Somehow Good Part 17

"She is like enough to him, as far as looks go. It's her only fault, poor chick, and _she_ can't help it. Besides, I mind it less now that I have more than half forgiven him, for her sake." The tone of her voice mixes a sob and a laugh, although she utters neither, and is quite collected. "But she is quite unlike him in character. Sally is not an angel--oh dear, no!" The laugh predominates. "But----"

"But what?"

"She is not a devil." And as she said this the pain was all back again in the dropped half-whisper in which she said it. And in that moment Fenwick made his guess of the whole story, which maybe went nearer than we shall do with the information we have to go upon. In this narrative, as we tell it now, that story is _known_ only to its chief actor, and to her old friend who is now dining at the Hurkaru Club.

The third movement of Op. 999 was not a very long one, and, coming to an end at this point, seemed to supply a reason for silence that was not unwelcome in the back drawing-room. The end of a trying conversation had been attained. Both speakers could now affect attention to what was going on in the front. This had taken the form of a discussion between Mr. Julius Bradshaw and Miss Laet.i.tia Wilson, who was anxious to transfer her position of first violin to that young gentleman. We regret to have to report that Miss Sally's agreement with her friend about the desirability had been _sotto voce_'d in these terms: "Yes, Tishy dear! Do make the shop-boy play the last movement." And Miss Wilson had then suggested it, saying there was a bit she knew she couldn't play. "And you expect _me_ to!" said the owner of the Strad, "when I haven't so much as looked at it for three years past." To which Miss Sally appended a marginal note, "Stuff and nonsense! Don't be affected, Mr. Bradshaw." However, after compliments, and more protestations from its owner, the Strad was brought into hotchpot, and Laet.i.tia abdicated.

"Won't you come and sit in here, to be away from the music?" said the back-drawing-room. But Laet.i.tia wanted to see Mr. Bradshaw's fingering of that pa.s.sage. We are more interested in the back drawing-room.

Like many other athletic men--and we have seen how strongly this character was maintained in Fenwick--he hated armchairs. Even in the uncomfortable ones--by which we mean the ones _we_ dislike--his restless strength would not remain quiet for any length of time. At intervals he would get up and walk about the room, exasperating the sedate, and then making good-humoured concession to their weakness.

Mrs. Nightingale could remember all this in Gerry the boy, twenty years ago.

If it had not been for that music, probably he would have walked about the room over that stiff problem in dates he had just grappled with.

As it was, he remained in his chair to solve it--that is, if he did solve it. Possibly, the moment he saw something important turned on the date of Sally's birth, he jumped across the solution to the conclusion it was to lead to. Given the conclusion, the calculation had no interest for him.

But the story his mind constructed to fit that conclusion stunned him.

It knitted his brows and clenched his teeth for him. It made the hand that had been hanging loose over the uncomfortable chair-back close savagely on something--a throat, perhaps, that his imagination supplied? How like he looked, thought his companion, to himself on one occasion twenty years ago! But his anger now was on her behalf alone; it was not so in that dreadful time she hoped he might never recollect.

If only his memory of all the past might remain as now, a book with a locked clasp and a lost key!

She watched him as he sat there, and saw a calmer mood come back upon him. Each wanted a _raison d'etre_ for a silent pause, and neither was sorry for the desire each might ascribe to the other of hearing the last movement of the music undisturbed. Op. 999 was prospering, there was no doubt of it! Laet.i.tia Wilson was a very fair example of a creditable career at the R.A.M. But she was not quite equal to this unfortunate victim of a too nervous system, who could play like an angel for half an hour, mind you--not more. This was his half-hour; and it was quite reasonable for Fenwick to take for granted that his hostess would like to pay attention to it, or _vice-versa_. So both sat silent.

But as she sat listening to Op. 999, and watching wonderingly the strange victim of oblivion, of whom she knew--scarcely acknowledging it always, though--that she had once for a short time called him husband, her mind went back to an old time when he and she were young: before the tragic memory that she sometimes thought might have been lived down had come into her life and his. And a scene rose up before her out of that old time--a scene of young men, almost boys, and girls who but the other day were in the nursery, playing lawn-tennis in a happy garden, with never a thought for anything in this wide world but themselves, and each other, and the scoring, and how jolly it would be in the house-boat at Henley to-morrow. And then this garden-scene a little later in the moonrise, and herself and one of the players, who was Gerry--this very man--left by the other two to themselves, on a garden-seat his arm hung over, just as it did now over that chair-back. How exactly he sat then as he sat now, his other hand in charge of the foot he had crossed on his knee, just as now, to keep it from a slip along his lawn-tennis flannels! How well she could remember the tennis-shoe, with its ribbed rubber sole, in place of that highly-polished calf thing! And she could remember every word they said, there in the warm moonlight.

"What a silly boy you are!"

"I don't care. I shall always say exactly the same. I can't help it."

"All silly boys say that sort of thing. Then they change their minds."

"I never said it to any girl in my life but you, Rosey. I never thought it. I shall never say it again to any one but you."

"Don't be nonsensical!"

"I'm _not_! It's _true_."

"Wait till you've been six months in India, Gerry."

And then the recollection of what followed made it seem infinitely strange to her that Fenwick should remain, as he had remained, immovable. If the hand she could remember so well, for all it had grown so scarred and service-worn and hairy, were to take hers as it did then, as they sat together on the garden-seat, would it shake now as formerly? If his great strong arm her memory still felt round her were to come again now, would she feel in it the tremor of the pa.s.sion he was shaken by then; and in caresses such as she half reproved him for, but had no heart to resist, the reality of a love then young and strong and full of promise for the days to come? And now--what? The perished trunk of an uprooted tree: the shadow of a half-forgotten dream.

As he sat silent, only now and then by some slight sign, some new knitting of the brow or closing of the hand, showing the tension of the feeling produced by the version his mind had made of the story half told to him--as he sat thus, under a kind of feint of listening to the music, the world grew stranger and stranger to his companion. She had fancied herself strong enough to tell the story, but had hardly reckoned with his possible likeness to himself. She had thought that she could keep the twenty years that had pa.s.sed clearly in her mind; could deal with the position from a good, sensible, matter-of-fact standpoint.

The past was past, and happily forgotten by him. The present had still its possibilities, if only the past might remain forgotten. Surely she could rely on herself to find the nerve to go through what was, after all, a mere act of duty. Knowing, or rather feeling, that Fenwick would ask her to marry him as soon as he dared--it was merely a question of time--her duty was plainly to forewarn him--to make sure that he was alive to the antecedents of the woman he was offering himself to. She knew _his_ antecedents; as many as she wished to know. If the twenty years of oblivion concealed irregularity, immorality--well, was she not to blame for it? Was ever a better boy than Gerry, as she knew him, to the day they parted? It was her fault or misfortune that had cast him all adrift. As to that troublesome question of a possible wife elsewhere, in the land of his oblivion, she had quite made up her mind about that. Every effort had been made to find such a one, and failed.

If she reappeared, it would be her own duty to surrender Fenwick--if he wished to go back. If he did not, and his other wife wished to be free, surely in the _chicane_ of the law-courts there must be some shuffle that could be for once made useful to a good end.

Mrs. Nightingale had reasoned it all out in cold blood, and she was, as we have told you, a strong woman. But had she really taken her own measure? Could she sit there much longer; with him beside her, and his words of twenty years ago sounding in her ears; almost the feeling of the kisses she had so dutifully pointed out the lawlessness, and allowed the repet.i.tion of, in that old forgotten time--forgotten by him, never by her! Was it possible to bear, without crying out, the bewilderment of a mixed existence such as that his presence and ident.i.ty forced upon her, wrenching her this way and that, interweaving the woof of _then_ with the weft of _now_, even as in that labyrinth of musical themes and phrases in the other room they crossed and recrossed one another at the bidding of each instrument as its turn came to tell its tale? Her brain reeled and her heart ached under the intolerable stress. Could she still hold on, or would she be, after all, driven to make some excuse, and run for the solitude of her own room to live down the tension as best she might alone?

The music itself came to her a.s.sistance. Its triumphant strength, in an indescribable outburst of hope or joy or mastery of Fate, as it drew near to its final close, spoke to her of the great ocean that lies beyond the crabbed limits of our stinted lives, the boundless sea our rivulets of life steal down to, to be lost in; and while it lasted made it possible for her to be still. She took her eyes from Fenwick, and waited. When she raised them again, in the silence Op. 999 came to an end in, she saw that he had moved. His face had gone into his hands; and as she looked up, his old action of rubbing them into his loose hair, and shaking it, had come back, and his strong ident.i.ty with his boyhood, dependent on the chance of a moment, had disappeared. He got up suddenly, and after a turn across the room he was in, walked into the other one, and contributed his share to the babble of felicitation or comment that followed what was clearly thought an achievement in musical rendering.

"Oh dear, oh dear!" said Laet.i.tia Wilson. "Was ever a poor girl so sat upon? I feel quite flat!" This was not meant to be taken too much _au pied de la lettre_. It was merely a method of praise of Mr. Bradshaw.

"But what a jolly shame you had to give it up!" This was Sally in undisguised admiration. But in Mr. Julius Bradshaw's eyes, Sally's ident.i.ty had undergone a change. Her breezy frankness had made hay of a _grande pa.s.sion_, and was blowing the hay all over the field. He had come close to, and had a good look; but he will hardly go away in a huff, although he feels a little silly over his public wors.h.i.+p of these past weeks. Just at this moment of the story, however, he is very apologetic towards Miss Wilson; on whom, if she reports correctly, he has sat. He tries no pretences with a view to her reinstatement, even on a par with himself. He knows, and every one knows, they would be seen through immediately. It is no use a.s.suring her she is a capital player, of her years. Much better let it alone!

"Are you any the worse, Mr. Bradshaw?" says Dr. Vereker. Obviously, as a medical authority, it is his duty to "voice" this inquiry. So he voices it.

"N--no; but that's about as much as I can do, with safety. It won't do to spoil my night's rest, and be late at the shop." It was easy to talk about the shop with perfect unreserve after such a performance as that.

"Oh dear! we are so sorry for you!" Thus the two girls. And concurrence comes in various forms from Vereker, Fenwick, and the pianist, whom we haven't mentioned before. He was a cousin of Miss Wilson's, and was one of those unfortunate young men who have no individuality whatever. But pianists have to be human unless you can afford a pianola. You may speak of them as Mr. What's-his-name, or Miss Thingummy, but you must give them tea or coffee or cake or sandwiches, or whatever is brought in on a tray. This young man's name, we believe, was Elsley--n.o.body Elsley, Miss Sally in her frivolity had thought fit to christen him.

You know how in your own life people come in and go out, and you never know anything about them. Even so this young man in this story.

"I was very sorry for myself, I a.s.sure you"--it is Bradshaw who speaks--"when I had to make up my mind to give it up. But it couldn't be helped!" He speaks without reserve, but as of an unbearable subject; in fact, Sally said afterwards to Tishy, "it seemed as if he was going to cry." He doesn't cry, though, but goes on: "At one time I really thought I should have gone and jumped into the river."

"Why didn't you?" asks Sally. "I should have."

"Yes, silly Sally!" says Laet.i.tia; "and then you would have swum like a fish. And the police would have pulled you out. And you would have looked ridiculous!"

But Sally is off on a visit to her mother in the next room.

"Tired, mammy darling?"

She kisses her, and her mother answers: "Yes, love, a little," and kisses her back.

"Doesn't he play _beautifully_, mother?" says Sally.

But her mother says "Yes" absently. Her attention is taken off by something else. What is wrong with Mr. Fenwick? Sally doesn't think anything is. It's only his way.

"I'm sure there's something wrong," says Mrs. Nightingale, and gets up to go into the front-room rather wearily. "I shall go to bed soon, poppet," she says, "and leave you to do the honours. Is anything wrong, doctor?" She speaks under her voice to Vereker, looking very slightly round at Fenwick, who, after the movement that alarmed her--a rather unusually marked head-shake and pressure of his hands on his eyes--is standing looking down at the fire, on the rug with his back to her, as she speaks to Vereker.

"I fancy he's had what he calls a recurrence," says the doctor. "Nothing to hurt. These half-recollections will go on until the memory comes back in earnest. It may some time."

"Are you talking about me, doctor?" His attention may have been caught by a reflection in a gla.s.s before him. "Yes, it was a very queer recurrence. Something about lawn-tennis. Only it had to do with what Miss Wilson said about the police fis.h.i.+ng Sally out of the water." He looks round for Miss Wilson, but she is at the other end of the room on a sofa talking to Bradshaw about the Strad, as recorded once before.

Sally testifies:

"Tishy said it wouldn't work--trying to drown yourself if you could swim. No more it would."

"But why should that make me think of lawn-tennis? It did." He looks seriously distressed by it--can make nothing out.

"Kitten," says Sally's mother to her suddenly, "I think I shall go away to bed. I'm feeling very tired."

She says good-night comprehensively, and departs. But she is so clearly the worse for something that her daughter follows her to see that the something is not serious. Outside she rea.s.sures Sally, who returns. Oh no, she is only tired; really nothing else.

But what drove her out of the room was a feeling that she must be alone and silent. Could her position be borne at all? Yes, with patience and self-control. But that "why should it make me think of lawn-tennis?"

was trying. Not only the pain of still more revived a.s.sociation, but the fear that his memory might travel still further into the past. It was living on the edge of the volcano.

Her own memory had followed on, too, taking up the thread of that old interview in the garden of twenty years ago. She had felt again the clasp of his arm, the touch of his hand; had heard his voice of pa.s.sionate protest--protest against the idea that he could ever forget.

And she had then pretended to make a half-joke of his earnestness. What would he do now, really, if she were to tell him she preferred his great friend Arthur Fenwick to him? That was nonsense, he said. She knew she didn't. Besides, Arthur wanted Jessie Nairn. Why, didn't they waltz all the waltzes at the party last week?... Well, so did we, for that matter, all-but.... And just look how they had run away together!

Wasn't that them coming back? Yes, it was; and artificial calm ensued, and more self-contained manners. But then, before the other two young lovers could rejoin them, she had time for a word more.