Lilian Part 17

"You bet I'm French. My mother sent me to a convent in London so as I could learn English properly. It was one of them boarding convents where you're free to do what you like so long as you're in by seven o'clock. They wanted a few French girls for the chorus of a revue at the Pavilion. Soon as I got in there I never went back to the convent, and I've never seen ma since, either. I was in that chorus for a year.

Oh!" She produced an ingenious and costly travelling spirit-case, and then searched for the key of it.

"I wish I could speak French half as well as you speak English."

"If I had half your face and your figure I'd give all my English to anybody that cared to have it. Oh! d.a.m.n the key! Excuse me. Here you are." She offered the disengaged flask. "Now you go along and take what you want, and bring me the flask back."

She stood in front of Lilian, who rose. She was as flat as Milly Merrislate, and neither tall nor graceful. Every lineament of the pert face so heavily masked in paint and powder, every gesture, the too bright stockings, the gilded shoes, the impudent coiffure, the huge and flashy rings, the square-dialled wrist-watch--all were crudely symptomatic of an ingrained and unalterable vulgarity. Lilian was absolutely unable to understand how any man, however coa.r.s.e and cynical, could find any charm of any kind in such a girl. But Lilian did not know that intense vulgarity is in itself irresistible to certain amateurs of women, and she was far too young really to appreciate the sorcery of mere lithe youthfulness.

"Why! What is it?" Lilian exclaimed, as she took the flask.

Tears were ravaging the cheeks of the benefactress.

"Oh! d.a.m.n!" The benefactress stamped her foot, and raised her thin, loose, bare shoulders. "Gambling's it. I always lose here. It's all shemmy here, and when you win at shemmy you take other people's money, not the bank's, and that puts me off like at the start. And you never win if you don't feel as if you were going to. I was at Monte Carlo last week, and you sh'd've seen me at roulette, taking the casino money.

I couldn't do wrong. But I had to come back here, and there you are!

Lost it all and a lot more!" She was speaking through her tears.

"Cleaned out to-night! Naked! You see, it's like this. Gambling gives you an emotion. It's the only thing there is for that--I mean for me....

Did you see that fat beast speak to me to-night in the casino? Well, he said something to me and offered me ten thousand francs, and I slapped his face for him in the entrance-hall. He knew I was stony. I was a fool. Why shouldn't I have done what he wanted? What's it matter? But no! I'm like that, and I slapped his face, and I'd do it again, I would!! He's Scapini, you know, the biggest shareholder in both the big hotels here. I tore it, I did! And, would you believe, I'd no sooner got in here afterwards than the manager told me I must leave to-morrow morning. It was all over the place as quick as that! I've only got to go to Paris to get all the money I want. Yes. But I'd sell myself for a year to be able to pay my bill straight off in the morning and cheek 'em. It'll be near a thousand francs, and I haven't got ten francs, besides having the whole bally town against me." She laughed and threw her head back. "Here! You go along. Don't listen to me. It's not the first time, neither the last. Go along now."

"I'm very sorry," said Lilian. She simply could not conceive that the girl, possibly no older than herself, was standing alone and unaided against what was to her the universe. How could these girls do it? What was the quality in them that enabled them to do it?

She was in the intimidating, silent, mystery-hiding corridor again. She listened at the door, which she had left ajar, between the bathroom and Felix's bedroom. No sound! In the solacing, perfect tidiness of her room, she poured some of the brandy into a gla.s.s, and then, taking her bag, returned to the benefactress.

"Here's your flask, thank you very much!" she said. "And here's a thousand francs, if it's any use to you." She produced the note which Felix had given to her. The money was accepted, greedily.

"If you're here in a week's time, in five days, you'll have it back,"

said the benefactress, looking at her wrist-watch. "No! It's too late to go and play again now!" She giggled. "Tell me your name. You can trust _me_. I don't believe you're real, though! You couldn't be.

There aren't such girls--anyhow at your age." She stopped, and gave a tremendous youthful sigh. "Ah!" she exclaimed, "if only I was dead. I often dream of lying in my grave--eternal peace, eternal peace! No emotions! No men! Quite still! Stretched straight out! Quiet for ever and ever! Eternal peace! D'you know I've been like that all my life?

My G.o.d!"

Lilian burst into tears, agonized. The original benefactress flung herself at the other benefactress with amazing violence, and they kissed, weeping.

A quarter of an hour later the defier of Scapini murmured:

"I wish to heaven I could do something for _you_!"

Lilian answered:

"I wish you'd tell me how you stain your skin that lovely Spanish colour."

And she immediately received, not merely the instructions, but the complete materials necessary for the operation.

VII

The Doctor

When she awoke the next morning after a very few hours' sleep, she did so suddenly, to a full consciousness of her situation, and not little by little, pa.s.sing by gradual stages to realization, as was her wont. She listened; no sound came through the two half-open doors. The brandy had not been needed. Perhaps he was asleep; perhaps he had had a good night and was perfectly restored. She rose, unfastened the window and very quietly pushed back the shutters. It was raining. Just as she was, her hair loose and the delicate and absurd rag of a nightdress all untied, she surveyed herself sternly in the mirror. She was well content with her beauty. Impossible to criticize it! In every way she was far more beautiful than the nameless woman whom she had befriended and who had befriended her.

Partly because she had been generous to her, she felt sympathy for the girl. The phrase "us girls" stung her still, but it was not ill meant; in fact, it was a rather natural phrase, and no doubt already her acquaintance must have perceived how wrong it was. She admired the girl for her fierce defiance and courage, and for the intense pa.s.sion with which she had desired the grave. "Stretched straight out! Quiet for ever and ever!" Startling and outrageous words, in that harsh young voice; but there was something fine about them! ("I may say the same one day soon," Lilian thought solemnly.) Moreover, she understood better the power of the girl, whose kiss and clasp had communicated to her a most disconcerting physical thrill. Indeed, it seemed to her that she was on the threshold of all sorts of new comprehensions. Finally she had astonished the girl by the grand loan; she had shone; she had pleased; she had satisfied her instinct to give pleasure. She thought:

"She may be stronger than I am, and cleverer; but she is very silly and I am not. And I'm not weak either, even if some people take me for weak."

It was disturbing, though, how that phrase p.r.i.c.ked and p.r.i.c.ked: "Us girls." Little flames shot up from the ashes of her early and abandoned religion. "The wages of sin--the wages of sin." Was it true about the wages of sin? Was she to be punished? The great, terrible fear of conception still dominated her soul; and it grew hourly. At each disappointing dawn the torture of it increased. She saw the powders and preparations which the courtesan had given her; she recalled the minute directions for the use of them, and smiled painfully. How could the prospective mother employ such devices? Nevertheless, if she escaped, she would employ them as soon as Felix was better. She knew that Felix would delight in the perverse, provocative transformation, and she yearned to gratify him afresh in a novel manner. When the surprise came upon him he would pretend that it was nothing; but he would be delighted, he would revel in it.

Putting on her peignoir she slipped noiselessly into the other bedroom, and crept up to the bed. Needless precaution; Felix was wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Before speaking she tenderly kissed him, and kept her face for a moment on his.

"Better?"

"Had an awful night. Couldn't sleep a wink. I won't get up just yet.

Order me tea instead of coffee. We'll go out after lunch, not before."

"Do you think you ought to go out, dearest?"

"Of course I ought to go out," he snapped peevishly.

"It's raining."

"Oh, well, if it's raining I dare say I shan't want to go out." He placed his hand nervously on his right breast.

"Does it hurt you?"

"Not at all. Can't I touch myself?"

She kissed him again. Then he gazed at her with love, as she moved over him to ring the bell.

"You all right?"

"Oh, splendid! I listened once or twice at the door, but as I didn't hear anything I made sure you were asleep."

She kept silence about her awful, persistent fear, knowing that any reference to it would only irritate him. He was more than ever like a child--and a captious child. She realized the att.i.tude of his sister towards him. Thank G.o.d he was better! If he had fallen ill she would have condemned herself as a criminal for life, for her insane, selfish suggestion of an excursion to the hills at night. Not he, but she, was the child.

After his tea he did get up and dress; but he would not descend to lunch; nor eat in the bedroom. At three o'clock he said that when it rained on the Riviera the climate was the most d.a.m.nable on earth, and that he preferred to be in bed. And to bed he returned. Then Lilian noticed him fingering his breast again.

"Any pain there?"

"Oh! Nothing. Nothing. Only a sort of sensation."

Soon afterwards he gave a few very faint, short, dry coughs--scarcely perceptible efforts to clear the throat. And at the same Lilian went cold. She knew that cough. She had helped to nurse her father. It was the affrighting pneumonia cough. Almost simultaneously it occurred to her that Felix was trying to hide from her a difficulty in breathing.

She had not dreamed of anything so bad as pneumonia, which for her was the direst of all diseases. And she with a plan for dyeing her skin to amuse and excite him! ... She had thought of a severe chill at the worst.

She hurried downstairs to see the concierge. The lift was too slow in coming up for her; she had to run down the flights of carpeted steps one after another. The main question on her mind was: "Ought I to telegraph to his sister?" If Miss Grig arrived, what would, what could happen to herself? The concierge--a dark, haughty, long-moustached, somewhat consumptive subject--adored Lilian for her beauty, and she had rewarded his wors.h.i.+p with exquisite smiles and tones.

"Would you like the English doctor, madam?" said he.

"_Is_ there an English doctor here?" She was immensely relieved. She would be able to talk to an English doctor, whereas a French doctor with his shrugs and science, and understanding nothing you said....