The question of Ariadne lay heavily on several consciences. She was fading away in Chelsea, so proud and poor, her purse still yawning exhausted on the chimney-piece with the dead rose for company, her rent in arrears, and only one poem accepted by a literary weekly in six months. In justice to the enlightened weekly, it must be conceded that it was the only poem she had sent in. Inspiration was drying up. She lay on her camp-bed without even her pencil poised, gazing at her precious Beardsley, solitary on the whitewashed wall of her room. Aubrey himself had given it to her and it had never been published. A delicious riot of fauns and satyrs. What drawing! What a mind!
But oh! she had said that long ago. Now it didn’t inspire. Aubrey was dead. Life was surely over. She was tired, she wished someone would do something for her. Off-scourings from the dregs of her Paris life were to be found in England. She had seen some of them. They were all poets or artists of some sort, wrapped up in themselves, more than ever wrapped up in themselves now that they realised there wasn’t much left for them in the way of fame or fortune. She felt that they were saying to each other that they must do something for poor Ariadne, but they never did. No, what they said was that something must be done for poor Ariadne, which amounted to a complete evasion of responsibility.
She had relied so much on Clare Dobson. She, after all, was not an artist in any sense, except that she knew how to live fastidiously, had good taste in decoration and people. But now there was this baby, a ridiculous intrusion which had disappointed everyone but Clare and her infatuated husband, by being born healthy and screaming like any middle-class child. It was almost indecent, thought Ariadne. One day she had gazed at the King of Rome cradle, in which the month-old child lay asleep; she was artistically impressed by the spectacle. But she had later observed a row of nappies hanging on a line in the bathroom when she went to powder her nose.
This had so sickened her that she had forgotten to ask whether it was a girl or boy. She had not been to the Regent’s Canal since. She had not been asked.
Clare’s painfully normal husband had been on leave for what seemed like months, and Clare was never herself when he was about. Her intellect seemed to fly out of the window. There was no conversation. If it were possible that anyone so crudely service as the sailor man could rather subtly mock, that was certainly the impression he managed to convey in his encounters with Ariadne. So naturally she ignored him so far as one politely could. And now she wasn’t even asked. Another illusion blasted. She had had such faith in Clare. True, Clare wrote occasionally and once visited her, but seemed depressed and had no ideas that were of any use.
And what about those Mallorys? Always in Cornwall, utterly indifferent to anyone else’s fate. Wrapped up in themselves like all the rest. Ariadne could fade right away for all they cared. Poor Ariadne, consumptive, starving, and still bursting with genius. But too — too tired. She would lie here until somebody came to rescue her.
So she lay, inconsolable; unconscious of the fact that Regent’s Canal and Cornwall were all the time engaged in earnest correspondence. All through Lent, all through the excitements of Guy’s Lenten Course, Laura and Clare were in close communion, almost secret, for Guy must not be disturbed in his work which he was taking so seriously, and which was proving such a startling success. Finally, at Easter, when comparative peace reigned at the vicarage, came Clare’s most despairing letter:
What can we do for Ariadne? I have just been to see her again. The case is getting serious. She is in a terrible state and thinks she is neglected by everyone, which I suppose is true. You see, I have the sailor man at home and this baby who takes so much more time than I expected. Ariadne does not like a domestic atmosphere so I don’t ask her here. And in any case she is practically bed-ridden. What shall we do?
Guy, relaxed at last, was allowed to see this letter.
‘Of course,’ he said without a pause. ‘Ariadne must come here as a paying guest.’
‘Who will pay?’ asked Laura who had vaguely hoped some such solution might present itself.
‘I will, of course. Put her in the little spare room and Miss Want can use the maid’s room when she comes.’
‘What about the Father? Mustn’t he be asked first?’
‘If you like. But I think he would be glad to meet her. She’s just his type, and they will understand each other.’
‘Well, if you think so.’ Laura was not very pleased with this simplification of the problem.
‘I’m quite sure of it,’ settled the question.
There were now no servants in the house beyond Jude. Mrs Jolly had made an hysterical exit in Holy Week. The Vicar hastily advertised again for a couple of deaf and dumb servants. Meanwhile a simple half-daily woman came in from the village to help. She was of low mentality and did not know one thing from another, but she could scrub floors and gave no trouble. Father St John took temporary charge of the kitchen. His was a delicate art. Laura got a smattering of the haute école before she knew anything about first principles, so that she progressed without roots, and her dishes were more flights of fancy than the real thing. Yet edible, and now her French dressing was approved.
This was the state of the household when Ariadne arrived on a spring day. The problem of paying her fare had swelled the correspondence between Regent’s Canal and Cornwall. How persuade the proud creature to accept it? A solution was found. What about her doing drawings of the Mallorys and perhaps of Father St John (if she felt like it)? This commission, which was suggested to Ariadne as though the generosity were all on her side, Mrs Dobson had been glad to report, had been at last accepted. The Mallorys would pay.
Every necessity for the undertaking had been ordered from Messrs Winsor and Newton, and entered to Mrs Dobson’s account. It seemed that Ariadne had but the one pencil and that an HB, no paper or drawing-boards and no india-rubber. Charcoal and crayons were added to the list in case she should care to use them.