she were really going to have a child, it would be Cyril’s – Cyril’s son – Cyril over again. The instinct stronger than reason, refinement, tradition, upbringing, which had pushed her on in such haste to make sure of union – the irrepressible pulse of life faced with annihilation – seemed to revive within her, and make her terrible secret almost precious. She had read about “War babies” in the papers, read with a dull curiosity; but now the atmosphere, as it were, of those writings was illumined for her. These babies were wrong, were a “problem,” and yet, behind all that, she seemed now to know that people were glad of them; they made up, they filled the gaps. Perhaps, when she had one, she would be proud, secretly proud, in spite of everyone, in spite of her father! They had tried to kill Cyril – God and everyone; but they hadn’t been able, he was alive within her! A glow came into her face, walking among the busy shopping crowd, and people turned to look at her; she had that appearance of seeing no one, nothing, which is strange and attractive to those who have a moment to spare from contemplation of their own affairs. Fully two hours she wandered thus, before going in, and only lost that exalted feeling when, in her own little room, she had taken up his photograph, and was sitting on her bed gazing at it. She had a bad breakdown then. Locked in there, she lay on her bed, crying, dreadfully lonely, till she fell asleep exhausted, with the tear-stained photograph clutched in her twitching fingers. She woke with a start. It was dark, and someone was knocking on her door.
“Miss Noel!”
Childish perversity kept her silent. Why couldn’t they leave her alone? They would leave her alone if they knew. Then she heard another kind of knocking, and her father’s voice:
“Nollie! Nollie!”
She scrambled up, and opened. He looked scared, and her heart smote her.
“It’s all right, Daddy; I was asleep.”
“My dear, I’m sorry, but dinner’s ready.”
“I don’t want any dinner; I think I’ll go to bed.”
The frown between his brows deepened.
“You shouldn’t lock your door, Nollie: I was quite frightened. I went round to the hospital to bring you home, and they told me about your fainting. I want you to see a doctor.”
Noel shook her head vigorously. “Oh, no! It’s nothing!”
“Nothing? To faint like that? Come, my child. To please me.” He took her face in his hands. Noel shrank away.
“No, Daddy. I won’t see a doctor. Extravagance in wartime! I won’t. It’s no good trying to make me. I’ll come down if you like; I shall be all right to-morrow.”
With this Pierson had to be content; but, often that evening, she saw him looking at her anxiously. And when she went up, he came out of his study, followed to her room, and insisted on lighting her fire. Kissing her at the door, he said very quietly:
“I wish I could be a mother to you, my child!”
For a moment it flashed through Noel: ‘He knows!’ then, by the puzzled look on his face, she knew that he did not. If only he did know; what a weight it would be off her mind! But she answered quietly too; “Good night, Daddy dear!” kissed him, and shut the door.
She sat down before the little new fire, and spread her hands out to it; all was so cold and wintry in her heart. And the firelight flickered on her face, where shadows lay thick under her eyes, for all the roundness of her cheeks, and on her slim pale hands, and the supple grace of her young body. And out in the night, clouds raced over the moon, which had come full once more.