“OF course,” said Catherine to Charlotte for the hundredth time, “Philip will make a splendid husband. And everything about him is all right. He has money. He comes of nice people. But I did so want you girls to make interesting marriages.”
Disappointment fought with relief in her heart; for though Emily might have done better, she might equally have done very much worse.
“The difference in age is not important,” she proclaimed. “It’s often a good thing. I was a great deal younger than your father. And Emily wants somebody sensible to look after her. I’m sure Philip will do that. But he’s so … so …”
“Dull?” suggested Charlotte.
Catherine would not agree. She had always disliked the attitude of her children towards Philip.
“No, he’s not a bit dull. That’s nonsense. I only mean that I’m afraid, now, that he’s too old to have much of a career. And in a way it’s a pity she should marry so young. She’s so pretty and sometimes quite clever. If she had only waited, instead of rushing off with William like that, I might have taken a house in London for the winter and gone about with you both.”
Charlotte could not help a shudder at the idea.
“And then you might have married me off at the same time,” she said, rather bitterly.
“Charlotte! Don’t be so vulgar Such an idea never entered my …”
“Oh, I know it’s not called that. It’s called taking the child about so that she gets the chance of knowing nice people. But it means a hunt for a husband, all the same.”
“It means nothing of the sort. I know perfectly well that you don’t want to marry.”
“But I do, mother. I’d be a fool if I didn’t. Only I’m so ugly that I don’t expect anybody will ever want to marry me, so it’s no use thinking about it.”
“My dear Charlotte!”
“If we both worked very hard for it, I might conceivably get a husband your way. But it’s so unlikely that it’s not worth the waste of time and self-respect.”
“What do you mean by my way?”
“Going up to London and meeting nice people. But you know I dance so badly. And my nose gets shiny, whatever I do to it. Any little chit can beat me in that field. If I ever do marry it will be because I’ve met somebody who can forget my face. And that’s too small a chance to build on. I will not get old and haggard and bitter with disappointment, the way some women do. It’s not necessary, nowadays. I know plenty of girls like me, who can’t get married, but who have a very tolerable life of their own, with lots of interests in spite of it.”
“This is a way of talking which I cannot understand. I must say I think it’s rather coarse. I had no idea you were so anxious to be married.”
“I want it as much as any normal woman wants it.”
“When I was a girl one didn’t … one didn’t …”
“That’s humbug, mother! Really it is.”
“You’re very frank,” said Catherine coldly. “I never met a girl before who talked about herself in such a way; who openly admitted that she wasn’t … that she couldn’t
“I only admitted it to myself after a struggle,” said Charlotte, flushing. “It isn’t, even now, a very pleasant thing to feel. It’s humiliating. But it’s true. And I’m sure that the truth is best, if only one can bring oneself to stand it. These things are ever so much more upsetting if you won’t look them in the face.”
“You get morbid, living here with nothing to do. You should go away and take up a regular profession.”
“My writing is a regular profession. I know it doesn’t support me. If it did, I shouldn’t live at home, I would rather write than do anything else. It makes up … for what I’m missing. If I went away, I’d have to work so hard for a living that I’d get no time for writing. Rather than that, I prefer the ignominy of living here and being a burden to you.”
“You aren’t a burden. You know that very well,” Catherine spoke more kindly. “I like having you here. But if you earned your own living you might respect yourself rather more”
“I do respect myself. And I think I earn my bare board in all the messages I run for you. All the notes I write. I’m very lucky to have work I really care for. Many girls in my position haven’t even that. I’d rather be myself, with all these handicaps, than be Emily, who is rich and free and going to marry a man she doesn’t love.”
“Charlotte! Even jealousy doesn’t justify …”
“I’m not jealous, mother. But I can’t help seeing it. And you know quite well what I mean.”
“Girls are often out of spirits when they are in love.”
“Their spirits are unequal, perhaps. But she’s absolutely lifeless.”
“She likes being with him. If a day goes by without his coming over, she gets restless.”
“I think she’s fond of him That’s quite different.”
“Is it?”
Catherine sounded a little amused, as though she doubted whether Charlotte could know very much about it.
“I think, my dear, that you judge life too much by books. A great many people get along very comfortably without ever being passionately in love with anybody at all. I know it’s disappointing and unromantic. But it’s true.”
“I’ve no doubt it’s true. But Emily will never be one of those people. And, what’s more, Philip knows it He’s miserable, by the looks of him.”
“He’s devoted to her and always has been. I’ve seen it for years. It will all settle down when they have been married for a little while. It’s the love that comes after marriage that counts, Charlotte, as you will find if you ever get married yourself.”
“Oh, well … if they ever get as far as being married … I daresay you are right. But I’m very doubtful over it all, and so, I’m sure, is he.”
“He’s repainting his house,” Catherine pointed out.
“Which needed doing up, in any case. So one good thing will come out of it, even if the marriage doesn’t come off.”
“But why, in heaven’s name, should she marry him, if she doesn’t love him?”
“For safety,”
“Safety?”
Catherine found this a very alarming word.
“What do you mean? Is there … was there anyone else, do you think? Has she had a disappointment?”
“I never heard of anyone. But I’m sure she’s had some kind of shock that’s shaken her nerve.”
“I wonder,” said Catherine thoughtfully, “what I ought to do.”
“Do?”
“I can’t think you’re right.”
“But you do think it. You’ve thought it ever since …”
“She’s so anxious for the marriage. Why should she be in such a hurry if …”
Charlotte said nothing, and Catherine dismissed from her mind the memory of other young women she had known who had married men they did not love in a hurry.
“I wish,” she said nervously, “that one knew more of the people she’s been seeing this spring. William was not a good chaperon.” And in a final burst of foreboding she added: “I do hope all this is being quite fair to poor Philip.”
“He’s old enough to look after himself,” said Charlotte. “He must know he’s taking some risks, marrying a Crowne.”
“Risks?” said Catherine. “Risks?”
But Charlotte would say no more. She regretted the moment of bitterness in which she had spoken her thoughts. She had been exasperated by the life of small, decently-veiled bickerings which she was forced to lead, but she wished with all her heart that she had held her tongue. Such confidences were dangerous.
And Catherine, nursing her fears in solitude, grew more uneasy every day. It seemed to her that something was really very much amiss with this marriage, although, for once, she was able to manage the whole affair in her own way. The complete absence of any argument or opposition was a disappointment to her. It was almost dull. She had no occasion to be masterly or tactful. Nobody consulted her, or disagreed with her. Emily, with a baffling indifference, assented to everything, stood passively, like a doll, to be fitted for clothes of Catherine’s choosing, and wrote dreary little notes of thanks for her presents. Trevor and Charlotte were tiresome, and said that weddings were vulgar, but they offered no interference. And William never came down to Water Hythe at all. He sent to his sister a beautiful present, an Aubusson carpet, and a telegram to say that he would be writing, but that was all that was ever heard of him. Nobody knew whether he was still in London or had gone abroad. It was all very odd. Catherine had to fall back upon the formula that young people did not seem to care for weddings as they used.
It was with a heavy heart that she sat alone, on the eve of the marriage, making the bridal wreath without any tiresome disputes with the younger generation. Nobody interrupted her except Lise, who came with a diffident offer of help. And she disliked Lise too much for any confidences.
“I just wondered, Catherine, if we could send over any flowers. We have masses of syringa.”
“Too kind,” murmured Catherine. “But I’m keeping the church decorations just to clematis and honeysuckle. I detest the bedizened look so many churches have at weddings. And we don’t care for orange-blossom: mock or otherwise.” Lise saw that it had been a mistake to offer flowers from Monk’s Hall. She indicated a vague, amused good-will.
“Well… anything that we can do. I’m sure I hope Emily is grateful for all the trouble you are taking.”
“Grateful!” Catherine gave a short laugh. “One doesn’t expect that, does one? Well, Charlotte? What is it?”
Charlotte had poked her head round the door. She made a slight grimace when she saw all the litter of greenery and myrtle sprigs.
“Jane wants to know how many for dinner,” she said.
Catherine considered.
“Seven. Better say eight, in case William turns up. He might come by that train the Brandon Crownes come by.”
“Mr. Cuffe’s coming,” volunteered Charlotte. “He’s coming over from Oxford this evening to look at Monk’s Hall, and I believe Trevor asked him to stay to dinner.”
Catherine would make no comment on this in the presence of Lise. And Charlotte, flushing a little, came to the point.
“Mother, can I speak to you for a minute?”
Catherine shook the flowers out of her apron, excused erself to Lise, and went with Charlotte into the dining-room.
“Well? What is it?”
“Emily says she won’t,” said Charlotte solemnly.
“What?”
“She won’t get married.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Catherine quickly. “Girls often say that. Where is she?”
“Up in her room.”
“Tell her to stay there. I’ll have dinner sent up to her. I’ll see her presently.”
Catherine’s spirits were rising. She was able to tell herself, a little triumphantly, that she had half expected something like this.
“Then it’ll be seven for dinner? What about Mr. Cuffe?”
“He won’t be having dinner here. Send Trevor to me at once.”
Trevor was, as it happened, hanging about in the hall, prepared for battle. He had been waiting all day for this explosion, and he was in no mind to listen to Charlotte, who recommended compromise.
“Do remember that it’s her house,” she pleaded. “I don’t think, knowing how she feels, that you ought to have invited him.”
“If she insults him, she’ll regret it. She’s got to understand that she can’t bully me. That’s what it is. It’s bullying. She likes to keep us dependent because it gives her power.”
“It isn’t even as if you liked him much.”
“No, but it’s a precedent. If he comes to Monk’s Hall this autumn, she must learn either to put up with him and Sally, or do without me. You ought to back me up in this, Car. You get no sort of life of your own, simply because you won’t fight her. If we’re firm now …”
“It’s not a good moment for fighting. She’s worried with the wedding. Emily says she won’t go through with it.”
“Does she? By Jove! That’s interesting. Why?”
Charlotte shrugged her shoulders.
“Has Siegmund turned up?”
“Who?”
“William.”
“Why do you call him that?”
“Don’t you think it’s a good name, Car?”
“No, I don’t. If I hear you making that sort of joke again, Trevor, I … I’m through with you. I’ll never come to Monk’s Hall … I won’t back you up over this Cuffe business …”
“Oh, keep cool. I don’t make jokes like that to anybody but you.”
And he went off to his mother, feeling a great deal less brave than he looked.
She was quite resolute, having also determined that this was a precedent. If once she gave way, she would be powerless: it was the thin end of the wedge, and she might never be able to assert her principles again. She began at once:
“I think you will admit, Trevor, that this house is mine. I have a right to choose my own guests.”
“And I my friends.”
“Certainly. But unless I approve of them they don’t come here. Mr. Cuffe is not the sort of person I have ever …”
“Why not? His morals are no worse than those of many people whom you have been perfectly ready to entertain. Do you mean to say you’ve never given dinner to a man who kept a mistress?”
“That has nothing to do with it. It’s no concern of mine what people may do in their private lives. I’m not as unworldly as you think, Trevor. I’m perfectly ready to ignore a great deal. But this Miss … Miss Whatever-you-call-her … one is expected, I understand, to receive her too.”
“You mean you have no objection to a man who keeps a dozen women and is ashamed of it, but an open relationship …”
“I don’t pretend to judge. But I simply don’t ask people of that class to my house.”
“You asked Lise, before she married Bobbie.”
“That was for your uncle’s sake.”
“Well, if you waive your principles for his sake, can’t you for mine?”
“I’m not certain, I can never be certain, if I did right then. I’ve often regretted it. If one gives way in a case of that sort … Good heavens!” She stared out of the window “What is that coming up the drive? Is it gipsies?”
Trevor looked, and saw a large yellow caravan.
“Up to the very house! What impertinence! Go out, dear, and warn them off.”
“It’s raining,” said Trevor, peevishly.
Catherine pursed her lips.
“Very well,” she said. “I suppose I’ll have to go myself.”
“There’s a car coming too,” said Trevor, leaning out of the window. “I believe it’s Nigel’s car. Am I to warn him off, along with the gipsies? I say! I know them! Look! Lord bless us! It’s the Hackbutts. William’s friends. What a day for them to turn up! I’d heard they were coming to camp hereabouts until Monk’s Hall was ready for them.”
Catherine could say nothing: she could only stand at the window and stare at the invading forces drawn up in front of her house. She saw Trevor go out and bid them welcome. He helped Nigel Cuffe to extract from the car a bunchy little female who must be the unspeakable Miss Whatever-her-name-was. A vast horde of little Hackbutts, all about three years old, were tumbling out of the caravan, and a bedizened woman, with a yellow handkerchief over her head, was climbing off the driving-seat. They were greeting Mr. Cuffe: it was evident that they all knew one another. The drive looked like Hampstead Heath on a Bank Holiday.
Her last defences were down and the rabble was upon her. She had no hope, seeing them, that the Monk’s Hall scheme would fall through. Having come, they would never go away. Like some rank, persistent weed, they would over-run the neighbourhood. Nothing would be safe from them. They would take possession of her old home—the house where she had been born, and where she had led the safe, ordered life which seemed to her the right sort of life. At her and her principles they would snap their fingers. It was nothing to them that she was the widow of Charles Frobisher, and that a lost generation had paid deference to her. They sneered at Frobisher.
She made no distinctions among them. For all she knew, the Hackbutts might be as improper as the other two. They certainly looked very unpresentable, and the enormous number of their children did them no credit. A fierce, helpless resentment was all that she could feel in contemplating any of them, a hatred of their indecorum, their want of order and purpose, their detestable, strident complacency. But on one point she was resolute: they should never enjoy the hospitality of Water Hythe. Monk’s Hall was enough. They might live there, bang doors, sprawl, swear, wrangle and scatter cigarette-ash. Cuffe and his Sally might invade her mother’s bedroom. But into her own citadel, the shrine of a decent and orderly past, they should not come.
Her elderly parlourmaid appeared, with a very bleak look on her face.
“If you please, madam, Miss Charlotte says is there any more to dinner?”
“No, Louisa. No more.”
“And Mr. Luttrell is here, madam. He’s at the garden door. He’s on his way to Ratchet, but he just stopped to ask if there was any chance of his seeing Miss Emily.”
Catherine remembered, with increased irritation, the obdurate bride upstairs.
“I’m afraid he can’t,” she said. “Miss Emily is tired and I’m sending her to bed early.”
She set off to deal with her niece. As she climbed the stairs a great clamour in the hall told her that the invaders had got into the house. She supposed that they were sneering at her pictures. Her patience, as she gained the attic floor, was wearing very thin.
Emily sat on the little bed in which she had slept for the greater part of her life. She had begun to dress for dinner and she was still in her petticoat, with her fair hair loose over her shoulders. She crouched, her arms about her knees, staring in front of her. To all the exhortations of Charlotte she offered a mute obstinacy of regard. On the floor a heap of childish possessions lay all tumbled together. The new trousseau was already packed and locked away in boxes labelled for the Swiss hotel where the honeymoon was to be spent, and these were just old treasures which must be sorted and sent across direct to Ratchet.
“If you’d help her to pack instead of talking so much,” said Catherine to Charlotte, “you might be of more use.”
“She’s not even sorted out what she wants to keep,” explained Charlotte.
“There’s no need,” observed Emily. “I’ve made up my mind not to get married at all.”
“That’s nonsense.”
Catherine began briskly to sort out the heap on the floor.
“A good deal can go to the jumble sale, I should think. You can’t want, for instance, to keep this china jug?”
“William gave it to me.”
“Oh, well … but this half-finished bit of knitting …”
“Really, it’s of no use, Aunt Catherine. I’ve changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“Because, when I started to go through these things, I got afraid. I don’t want to change.”
“Change?”
“They reminded me of when I was a different person,” explained Emily. “I admired that jug once. I don’t now. Well, I don’t want to change any more. I think I’ll be a nun.” Charlotte took this up.
“We all change, whether we marry or not. We can’t help it. But sometimes we get nicer.”
“I know. But I shan’t get nicer. I’ve had the happiest time in my life. I’ll never be so happy again as I was this winter. If I marry, perhaps I shall leave off being sorry. I don’t want to leave off. It’s … it’s like being disloyal.”
“It does seem like disloyalty to recover from things,” agreed Charlotte. “But everybody does it.”
“I don’t mean to.”
Catherine scarcely listened to this passage; she had been pondering upon her niece’s first statement about change.
“I think I understand,” she said gently. “Charlotte, you can go downstairs.”
“You don’t understand, mother. It’s not what you think.”
Charlotte was banished with a look, and she went off, cursing herself for the unguarded moment when she had put ideas into her mother’s head. She knew that words like change and safety meant one thing to Catherine and another to Emily, and she felt sure that they would come to grief on these rocks of words. To the older woman there was still a possibility of safety in concrete things. She thought of it in terms of fire-escapes and razors and sound investments. But for Emily it stood for something infinitely more elusive: self-confidence and the integrity of her own judgment meant everything. She could trust to nothing else. She had seen the reckless dissipation of millions, the bankruptcy of nations, and the collapse of all civilised society. She knew that man, when he has constructed a perfectly safe ship, will never rest until he has invented a torpedo to destroy it. And this knowledge had impressed itself upon her dawning intelligence, not as an immense accident, but as a natural condition of life. She accepted it, not as a disaster, but as a commonplace. For safety she turned to the hard, scornful self-reliance that is the shield of her generation.
“My dear,” said Catherine, when Charlotte had gone, “you mustn’t upset yourself. This is nothing so very dreadful. I know how you feel. Girls often feel a little nervous at the idea of getting married. I did myself.”
“Did you?” asked Emily, gaping.
“It isn’t anything so very dreadful. All … all that … is really so very unimportant. You’ll find …”
“All what?”
“The … the physical part …” began Catherine bravely.
“Oh, that!” Emily looked contemptuous. “I don’t worry about that. What do our bodies matter, anyway? They’re only worms’ meat.”
Catherine was shocked to the marrow by this speech. Apparently there was no limit to the disagreeable ideas which these young people could entertain. That a girl on her marriage-eve should talk so was almost depraved. She cried:
“Then what on earth is the matter with you? Have you thought of Philip at all? Why did you accept him if …”
“I didn’t. He accepted me.”
“He accepted … Do you mean that you asked him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to be safe,” said Emily sulkily.
“Safe?”
Catherine thought of Charlotte’s suggestion that this marriage had been an escape. And then she thought of the licentious crew downstairs who were some of them Emily’s friends.
“Safe! Were you in danger?”
“I can’t tell you about it,” said Emily.
“Had you any reason,” demanded Catherine, “for … for getting married so quickly?”
“Yes. The same reason for getting married at all.”
“Philip … does he know of all this?”
“Oh, yes. I explained it all to him.”
This was, at least, a relief. But Catherine scarcely knew what to make of it all, and she shrank from asking further questions. She preferred not to hear any more. If Philip, knowing the circumstances, was willing to marry the girl, he had much better do so. Of that she was very sure, nor did she like to imagine the consequences, the terrible predicaments which might arise if the marriage was broken off.
“I’m afraid, my dear,” she said, “that you must marry him. You can’t get out of it now; the thing has gone on too far”
“No, no …”
“What do you propose to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you go back to London?”
Emily shivered.
“For you won’t stay here, you know.”
“Oh, Aunt Catherine!”
“Not for a moment could I countenance such behaviour. Either you marry Philip to-morrow, or you leave my house. Think of the scandal! The publicity … if you break it off now!”
Emily grew very pale. This had evidently frightened her.
“You know what people will say? It will simply be regarded as another effort, on your part, to make yourself conspicuous. Of course, if you want that …”
“Another Crowne show!” muttered Emily.
“Exactly. Another Crowne show.”
“Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?”
The dinner-bell, clanging in the house, below, reminded Catherine that the enemy was still on the premises. She must lose no time in clearing them out. But she was undaunted. She liked having to fight two battles at once. She turned to go, saying very firmly:
“I’ll leave you now to think it over. Your dinner will be sent up to you. And remember that it’s not a bad thing to ask yourself where your duty lies. Perhaps you have always allowed yourself to be governed a little too much by inclination. If you have given your word to Philip, you will dishonour us all by breaking your promise.”
“I wish I could see him,” said Emily mournfully.
But Catherine held out no hopes of this. She saw that it would be more easy to frighten Emily than to persuade her. Repeating her injunction as to unselfish reflection, she hurried downstairs.
They were all assembled in the hall, and her coming put an end to their jovial chatter. She was like a cold north wind blowing into the house. With an air of faint bewilderment she submitted to an introduction to the Hackbutts, as if wondering why they should be there. She was quite civil to them, and apologised for the absence of William; and they, being simple people unversed in the finer shades of manner, were at first unable to locate the sudden fall of the social temperature. Their heartiness had subsided a good deal before she had done with them.
Trevor, with an attempt at bravado, introduced Nigel Cuffe. And then it was the turn of Sally, who had been standing on one leg in the background. He remembered with horror that he ought not to have left her to the last.
“And this is Miss …”
He broke down. For the life of him he could not recollect Sally’s surname. Perhaps he had never heard it.
“Miss Green,” said Cuffe, coming to the rescue.
“Oh, yes,” said Catherine, and turned her back on Sally.
“Mr. Yates,” said Trevor, introducing a very young man in a Fair Isle jumper.
Catherine gave her hand to Mr. Yates. And then she stood waiting politely for them to go. Trevor was forced to say:
“They’re all staying to dinner, mother. I knew we had enough food in the house, with all the wedding baked meats, so I took it upon myself to invite them.”
Catherine started, looked grave and murmured something about regret, and being sure that Mrs. Hackbutt would understand. But she did not endorse Trevor’s invitation.
“Indeed there are too many of us,” exclaimed Mrs. Hackbutt. “I told Trevor so. But menfolk don’t understand these things, do they, Mrs. Frobisher? We’ll all go out and get our own dinner in the van. I’m sure it would be an outrageous thing for you, with a wedding on your hands and all.”
“I’m afraid it is rather … I’m very sorry … If William … if I’d had more notice …”
“We shouldn’t have come!” cried Mrs. Hackbutt.
Catherine did not contradict her. She looked instead at Nigel Cuffe, and Trevor said immediately:
“You’ll stay, won’t you, Nigel?”
“Thanks,” said Nigel, who found it all very funny.
“I’m afraid,” said Catherine gently, “that I can’t do with any more guests to-night. Mr. Cuffe will understand.”
“Do you mind?” asked Trevor furiously of Nigel.
“Oh, not at all.” Nigel could scarcely conceal his mirth. “I think I understand. But where are we to get anything to eat? Sally’s hungry.”
“We’ll go over to Monk’s Hall,” said Trevor. “Lise will give us something.”
And when the invaders trooped out he went with them. He wanted the whole world to know that war had been declared again between Monk’s Hall and Water Hythe.
Emily’s wedding took place in the queer little old church which flanked the Water Hythe garden, so that there were no carriages or pushing crowds. The guests strolled across the lawn to the church in the most delightfully informal way. The sun shone all day, and if the bride had not been so very late it would have been a perfect wedding.
For Emily was such an unconscionable time dressing herself that many of the congregation, fidgeting in their pews, began audibly to wonder whether anything had gone wrong. Philip, stuck up for them all to gape at, suffered tortures. He grew more and more sure that she must have changed her mind, and that he would be jilted in public. He had spent a miserable, sleepless night, full of regret and anxiety. The thought of marriage depressed him infinitely. But now that he was at the altar, it was imperative that he should get married. If Emily did not turn up, his heart would break.
The church was so small that he was obliged to stand in the very midst of the congregation. He took no notice of anybody, having previously determined that it would look more dignified. He would try not to be a grinning bridegroom. But he was embarrassed by Lise and Trevor, in the front pew, who were doing their best to make him laugh.
“It’s a pity,” whispered Lise, in a hushed boom which could be heard in the vestry, “that the poor man can’t be veiled too. Or draped somehow. It would be so much easier for him, standing there, if he was covered up.”
One of the little Hackbutts demanded shrilly to know what the funny man was for.
“He’s waiting for a fairy princess,” whispered Mrs. Hackbutt dauntlessly. “You’ll see her in a minute.”
“But, mammy, why is the funny ma-an waitin’ for the lady?”
“Because she’s a little late, darling.”
“She is late!” boomed Lise. “I hope she hasn’t …”
“Not so very,” Trevor assured her. “They always are.”
“But, mammy, is that a fairy prince?”
The stifled explosions which greeted this question struck Philip as being in particularly bad taste. The village schoolmistress, at the harmonium, struck up a voluntary consisting of three common chords and a dominant seventh rhythmically repeated. It drowned the din a little, and he was glad of it. He knew now how it was that people managed to get themselves married. He had often wondered at the courage of his parishioners in thus undertaking obligations which they were so little likely to fulfil. He had heard froward scolds promising obedience, libertines and wantons promising fidelity, the brutal engaging to be tender, and destitute to provide a maintenance, without a whisper of incredulous protest from anybody. The overpowering silliness of their fellow-creatures provided them, for a time, with a protection against reality. Their own rashness lost significance when everybody around them was intent on being as foolish as possible. All these festive imbecilities were designed to nerve a man in taking an otherwise insupportable risk.
The windows of the chancel were made of clear, unstained glass, and Philip could see out across the lawn. The pigeons strutted and spread their tails there, on this day as on all other days that he could remember. They had been there before the Frobishers came to Water Hythe, when the place was a farmhouse and Monk’s Hall a Benedictine foundation. He thought of other weddings in that church, of the munching yokels in the hall kitchen, the heavy drinking, the broad jests, the flung stocking, the horseplay. The same folly was always there, but it had once been simpler, and more direct. He could see the garden door, open on the shady blackness of the hall, and the sun-baked warmth of the stone porch, where the house dogs lay snoring. Two maids in black dresses came out and hurried into the church. They had been helping to clothe the bride, and their coming was a sign that everything was nearly ready. The veil and the wreath were pinned. In other days it would have been their task to assist, later, in a hilarious undressing; in putting her jovially to bed. Society, having entrapped a bewildered pair into this coil, was at least good-natured enough to see them most of the way through it. But for Philip and Emily this support was to be withdrawn at a much earlier stage. They were to be left in petrifying solitude, in a foreign country, to finish the business as best they could by the light of their recaptured wisdom.
Catherine came out of the hall door, a little battered, but triumphant. Her wedding hat, plumed all the way round with small black ostrich feathers, sat rather askew on her head. She looked as though she had done a hard day’s work, and as she chattered to a grizzled Crowne relative, she fidgeted with the eternal eye-glasses in the lace of her bosom. The sight of her reminded Philip of something unpleasant which he had been trying all the morning to forget. He had had a shock, when dressing, at the number of grey hairs upon his own head. They seemed to have doubled in the night.
Charlotte, also emerging from the house, looked bouncing and ill at ease in a bridesmaid’s dress that did not suit her. And immediately afterwards came Bobbie with a bride upon his arm. They had muffled her up in so much drapery that she was scarcely recognisable as Emily. Her frozen panic was hidden beneath a veil, just as Philip’s melancholy was for the moment obscured by a buttonhole and a new suit. They were the chief figures in a public function, and that got them through it. They were married and found themselves standing side by side in front of old Canon Frobisher, who had done this to them, and who wished to say a very few words before they left the church.
“Now, when I see two young people just starting upon their Great Adventure, there is just one thing that I always want to say to them …”
For the first time, Philip caught the eye of his bride. There was a gleam in it. He thought:
“We shall laugh at this. After all, there may be a future … a way out. We may be sane some day.”
Small jokes, an infinite number of small approaches, might some day make them one. Nothing else could. For these things were life. He felt a little safer as they listened to Canon Frobisher, who told them that Roman Catholics called marriage a sacrament, which it was not, and yet in a sense it was, so that they must make allowances for one another.
They knelt for a blessing, and the congregation sang a hymn. In the little pauses between the verses, pigeons could be heard cooing on the roof, and the soft, sleepy murmur of them seemed to Philip like the voice of eternity. He remembered having heard that swans mate for life, and he wondered if this was true. He thought of the Swannery at Abbottsbury, and wondered if he would ever go there again. He thought that it was foolish to think so much and do so little. He thought that he was too old.
They had no Wedding March to help them out of church, because Catherine had justly decided that it would sound silly on the harmonium. So they walked soberly across to the Manor House and ate a meal with their friends. They smiled a great deal, were kissed, slapped on the back, rallied, jostled and put into a car. It took them away to London before the powerful anaesthetic of all these festivities had time to abate. They drove for the greater part of the way with the same fixed smiles on their faces, though there was no need for it. It was not until the western suburbs had begun to spring up round them that they gradually relaxed and began to take notice of their plight.
“How do you feel?” said Philip to Emily.
“Rather cold.”
He tucked the rug more closely round her.
“Do you like being married … Mrs. Luttrell?”
“Yes and no, to quote the Brontěs.”
“No? Why no?”
“It goes too fast.”
“It shall go,” said Philip, “as fast as we choose. I’ll tell it to go slower.”
He gave an order and the car slackened its pace. He, too, had the feeling that they were being whirled very fast, straight into the future. This car was taking them into time as well as into space, and it was rather terrifying.
Both of them, in the depths of their hearts, heard a frightened voice whispering:
“And what is going to happen next?”
Philip, braving the future, took her hand. But she shrank away, with the plea that the driver could see them in the windscreen. His anxiety took a menacing step towards him. Until that moment it had been overshadowed by regret. All night, in his soul, he had lamented the necessity of marrying Emily. When his, she would inevitably lose her magic, as the spring ripens into summer. The idea of her would no longer have power to enchant him, and he knew this because he was too old for her. No young man could know a tenth part of this passion of his which shrank from possession.
But it signified, now, very little what he had thought or what he had felt, since it was all to come to the same commonplace conclusion. The emotions are many and complex, but they lead us to few and simple ends. His relation to Emily, beautiful and rare though it had been, was now the prelude to the ordinary domestic activities of marriage and procreation. Nor was this well-trodden path to be easy before them. It was, on the contrary, full of pitfalls. She was not yet won. He had scarcely begun his wooing. A thousand responsibilities overwhelmed his imagination. It came into his head that she might not, after all, change so very much, but live with him, invincibly cold, a hostile stranger in his house. This idea was so definitely frightening that he fled from it into a survey of the foolish, confused day stretching away behind them. He asked suddenly:
“Who were all those odd people in church?”
“What people?”
“A lot of rather dirty children I never saw before.”
“Oh, the Hackbutts.”
“Oh, were those the Hackbutts?”
“Yes. They’re camping in the park till they can move into Monk’s Hall. Of course they expected to find William.”
“It was a thousand pities that he never came.”
“I don’t know. I was quite glad he wasn’t there. It was all so silly and muddled.”
He had an impression that she did not like to think about William.
“But, Emily,” he said, “it’s not serious, this Monk’s Hall idea, is it?”
“Serious?”
“He doesn’t really mean to start a Communist Settlement?”
“Well … not exactly. It’s an experiment. You see, Philip, all modern life is much too complex.”
“I agree.”
“The only hope of the creative artist,” said Emily very glibly, “is to have a little world of his own, something smaller and simpler, where he has more control over all the conditions of his life. At Monk’s Hall they are to be almost self-supporting, you know. They are going to do their own gardening and keep cows and bees and things. And they are going, in time, to do their own spinning and weaving. Peter Yates is going to make all the furniture and the earthenware. It will all give a sort of unity to existence, which the creative artist must have if …”
“Stop quoting Trevor, darling, and say it in your own words, if you can.”
“I can’t,” she confessed. “In my own words I should say that I think it all very silly. But I wouldn’t say that to anybody but you, because it would be rather disloyal to the others. I’m sure they won’t write any better for living at Monk’s Hall and wearing homespuns.”
“I can’t think that any of them really believe in it.”
“No. I’m sure they don’t. But it happens to suit them all. Trevor has got to live somewhere, and he loves managing things. It’s convenient for Bobbie and Lise and Peter and the Hackbutts. And Charlotte will have a better time there than at home. As for Nigel—Sally has persuaded him to come. She’s so lonely in London. She has no real friends.”
“It may be convenient for them all. But why all this talk about creative art? Of course, I’m a plain man …”
Emily giggled.
“Oh … oh! don’t say that. You aren’t a plain man.”
“Yes, I am. A very plain man.”
“Don’t boast.”
“Is that boasting?”
“Yes, it is. It means that you think yourself more sensible than Trevor.”
“Does it? Well, perhaps it does. And I am. Much more sensible.”
“I think so, too. But please don’t call yourself a plain man, or I shall have to laugh.”
“And I shan’t mind a little bit. I like it when you laugh, Emily. You don’t do it quite often enough.”
They were getting on very well. He could almost imagine that it might be possible to steer this course without disaster He thought with a new warmth of pleasure of his house at Ratchet, all newly painted and ready for lovely young Emily. She would make her home there and learn to laugh at him, with him, lured by laughter into intimacy. And then again he fell into doubt. The abyss was not to be bridged as easily as that.
They had got, by now, into London and were part of the traffic in its streets. They dodged among the trams in Hammersmith Broadway, in the sun and dust of the summer evening, and took that road which William and Emily had travelled so often in the early mornings. She saw, like a little picture, that queer London life of theirs, very remote and exquisite and unreal. It was over, and had the timeless quality of all past things. Because it had seemed eternal then, she felt as though it must still be going on somewhere. Inevitably they drew up at last before the hotel where they were to spend the night. Upstairs in their room, all the new luggage was piled up at the foot of a large double bed with brass knobs and a black-and-gold eiderdown. The hotel porters went stumping away down the corridor, and the sense of motion was succeeded by a blank, dismaying pause.
Philip came out of the adjoining dressing-room and looked glumly at the impersonal cheerfulness of their surroundings.
“I ought to have got some flowers,” he said. “Fool that I was not to have arranged it.”
“We can go out now and buy some.”
“Emily! Can I kiss you?”
“If you like.”
As he kissed her he would have given his last penny to be fifteen years younger and less uncompromisingly aware of the difficulties before him.
“Poor Philip!”
“Why poor Philip? I’m happy. Aren’t you?”
“I don’t think I want to be happy,” she said, frowning. “It’s a little smug.”
“Because you’re young, you think that.”
“Did you ever think it, ever?”
“Once, perhaps, I did.”
“When did you stop?”
“I can’t remember now.”
“How odd!”
“Do I look smug?”
“No. But then you’re not really happy.”
“Oh, Emily!”
“But are you?”
“I’m going to be.”
“So am I. We’ll both be happy and smug together.”
She caught him to her heart with a new warmth, comforting him as a mother comforts, full of pity for his forlornness. And then she told him to let her unpack before they went out to buy flowers. Obediently he took himself off, leaving her alone in this strange place. She thought:
“Oh, dear! What is going to happen next?”
Of course she must go on with it. A failure in resolution could never be permitted; it was too late now. She should, perhaps, have been firmer last night. But she had let them persuade her, and she must try to be very good to Philip.
Opening the window, she leant out of it, her elbows on the ledge. Far down below her an endless stream of traffic flowed in two rivers along the street, and people, like ants, hurried and jostled on the pavement. It was odd to think that each one of them had a destination and a name of his own. Each one was as real as herself.
But then, she did not feel very real. She was Emily Crowne. She was Emily Luttrell, a virgin, a bride, hanging for a moment between two lives, above the sunshine of this busy street. Soon she would be gone, like an image seen for a moment in a mirror, swallowed in the vast, uncomprehending abysses of time. She flew to her unpacking with a little gasp of fright.
In the tray of her box was the dress which she was to wear that night. Catherine had chosen it for her, and it was all soft and silvery, like moonlight. Silver shoes and stockings lay beneath it and a grey velvet cloak. Under a layer of tissue-paper she came upon fine silken underclothing. She put all the things out on the bed, but she did not want to wear them, for they were not hers. They belonged to the woman who would replace her—to Emily Luttrell. She began to search through her trunk for something that she had worn before. But everything was new. A faint spasm of terror shot through her. It had begun.
The strangeness of her dressing-case was even more appalling. She pulled out brushes, combs and bottles. Nothing looked familiar. Nothing of her own was left. Panic invaded her; she grew frantic, and called to Philip. He hurried in from the dressing-room, to find her standing, wild-eyed, among her fine, new possessions.
She was muttering:
“Oh, I can’t! I can’t!”
“You can’t what, my love?”
“Go on with this.”
“With your unpacking?”
“With being married.”
He had been waiting for this moment all day. But he made an effort and fought back his despair. He must be wise for both of them.
“What has made you change so suddenly?” he asked.
“It isn’t sudden. I’ve felt like this ever since last night. But I was weak. I let Aunt Catherine bully me.”
“Did you feel bad last night? So did I. I nearly jumped into the river. I didn’t want to be married a bit.”
This desperate move was a good one. Emily’s surprise mastered her terror.
“Philip! Didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Ask yourself if it was possible. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Isn’t it silly? We’ve let ourselves be trapped into it. We neither of us wanted it. What are we to do now?”
“We can do whatever we please as long as we keep our heads and don’t get panicky. Let’s talk it over quietly.”
“Not here! Not here!”
“Certainly not here, if you don’t like it.”
He spoke so calmly that she was reassured. And he put on her hat and took her out at once, hoping that a change of scene might steady her nerves. Out in the street they became part of the throng of human ants, who ran about and were so greatly concerned about nothing at all. They strolled on aimlessly for a little way, and Philip suggested that they might dine somewhere in Soho, so as to postpone their return to the hotel.
He was just a little elated at his own cleverness, and she detected the complacency in his tone. Stealing a secret look at him, she saw that he was smiling. The smile enraged her. She knew that she was still in a trap. She said nothing, but she became dark and subtle like a slave, or like an animal that has known for a long time the mastery of man. She plotted an escape, and when they passed a flower-shop, she said suddenly:
“Aren’t you going to get me some of these?”
Philip was delighted. He said that he would get her some at once. He hurried into the shop, and left her outside because she complained of the heat. The moment he was gone she took to her heels. A taxi turned the corner of the street, and she jumped into it, trying at the same time to pull off her wedding-ring. But her finger had swelled with the heat and she could not get it off.
Philip came out of the shop two minutes later, red, grizzled and beaming, with a bushel of roses in his arms. He could not find her.
She forgot that she had no latchkey until she found herself actually standing upon the doorstep. And a qualm of uneasiness assailed her lest there should be nobody at home. For if William was away and the charwoman was out, there would be nobody to let her in. She rang the bell hastily and heard its faint tinkle die away in the basement. Nothing stirred.
Peeping through the slit of the letter-box, she could see the empty hall and the stairs winding away up into sunlight. On the half-landing a bowl of roses stood on a little table in front of a window; they looked fresh and she concluded that William must be at home, for the charwoman would never go putting flowers about. The smell of the hall, the polish that Mattie used for the floor and a whiff of cedar from the old chest, was wafted out to her through the letter-box, and she grew quite faint with her longing to get in. This time she thumped with the knocker, in case they were upstairs. It made a shocking noise, up and down the empty sunlit square. But when its echo had ceased a watchful silence settled down once more upon the house.
She could not be absolutely certain that nobody inside was listening. It almost seemed as though she could hear distant steps. Standing back, on the pavement, she scanned the windows. They had a secret look, though they were still hung with curtains of her choosing. Her door, with its bright knocker, remained mutely shut. Again she listened at the letter-box, and again she thought she could hear light footsteps moving about somewhere upstairs. But perhaps it was the beating of her own heart.
The sudden clamour of a dog-fight, across the road, made her start violently. And then her eyes filled with tears. She was so tired, and she was shut out of her own home. Soon it would be night. The long sunbeams were losing their power and half the Square was in shadow. She longed to be at rest.
At last she went down to the basement and tried the kitchen door, but of course it was locked. Peering through the kitchen window, she saw Mattie’s rocking-chair and the old nursery rag rug, and all the Delft ware on the dresser shelves. The window was not latched, and with a good deal of tugging she managed to get it down. Two minutes later she was inside.
The dogs in the Square were still yelping and scuffling, but the kitchen was as silent as a tomb, its quietness measured for it by the loud clock that ticked on the mantelpiece. Everything was unchanged, but it seemed to be waiting for something to happen. She sped up the dark little stairs into the hall, and cried for joy when she saw a letter on the mat addressed to Miss Emily Crowne. It was only a circular, but she was reassured to know that Emily Crowne could still receive letters. Her spirits bounded upwards, as she flew from room to room.
There was no sign of William in the drawing-room, but the place had a used look, as though people had been there lately. Some of the cushions were tumbled and there was cigarette-ash in the fireplace.
“He’s been here,” she thought, “since Mrs. Masters dusted. But why … why didn’t he come to my wedding? What a fool I’ve been all this time! What’s the matter with me? Oh! What was that?”
It could not, this time, be her heart. It was too loud. Unmistakably it was someone walking about upstairs. She had been half certain already that the house was not empty. She ran out on to the landing and called:
“Mrs. Masters! Mrs. Masters! Is that you? William?”
The footsteps stopped, but nobody answered.
“Who is that?” she called again, a little uncertainly.
Of course it was Mrs. Masters, and, really, the old woman was getting to be very deaf. Emily began to run upstairs again, but grew so tired half-way that she had to take the last few steps at a walk. The landing was high and hot and bright. Sunshine had poured in all day, through the skylight. Its untempered light now fell upon an object which brought Emily to a standstill: a wardrobe trunk, very new, very expensive, such as continental ladies keep in the corridors of hotels. It looked horrid in the bare brightness of the landing, and she stared at it in doubt and dismay. She could not believe that it belonged to William.
Inside her own room she could hear the rustling of tissue-paper and a little cough. She found herself calling again, very nervously: “Who is there? Mrs. Masters?”
Steps crossed the room and the door opened. A strange voice said: “Mrs. Masters is not here, Mrs. Luttrell.”
“Who … who is that?”
“Everybody is out. William is out.”
“Mrs. Van Tuyl!”
Emily could only say that.
Tilli came out a little way on to the landing. She wore a wonderful green dressing-gown all covered with gold dragons, and the room behind her was full of boxes and tissue-paper and half-unpacked clothes.
“I was so sorry,” she began, in tones of civil indifference. “When you first rang the bell, I heard, but nobody was in. I saw from the window that it was you: I looked because I was afraid that it might be William. He forgets his key sometimes. And what could I do? I would have come down to the door myself, but you see I …” She laughed a little. “I am not dressed.”
“I never knew you were here,” said Emily at last.
“Not?” Tilli’s eyebrows went up. “But you have had William’s letter? No? Ah, the villain! I see it all! He has forgotten to post it.”
“I’ve had no letter. What letter?”
“Come in. I will tell you.”
She waved Emily on into the bedroom. The place was stifling. The windows had been shut all day. Strange odours fought with each other, scents, powders, a whiff of petrol from a heap of much-cleaned gloves, and that pervading, subtle smell of femininity which attaches itself to some women. Emily stood there like a stranger. In her day the wind had always blown in through the open window.
A heap of clothes covered the bed; more of them were piled on chairs, spilled out of boxes and half-open drawers. For the most part they were underclothes, new and very fine, for Tilli had been buying up the town. The lacquered dressing-table was crowded with little boxes and bottles and curling-tongs, while powder lay thick over everything. The four angels on the posts of Emily’s bed looked down with a mild surprise at all this worldliness.
“I must explain,” began Tilli again. “I am afraid you will think it very strange. I am so sorry that William has not posted this letter. It is very careless of him. We have been married now for three days.”
“Married!”
“William wished that you should know. And when you did not answer his letter, he thought you were perhaps angry. He asked that he might bring me to the wedding to-day, but when he heard nothing from you, he thought you might not wish it. Now it is more than a week that he has written.”
“Married! You’re married?”
“But yes. That surprises you? It is also a surprise to me. Everything has been done in such a hurry. But you must sit down. You are faint. It is the hot day. Let me give you a little cognac. I have some here.”
She pushed Emily on to a chair.
“Could you … might the window be opened a little?” Emily managed to say.
“I will open it. You must lie down. You are tired.”
Clothes were flung off the bed, and Emily was stretched there between the four golden angels. She lay quite motionless, looking almost dead. Tilli, to give her time, went over and began to fidget with things on the dressing-table.
The wind fluttered the flowered curtains, and the quietness of the evening stole into the room. Hardly any noises from the street disturbed them: the roar of traffic was like a very distant sea. Emily stared at the sky, which was all that could be seen from the bed, and saw how it grew clear and gold with the late sun. The day had been very long. She remembered how the dawn had found her sobbing in her room at Water Hythe.
At last she turned her head away from the window and looked into the room. It seemed quite dark, after the brightness outside, but in the glass over the dressing-table she caught the black sparkle of Tilli’s scrutiny. The little woman had been sitting with her back to the bed, peering into the glass at the reflection of the tumbled pillows and the long pale young creature lying between the four angels.
“Ciel! but how she is like William!” thought Tilli. “In bed he also looks so long.”
When she saw that Emily had moved, she got up at once and came across to the bed.
“You feel better now?”
“Yes, thank you”
“I am so sorry. You are énervée. I can see that it has been a shock. You will understand that we wished this marriage to be secret. I have a horror of publicity. It was, of course, necessary to write to you, but … William will be so happy to know that you have not got his letter. He thought that you were angry.”
“Why should I be angry?” said Emily. “I have got married myself.”
Tilli smiled, a little maliciously.
“It is not for getting married that he asks forgiveness,” she said, “but because he has not told you before.”
“I’m sure,” said Emily simply, “that it was your wish.”
She intended no attack; she was much too stunned to speak with any purpose. And Tilli, after a quiet look at her, agreed:
“But yes. Perhaps. I did not wish it to be known.”
She had wished to keep her marriage secret, especially from Emily, until it had become irrevocable. In this sister of William’s she recognised the one influence which was likely to be stronger than her own. But she could not have staged their first encounter better.
“How are you feeling?” she enquired politely.
Emily rallied her powers and sat up. She was beginning to comprehend, dimly, the menace and importance of this queer little woman. It was as though some victory were being gained over herself and William for every moment that she lay weakly there.
“I’m better,” she said
Tilli looked into her face and then at the ring on her hand.
“You also are married?”
“To-day.”
“And you have come here … to fetch something, perhaps? Some book or dress? Can I help you?”
“No.”
The front door banged loudly and someone was heard pounding up the stairs. Tilli smiled.
“That is William,” she told Emily. “You will excuse me?”
She tripped downstairs to meet him, and Emily heard her replying to his call:
“Here, beloved! Here I am!”
The drawing-room door closed on them.
William was in very good spirits: he had for the moment forgotten his depression over Emily’s silence.
“Oh, Tilli,” he cried, “what do you think? I’ve sold the house. And, listen! I’ve heard of a villa near Syracuse, going quite cheap. Don’t you think it would be rather fun to spend the winter in Syracuse?”
“No,” said Tilli. “I wish to live at Monk’s Hall.”
William made a face.
“You don’t, really? We’d never get a moment to ourselves. The place is full of mouldiwarps … Cuffes and Hackbutts …”
“That is not necessary. It is your house.”
“I can’t turn ’em out now,” he said, shaking his head.
“All the same,” she persisted, “I wish to live there.”
“I can’t think why. You’ve never seen it. It’s ugly. When you have all the beautiful places in the world to choose from …”
“Why, then, did you buy it?”
“Trevor …”
“Ah! I forgot. You have done it to please Trevor!”
She was determined never to go on her travels again, and she had coveted Monk’s Hall ever since the first time she heard of it. Even an account of its ugliness had caught at her fancy, for she liked permanence, and the most durable things have a way of being ugly. It was a symbol to her of the advantages which this marriage had brought to her. She had quenched her passion for Trevor and married William chiefly because William owned Monk’s Hall and Trevor did not. She would call herself a fool for ever if, after all, Trevor was to be left in possession of the place. He must be sent packing, and the Hackbutts with him. If she had once established herself as mistress there, they would go away; and, if she was clever, William would believe that they had gone of their own accord.
“I have been to Syracuse,” she said. “I do not like it.”
“Then let’s go to China. I don’t mind where, as long as I’m out of England and alone with you.”
“I know … I know,” she murmured. “For the honeymoon let us go. But afterwards, I think we shall live in England.”
Since every month was an advantage to Trevor at Monk’s Hall, she wanted the honeymoon to be short.
“I don’t see,” said William, “why our honeymoon should ever stop.”
“Don’t you?”
He had pulled her down on to the sofa beside him, and they very soon abandoned all show of argument. For he still felt a little dizzy, when he had got her quite close to him. It was as though he led two lives, and each life was like a dream to the other. The domination of Tilli and her world had grown upon him so rapidly that all his other life, his work, his friends, his freedom, seemed to have lost value and conviction. They could never recapture him for long; for his touch on these realities had always been a little uncertain. He saw them through a fog of dreams.
She was like a new country, a vast region of experience, entirely sensual, revealed to the young man for the first time. As a person, an individual, she was difficult to apprehend; he scarcely thought of her save in a confusion of images. He found her mysterious, and wonderful and disturbing, because she had soft breasts and eyes which drowned him. These things were sublimely exciting because they were discoveries. But he could not fit them into any existence that he had already known, and he imagined that their life together might acquire more coherence if they went away to some new place like China.
To Tilli these transports were incredible. She had always known that the English are an extraordinary race, but she could not have believed that, in any country, a young man of so much vigour and charm should have spent his youth to so little effect, His inexperience surprised her into something very like resentment, for she felt that her sex had been slighted. If she could have believed that other women had preceded her, she might have despised him less.
But she liked him well enough. As a husband, he was a great deal better than Van Tuyl. He was generous and considerate and easy to please. She lay in his arms and thought of that detestable little flat whence she had fled and how lonely and poor she had been, and how lucky she was to have made so good an escape. The image of Trevor was still like a bruise on her heart, but her new prosperity might do much to cure it. And then she wondered what was to be done with Emily upstairs. William was saying:
“And all your lovely new clothes? Have they come? Let’s go up and look at them. Let’s try them all on.”
“They are nothing … a few chemises. My clothes I will buy in Paris, not here.”
“But I want to see them. Let’s go and …”
“In a moment. Kiss me.”
The telephone rang, and William swore.
“No. Don’t take any notice. Let it ring.”
But it takes a good deal of fortitude to ignore a telephone. It goes on. At length, conquered, he took up the receiver.
“Yes?” he said crossly. “Yes? William speaking … Who? … Oh, hullo, Philip! Are you married yet? Oh? … this morning? … Where are you speaking from? … No! … She’s not here. Why should she … Isn’t she with you?”
“She’s left me,” squeaked the telephone.
“What? What? When?”
“About an hour ago. I thought she might have come to you.”
“Well, she’s not here.”
“She is here,” said Tilli.
“What? Here, I say, hold on a minute!” He covered the receiver with his hand. “What’s that, Tilli?”
“Your sister is here.”
“Emily? Where?”
“Upstairs.”
“In her room? Why didn’t you tell me?”
He flung down the receiver.
“In my room,” said Tilli.
But he was gone. She took the receiver and resumed the conversation with Philip.
“Are you there, Mr. Luttrell? It is Mrs. Van Tuyl speaking. Will you come here? Your wife is here and she is not very well. Perhaps you would come and take her away.”
“I’ll come in a quarter of an hour,” said the voice.
Tilli hung up the receiver and followed William upstairs.
He had rushed up without an instant’s reflection to the room above, where his sister still lay upon the bed. When he saw her stretched pale and still between the four golden angels, on the bed that he had given her which was now his own marriage-bed, he was filled with a violent, unreasoning remorse. It was as though he had done some great injury to Emily. He fell on his knees beside her and cried:
“Oh, forgive me!”
“It wasn’t your fault,” said Emily drearily “The letter missed. I never got it.”
“Emmie? Are you ill? You aren’t going to die, are you?”
“Oh, no. It was the hot day.”
“But why … why … I didn’t know you were here. I didn’t know you were coming.”
“Oh, William! I … I came back.”
“To me? But aren’t you married?”
“Yes.”
“Then …”
“I … I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to be married.”
Tilli came in and stood apart, looking at them.
“She doesn’t want to be married,” announced William.
“Ah!” said Tilli.
“But I didn’t … I wouldn’t have come here disturbing you, if I’d known …” said Emily, sitting up.
“But my letter …”
“Your letter, beloved, never reached her,” put in Tilli.
“My letter?” William looked astonished.
“Perhaps it was lost in the post.”
“Let me remember.” He groped among the confused, exciting events of the past week. “Where did I write it? At your flat, wasn’t it? After we’d had a long arg … discussion whether I should or shouldn’t. And then …”
“You took it to the post,” suggested Tilli, “when you left me? I think it is still in your pocket.”
“But no, Tilli. You sent your maid with it.”
“Berthe,” said Tilli, “was a careless girl. I have sent her back to Belgium. Perhaps she forgot.”
William looked unhappy, and Emily, glancing from one to the other, saw very well how it was that the letter had never reached her. But it was of no consequence. The need to get away at once was the most important thing in the world. She got up, a little uncertainly, and went across to the dressing-table. William, in extreme distress, demanded:
“What’s to be done now?”
She did not answer him. She began to smooth her hair, occupied by nothing more relevant than a vague disgust at the sight of Tilli’s brush and comb. She was sick and tired. Tilli beckoned William outside on to the landing.
“The husband is coming,” she whispered.
“But what on earth do you think has happened?”
She shrugged her shoulders
“It seems that she has run away from him. Perhaps she is afraid. Perhaps he has been too … emporté.”
“I shouldn’t think it’s that, Tilli. I know Philip. He’s all right. Still, if she’s thought better of it, she shan’t go back to him. She shall stay in my house.”
“But, my dear William! Consider …”
“I never approved of the marriage myself. She’s much too good for him.”
“What folly! What folly!”
He was beginning to understand why Emily had run away. He thought of her again, as he had seen her, lying on Tilli’s bed. He thought of her, yielding herself to Philip as Tilli had yielded to him, and the idea enraged him.
“She shan’t marry anybody,” he exclaimed.
The door-bell rang, and he set off downstairs, proclaiming that Emily should never leave his house.
At the sight of Philip, pallid and shaken, upon the doorstep he was a little mollified, but he stood blocking the threshold as though to hold the house against an invader.
“Well?” he asked truculently.
“How is Emily?” demanded Philip.
“Very ill,” said William at once.
“Let me come in.”
“All right. But you can’t see her unless she wants to see you.”
“All right, I won’t.” Philip followed him up the hall. “You needn’t look at me like that. She’s quite in the wrong over this. I’ve done nothing to justify … Of course I won’t force myself on her, if she doesn’t like it. I love her. I’ve married her.”
“I love her too,” said William coldly.
“But I’ve married her. Twenty thousand brothers …” He broke off, with an attempt to laugh. “But how ill is she? Have you sent for a doctor?”
“No.”
“Then I must insist that you do.”
“I’ll get a doctor,” said William, “if I see fit.”
“You’ll get one, whether you see fit or not. I must be satisfied about her health. She is behaving very strangely I don’t really think she’s fit to look after herself. She left me to-day, without a moment’s warning. I had gone into a shop for a moment, to buy her some flowers. When I came out she was gone. I thought at first that she had gone back to the hotel, but when I went back and couldn’t find her
His anguish gripped him and he turned away. He did not want to weep in front of William.
“I must know,” he said, “that she is under proper care. She can’t be treated like anybody else.”
“No,” said William, “she can’t. But I promise you that she will be all right. She will stay with us. I ought to tell you, Philip … I … I’m married myself.”
“Good God!” Philip was stunned. “I never knew a word of this!”
“Nobody knew. We wrote to Emily, but Tilli … the letter seems to have missed. I expect I forgot to post it.”
“Tilli?” repeated Philip, with an uncomfortable memory of all that he had endured on the first night of “The Seven Dawns.” “Tilli?”
“Mrs. Van Tuyl,” explained William. “You’ve met her.”
“I’ve seen her on the stage,” gasped Philip.
“Well, now you’ll see her off, for I hear her coming downstairs Tilli, this is Mr. Luttrell. Philip—my wife.”
Philip and Tilli shook hands, taking a swift measure of each other. In that first moment they became allies and enemies at the same time. They were leagued against the madness of these Crownes to whom they were married. Their eyes promised mutual support. Yet neither trusted the other. Philip thought:
“What a little baggage!”
And Tilli knew it.
“Emily,” she told them, “is coming down. She knows that Mr. Luttrell is here, and she wishes to go away.”
“But she mustn’t! She isn’t well enough. She must stay here with us,” protested William.
“I think she is quite determined,” said Tilli smoothly.
“Anyhow, I’ll see her,” suggested Philip. “I’ll make sure of her real wishes. I can’t think,” he turned to Tilli, “that it can be convenient for you to receive her at this moment, unless she very much desires it.”
“Of course we are enchanted to have her”—Tilli kept an eye on William—“but—”
“She can’t go!” repeated William.
Emily, very pale but determined, made her appearance on the stairs. When she had got to the hall, she paused between Philip and William, and looked from one to the other.
“Do you want to go?” said William.
“Do you want to stay?” said Philip.
“I want to go.”
“But, Emily …”
“No, really, William. Have you got a taxi, Philip?”
“I have one here waiting.”
She turned to Tilli and held out her hand.
“I am so sorry,” she said, “that I have disturbed you like this. But, you see, I didn’t know. Good-bye.”
She found that she was going to have to kiss Tilli. It was difficult. She put her face near Tilli’s cheek for a second. And then she embraced William hurriedly. On Philip’s arm she left the house for ever.
“Where would you like to go?” he asked, when he had put her into the taxi.
“I don’t mind.”
He took her back to the hotel.