|
" I met a young virgin
Who sadly did moan . . . "
There is a very unctuous and irritating English proverb to the
effect that " Every cloud has a
silver lining." What comfort can it be to one steeped to the
eyebrows in clouds to ponder over
their linings, and what an unpleasant picture-postcard seal it sets
upon one's tragedy
—turning it into a little ha'penny monstrosity with a moon
in the left-hand corner like a
vainglorious threepenny bit ! Nevertheless, like most unctuous and
irritating things, it is true.
The lining woke me after my first night at the Pension Seguin and
showed me over the
feather bolster a room as bright with sunlight, as if every golden-haired
baby in Heaven were
pelting the earth with buttercup posies. " What a charming
fancy ! " I thought. " How much
prettier than the proverb. It sounds like a day in the country with
Katherine Tynan.' . . . And I
saw a little picture of myself and Katherine Tynan being handed
glasses of milk by a
red-faced woman with an immensely fat apron, while we discussed
the direct truth of
proverbs as opposed to the fallacy of playful babies. But in such
a case imaginary I was
ranged on the side of the proverbs. " There's a lot of sound
sense in 'em," said that coarse
being. " I admire the way they put their collective foot down
upon the female attempt to
embroider everything. ' The pitcher goes to the well till it breaks.'
Also gut. Not even a
loophole for a set of verses to a broken pitcher. No possible chance
of the well being one of
those symbolic founts to which all hearts in the forms of pitchers
are carried. The only
proverb I disapprove of," went on this impossible creature,
pulling a spring onion from the
garden bed and chewing on it, " is the one about a bird in
the hand. I naturally prefer birds in
bushes." "But," said Katherine Tynan, tender and
brooding, as she lifted a little green fly
from her milk glass. " But if you were Saint Francis, the bird
would not mind being in your
hand. It would prefer the white nest of your fingers to any bush."
. . . I jumped out of bed and
ran over to the window and opened it wide and leaned out. Down below
in the avenue a wind
shook and swung the trees ; the scent of leaves was on the lifting
air. The houses lining the
avenue were small and white. Charming, chaste looking little houses,
showing glimpses of
lace and knots of ribbon, for all the world like country children
in a row, about to play "Nuts
and May." I began to imagine an adorable little creature named
Yvette who lived in one and
all of these houses. . . . She spends her morning in a white lace
boudoir cap, worked with
daisies, sipping chocolate from a Sevres cup with one hand, while
a faithful attendant
polishes the little pink nails of the other. She spends the afternoon
in her tiny white and gold
boudoir, curled up, a Persian kitten on her lap, while her ardent,
beautiful lover leans over
the back of the sofa, kissing and kissing again that thrice fascinating
dimple on her left
shoulder. . . . when one of the balcony windows opened, and a stout
servant swaggered out
with her arms full of rugs and carpet strips. With a gesture expressing
fury and disgust she
flung them over the railing, disappeared, reappeared again with
a long-handled cane broom
and fell upon the wretched rugs and carpets. Bang ! Whack ! Whack
! Bang ! Their feeble,
pitiful jigging inflamed her to ever greater effort. Clouds of dust
flew up round her, and when
one little rug escaped and flopped down to the avenue below, like
a fish, she leaned over the
balcony, shaking her fist and the broom at it. Lured by the noise,
an old gentleman came to a
window opposite and cast an eye of approval upon the industrious
girl and yawned in the
face of the lovely day. There was an air of detachment and deliberation
about the way he
carefully felt over the muscles of his arms and legs, pressed his
throat, coughed, and shot a
jet of spittle out of the window. Nobody seemed more surprised at
this last feat than he. He
seemed to regard it as a small triumph in its way, buttoning his
immense stomach into a
white pique waistcoat with every appearance of satisfaction. Away
flew my charming Yvette
in a black and white check dress, an alpaca apron, and a market
basket over her arm.
I dressed, ate a roll and drank some tepid coffee, feeling very
sobered. I thought how true it
was that the world was a delightful place if it were not for the
people, and how more than
true it was that people were not worth troubling about, and that
wise men should set their
affections upon nothing smaller than cities, heavenly or otherwise,
and countrysides, which
are always heavenly. With these reflections, both pious and smug,
I put on my hat, groped my
way along the dark passage and ran down the five flights of stairs
into the Rue St. Leger.
There was a garden on the opposite side of the street, through which
one walked to the
University and the more pretentious avenues fronting the Place du
Theatre. Although autumn
was well advanced, not a leaf had fallen from the trees, the little
shrubs and bushes were
touched with pink and crimson, and against the blue sky the trees
stood sheathed in gold. On
stone benches nursemaids in white cloaks and stiff white caps chattered
and wagged their
heads like a company of cockatoos, and, up and down, in the sun,
some genteel babies
bowled hoops with a delicate air. What peculiar pleasure it is to
wander through a strange
city and amuse oneself as a child does, playing a solitary game.
"Pardon, Madame, mais voulez-vous " . . . and then the
voice faltered and cried my name as
though I had been given up for lost times without number; as though
I had been drowned in
foreign seas, and burnt in American hotel fires, and buried in a
hundred lonely graves. "What
on earth are you doing here? " Before me, not a day changed,
not a hairpin altered, stood
Violet Burton. I was flattered beyond measure at this enthusiasm,
and pressed her cold,
strong hand, and said "Extraordinary ! "
"But what are you here for ? "
" . . . nerves."
"Oh, impossible, I really can't believe that."
"It is perfectly true," I said, my enthusiasm waning.
There is nothing more annoying to a
woman than to be suspected of nerves of iron.
"Well, you certainly don't look it," said she, scrutinising
me with that direct English
frankness that makes one feel as though sitting in the glare of
a window at breakfast-time.
"What are you here for," I said, smiling graciously to
soften the glare. At that she turned and
looked across the lawns, and fidgetted with her umbrella like a
provincial actress about to
make a confession. "I "—in a quiet affected voice—"I
came here to forget. . . . But," facing
me again, and smiling energetically, "don't let's talk about
that. Not yet. I can't explain. Not
until I know you all over again."Very solemnly—"
not until I am sure you are to be trusted."
"Oh, don't trust me, Violet," I cried. "I'm not
to be trusted. I wouldn't if I were you."
She frowned and stared. "What a terrible thing to say. You
can't be in earnest."
"Yes, I am. There's nothing I adore talking about so much as
another person's secret." To my
surprise, she came to my side and put her arm through mine.
"Thank you," she said, gratefully. "I think it's
awfully good of you to take me into your
confidence like that. Awfully. And even if it were true . . . but
no, it can't be true, otherwise
you wouldn't have told me. I mean it can't be psychologically true
of the same nature to be
frank and dishonourable at the same time. Can it ? But then . .
. I don't know. I suppose it is
possible. Don't you find that the Russian novelists have made an
upheaval of all your
conclusions?" We walked, bras dessus bras dessous, down the
sunny path.
"Let's sit down," said Violet. "There's a fountain
quite near this bench. I often come here.
You can hear it all the time." The faint noise of the water
sounded like a half-forgotten tune,
half sly, half laughing.
"Isn't it wonderful," breathed Violet. "Like weeping
in the night."
"Oh Violet," said I, terrified at this turn. "Wonderful
things don't weep in the night. They
sleep like tops and ‘know nothing more till again it is day.’
"
She put her arm over the back of the bench and crossed her legs.
"Why do you persist in
denying your emotions ? Why are you ashamed of them?" she demanded.
"I'm not. But I keep them tucked away, and only produce them
very occasionally, like special
little pots of jam, when the people whom I love come to tea."
"There you are again ! Emotions and jam ! Now, I'm absolutely
different. I live on mine.
Sometimes I wish I didn't— but then again I would rather suffer
through them—suffer
intensely, I mean ; go down into the depths with them, for the sake
of that wonderful upward
swing on to the pinnacles of happiness."
She edged nearer to me.
"I wish I could think where I get my nature from," she
said. "Father and Mother are
absolutely different. I mean—they're quite normal—quite
commonplace." I shook my head
and raised my eyebrows. " But it is no use fighting it. It
has beaten me. Absolutely—once
and for all." A pause, inadequately filled by the sly, laughing
water. "Now," said Violet,
impressively, "you know what I meant when I said I came here
to forget."
"But I assure you I don't, Violet. How can you expect me to
be so subtle ? I quite understand
that you don't wish to tell me until you know me better. Quite!"
She opened her eyes and her mouth. "I have told you ! I mean—not
straight out. Not in so
many words. But then—how could I ? But when I told you of
my emotional nature, and that I
had been in the depths and swept up to the pinnacles . . . surely,
surely you realised that I was
telling you, symbolically. What else can you have thought?"
No young girl ever performs such gymnastic feats by herself. Yet
in my experience I had
always imagined that the depths followed the pinnacles. I ventured
to suggest so.
"They do," said Violet gloomily. "You see them,
if you look, before and after."
"Like the people in Shelley's skylark," said I.
Violet looked vague, and I repented. But I did not know how to
sympathise, and I had no idea
of the relative sizes.
"It was in the summer," said Violet. "I had been
most frightfully depressed. I don't know what
it was. For one thing I felt as though I could not make up my mind
to anything. I felt so
terribly useless—that I had no place in the scheme of things—and
worst of all, nobody who
understood me. . . . It may have been what I was reading at the
time . . . but I don't think . . .
not entirely. Still one never knows. Does one ? And then I met .
. . Mr. Farr, at a dance."
"Oh, call him by his Christian name, Violet. You can't go
on telling me about Mr. Farr and
you . . . on the heights."
"Why on earth not ? Very well—I met—Arthur. I
think I must have been mad that evening.
For one thing there had been a bother about going. Mother didn't
want me to, because she
said there wouldn't be anybody to see me home. And I was frightfully
keen. I must have had a
presentiment, I think. Do you believe in presentiments. . . . I
don't know, we can't be certain,
can we ? Anyhow, I went. And he was there." She turned a deep
scarlet and bit her lip. Oh, I
really began to like Violet Burton—to like her very much indeed.
"Go on," I said.
"We danced together seven times and we talked the whole time.
The music was very
slow—we talked of everything. You know . . . about books and
theatres and all that sort of
thing at first, and then—about our souls."
" . . . . What ? "
"I said—our souls. He understood me absolutely. And
after the seventh dance . . . No, I must
tell you the first thing he ever said to me. He said, ‘Do
you believe in Pan ?’ Quite quietly.
Just like that. And then he said, ‘I knew you did.’
Wasn't that extra-or-din-ary ! After the
seventh dance we sat out on the landing. And . . . shall I go on?"
"Yes, go on."
"He said, ' I think I must be mad. I want to kiss you—and—
I let him."
"Do go on."
"I simply can't tell you what I felt like. Fancy ! I'd never
kissed out of the family before. I
mean—of course—never a man. And then he said : ' I must
tell you—I am engaged.' "
"Well ? "
" hat else is there ? Of course I simply rushed upstairs and
tumbled everything over in the
dressing-room and found my coat and went home. And next morning
I made Mother let me
come here. I thought," said Violet, "I thought I would
have died of shame."
"Is that all ? " I cried. "You can't mean to say
that's all ? "
"What else could there be ? What on earth did you expect.
How extraordinary you
are—staring at me like that."
And in the long pause I heard again the little fountain, half sly,
half laughing—at me, I
thought, not at Violet.
|
