Vera

'Hadn't—hadn't the window better be shut?' she suggested timidly presently, while he still went on ringing and saying nothing—'else when Lizzie opens the door won't all the things blow about again?'

He didn't answer, and went on ringing.

Of all the objects in the world that she could think of, Lucy most dreaded and shrank from that window; nevertheless she began to feel that as Everard was engaged with the bell and apparently wouldn't leave it, it behoved her to put into practice her resolution not to be a fool but to be direct and wholesome, and go and shut it herself. There it was, the fatal window, huge as the one in the bedroom below and the one in the library below that, yawning wide open above its murderous low sill, with the rain flying in on every fresh gust of wind and wetting the floor and the cushions of the sofa and even, as she could see, those sheets of notepaper off the writing-table that had flown in her face when she came in and were now lying scattered at her feet. Surely the right thing to do was to shut the window before Lizzie opened the door and caused a second convulsion? Everard couldn't, because he was ringing the bell. She could and she would; yes, she would do the right thing, and at the same time be both simple and courageous.

'I'll shut it,' she said, taking a step forward.

She was arrested by Wemyss's voice. 'Confound it!' he cried. 'Can't you leave it alone?'

She stopped dead. He had never spoken to her like that before. She had never heard that voice before. It seemed to hit her straight on the heart.

'Don't interfere,' he said, very loud.

She was frozen where she stood.

'Tiresome woman,' he said, still ringing.

She looked at him. He was looking at her.

'Who?' she breathed.

'You.'

Her heart seemed to stop beating. She gave a little gasp, and turned her head to right and left like something trapped, something searching for escape. Everard—where was her Everard? Why didn't he come and take care of her? Come and take her away—out of that room—out of that room–

There were sounds of steps hurrying along the passage, and then there was a great scream of the wind and a great whirl of the notepaper and a great blowing up on end off her forehead of her short hair, and Lizzie was there panting on the threshold.

'I'm sorry, sir,' she panted, her hand on her chest, 'I was changing my dress–'

'Shut the door, can't you?' cried Wemyss, about whose ears, too, notepaper was flying. 'Hold on to it— don't let it go, damn you!'

'Oh—oh–' gasped Lucy, stretching out her hands as though to keep something off, 'I think I—I think I'll go downstairs–'

And before Wemyss realised what she was doing, she had turned and slipped through the door Lizzie was struggling with and was gone.

'Lucy!' he shouted, 'Lucy! Come back at once!' But the wind was too much for Lizzie, and the door dragged itself out of her hands and crashed to.

As though the devil were after her Lucy ran along the passage. Down the stairs she flew, down past the bedroom landing, down past the gong landing, down into the hall and across it to the front door, and tried to pull it open, and found it was bolted, and tugged and tugged at the bolts, tugged frantically, getting them undone at last, and rushing out on to the steps.

There an immense gust of rain caught her full in the face. Splash—bang—she was sobered. The rain splashed on her as though a bucket were being emptied at her, and the door had banged behind her shutting her out. Suddenly horrified at herself she turned quickly, as frantic to get in again as she had been to get out. What was she doing? Where was she running to? She must get in, get in—before Everard could come after her, before he could find her standing there like a drenched dog outside his front door. The wind whipped her wet hair across her eyes. Where was the handle? She couldn't find it. Her hair wouldn't keep out of her eyes; her thin serge skirt blew up like a balloon and got in the way of her trembling fingers searching along the door. She must get in—before he came—what had possessed her? Everard—he couldn't have meant—he didn't mean—what would he think—what would he think—oh, where was that handle?

Then she heard heavy footsteps on the other side of the door, and Wemyss's voice, still very loud, saying to somebody he had got with him, 'Haven't I given strict orders that this door is to be kept bolted?'—and then the sound of bolts being shot.

'Everard! Everard!' Lucy cried, beating on the door with both hands, 'I'm here—out here—let me in—Everard! Everard!'

But he evidently heard nothing, for his footsteps went away again.

Snatching her hair out of her eyes, she looked about for the bell and reached up to it and pulled it violently. What she had done was terrible. She must get in at once, face the parlourmaid's astonishment, run to Everard. She couldn't imagine his thoughts. Where did he suppose she was? He must be searching the house for her. He would be dreadfully upset. Why didn't the parlourmaid come? Was she changing her dress too? No—she had waited at lunch all ready in her black afternoon clothes. Then why didn't she come?

Lucy pulled the bell again and again, at last keeping it down, using up its electricity as squanderously as Wemyss had used it upstairs. She was wet to the skin by this time, and you wouldn't have recognised her pretty hair, all dark now and sticking together in lank strands.

Everard—why, of course—Everard had only spoken like that out of fear—fear and love. The window—of course he would be terrified lest she too, trying to shut that fatal window, that great heavy fatal window, should slip.... Oh, of course, of course—how could she have misunderstood—in moments of danger, of dreadful anxiety for one's heart's beloved, one did speak sharply, one did rap out commands. It was because he loved her so much.... Oh, how lunatic of her to have misunderstood!

At last she heard some one coming, and she let go of the bell and braced herself to meet the astonished gaze of the parlourmaid with as much dignity as was possible in one who only too well knew she must be looking like a drowning cat, but the footsteps grew heavy as they got nearer, and it was Wemyss who, after pulling back the bolts, opened the door.

'Oh Everard!' Lucy exclaimed, running in, pursued to the last by the pelting rain, 'I'm so glad it's you—oh I'm so sorry I–'

Her voice died away; she had seen his face.

He stooped to bolt the lower bolt.

'Don't be angry, darling Everard,' she whispered, laying her arm on his stooping shoulder.

Having finished with the bolt Wemyss straightened himself, and then, putting up his hand to the arm still round his shoulder, he removed it. 'You'll make my coat wet,' he said; and walked away to the library door and went in and shut it.

For a moment she stood where he had left her, collecting her scattered senses; then she went after him. Wet or not wet, soaked and dripping as she was, ridiculous scarecrow with her clinging clothes, her lank hair, she must go after him, must instantly get the horror of misunderstanding straight, tell him how she had meant only to help over that window, tell him how she had thought he was saying dreadful things to her when he was really only afraid for her safety, tell him how silly she had been, silly, silly, not to have followed his thoughts quicker, tell him he must forgive her, be patient with her, help her, because she loved him so much and she knew—oh, she knew—how much he loved her....

Across the hall ran Lucy, the whole of her one welter of anxious penitence and longing and love, and when she got to the door and turned the handle it was locked.

He had locked her out.

XX

Her hand slid slowly off the knob. She stood quite still. How could he.... And she knew now that he had bolted the front door knowing she was out in the rain. How could he? Her body was motionless as she stood staring at the locked door, but her brain was a rushing confusion of questions. Why? Why? This couldn't be Everard. Who was this man—pitiless, cruel? Not Everard. Not her lover. Where was he, her lover and husband? Why didn't he come and take care of her, and not let her be frightened by this strange man....

She heard a chair being moved inside the room, and then she heard the creak of leather as Wemyss sat down in it, and then there was the rustle of a newspaper being opened. He was actually settling down to read a newspaper while she, his wife, his love—wasn't he always telling her she was his little Love?—was breaking her heart outside the locked door. Why, but Everard—she and Everard; they understood each other; they had laughed, played together, talked nonsense, been friends....

For an instant she had an impulse to cry out and beat on the door, not to care who heard, not to care that the whole house should come and gather round her naked misery; but she was stopped by a sudden new wisdom. It shuddered down on her heart, a wisdom she had never known or needed before, and held her quiet. At all costs there mustn't be two of them doing these things, at all costs these things mustn't be doubled, mustn't have echoes. If Everard was like this he must be like it alone. She must wait. She must sit quiet till he had finished. Else—but oh, he couldn't be like it, it couldn't be true that he didn't love her. Yet if he did love her, how could he … how could he....

She leaned her forehead against the door and began softly to cry. Then, afraid that she might after all burst out into loud, disgraceful sobbing, she turned and went upstairs.

But where could she go? Where in the whole house was any refuge, any comfort? The only person who could have told her anything, who could have explained, who knew, was Vera. Yes—she would have understood. Yes, yes—Vera. She would go to Vera's room, get as close to her mind as she could,—search, find something, some clue....

It seemed now to Lucy, as she hurried upstairs, that the room in the house she had most shrunk from was the one place where she might hope to find comfort. Oh, she wasn't frightened any more. Everything was trying to frighten her, but she wasn't going to be frightened. For some reason or other things were all trying together to-day to see if they could crush her, beat out her spirit. But they weren't going to....

She jerked her wet hair out of her eyes as she climbed the stairs. It kept on getting into them and making her stumble. Vera would help her. Vera never was beaten. Vera had had fifteen years of not being beaten before she—before she had that accident. And there must have been heaps of days just like this one, with the wind screaming and Vera up in her room and Everard down in his—locked in, perhaps—and yet Vera had managed, and her spirit wasn't beaten out. For years and years, panted Lucy—her very thoughts came in gasps—Vera lived up here winter after winter, years, years, years, and would have been here now if she hadn't—oh, if only Vera weren't dead! If only, only Vera weren't dead! But her mind lived on—her mind was in that room, in every littlest thing in it–

Lucy stumbled up the last few stairs completely out of breath, and opening the sitting-room door stood panting on the threshold much as Lizzie had done, her hand on her chest.

This time everything was in order. The window was shut, the scattered notepaper collected and tidily on the writing-table, the rain on the floor wiped up, and a fire had been lit and the wet cushions were drying in front of it. Also there was Lizzie, engaged in conscience-stricken activities, and when Lucy came in she was on her knees poking the fire. She was poking so vigorously that she didn't hear the door open, especially not with that rattling and banging of the window going on; and on getting up and seeing the figure standing there panting, with strands of lank hair in its eyes and its general air of neglect and weather, she gave a loud exclamation.

'Lumme!' exclaimed Lizzie, whose origin and bringing-up had been obscure.

She had helped carry in the luggage that morning, so she had seen her mistress before and knew what she was like in her dry state. She never could have believed, having seen her then all nicely fluffed out, that there was so little of her. Lizzie knew what long-haired dogs look like when they are being soaped, and she was also familiar with cats as they appear after drowning; yet they too surprised her, in spite of familiarity, each time she saw them in these circumstances by their want of real substance, of stuffing. Her mistress looked just like that,—no stuffing at all; and therefore Lizzie, the poker she was holding arrested in mid-air on its way into its corner, exclaimed Lumme.

Then, realising that this weather-beaten figure must certainly be catching its death of cold, she dropped the poker and hurrying across the room and talking in the stress of the moment like one girl to another, she felt Lucy's sleeve and said, 'Why, you're wet to the bones. Come to the fire and take them sopping clothes off this minute, or you'll be laid up as sure as sure–' and pulled her over to the fire; and having got her there, and she saying nothing at all and not resisting, Lizzie stripped off her clothes and shoes and stockings, repeating at frequent intervals as she did so, 'Dear, dear,' and repressing a strong desire to beg her not to take on, lest later, perhaps, her mistress mightn't like her to have noticed she had been crying. Then she snatched up a woollen coverlet that lay folded on the end of the sofa, rolled her tightly round in it, sat her in a chair right up close to the fender, and still talking like one girl to another said, 'Now sit there and don't move while I fetch dry things—I won't be above a minute—now you promise, don't you–' and hurrying to the door never remembered her manners at all till she was through it, whereupon she put in her head again and hastily said, 'Mum,' and disappeared.

She was away, however, more than a minute. Five minutes, ten minutes passed and Lizzie, feverishly unpacking Lucy's clothes in the bedroom below, and trying to find a complete set of them, and not knowing what belonged to which, didn't come back.

Lucy sat quite still, rolled up in Vera's coverlet. Obediently she didn't move, but stared straight into the fire, sitting so close up to it that the rest of the room was shut out. She couldn't see the window, or the dismal rain streaming down it. She saw nothing but the fire, blazing cheerfully. How kind Lizzie was. How comforting kindness was. It was a thing she understood, a normal, natural thing, and it made her feel normal and natural just to be with it. Lizzie had given her such a vigorous rub-down that her skin tingled. Her hair was on ends, for that too had had a vigorous rubbing from Lizzie, who had taken her apron to it feeling that this was an occasion on which one abandoned convention and went in for resource. And as Lucy sat there getting warmer and warmer, and more and more pervaded by the feeling of relief and well-being that even the most wretched feel if they take off all their clothes, her mind gradually calmed down, it left off asking agonised questions, and presently her heart began to do the talking.

She was so much accustomed to find life kind, that given a moment of quiet like this with somebody being good-natured and back she slipped to her usual state, which was one of affection and confidence. Lizzie hadn't been gone five minutes before Lucy had passed from sheer bewildered misery to making excuses for Everard; in ten minutes she was seeing good reasons for what he had done; in fifteen she was blaming herself for most of what had happened. She had been amazingly idiotic to run out of the room, and surely quite mad to run out of the house. It was wrong, of course, for him to bolt her out, but he was angry, and people did things when they were angry that horrified them afterwards. Surely people who easily got angry needed all the sympathy and understanding one could give them,—not to be met by despair and the loss of faith in them of the person they had hurt. That only turned passing, temporary bad things into a long unhappiness. She hadn't known he had a temper. She had only, so far, discovered his extraordinary capacity for being offended. Well, if he had a temper how could he help it? He was born that way, as certainly as if he had been born lame. Would she not have been filled with tenderness for his lameness if he had happened to be born like that? Would it ever have occurred to her to mind, to feel it as a grievance?

The warmer Lucy got the more eager she grew to justify Wemyss. In the middle of the reasons she was advancing for his justification, however, it suddenly struck her that they were a little smug. All that about people with tempers needing sympathy,—who was she, with her impulses and impatiences—with her, as she now saw, devastating impulses and impatiences—to take a line of what was very like pity. Pity! Smug, odious word; smug, odious thing. Wouldn't she hate it if she thought he pitied her for her failings? Let him be angry with her failings, but not pity her. She and her man, they needed no pity from each other; they had love. It was impossible that anything either of them did or was should really touch that.

Very warm now in Vera's blanket, her face flushed by the fire, Lucy asked herself what could really put out that great, glorious, central blaze. All that was needed was patience when he.... She gave herself a shake,—there she was again, thinking smugly. She wouldn't think at all. She would just take things as they came, and love, and love.

Then the vision of Everard, sitting solitary with his newspaper and by this time, too, probably thinking only of love, and anyhow not happy, caused one of those very impulses to lay hold of her which she had a moment before been telling herself she would never give way to again. She was aware one had gripped her, but this was a good impulse,—this wasn't a bad one like running out into the rain: she would go down and have another try at that door. She was warmed through now and quite reasonable, and she felt she couldn't another minute endure not being at peace with Everard. How silly they were. It was ridiculous. It was like two children fighting. Lizzie was so long bringing her clothes; she couldn't wait, she must sit on Everard's knee again, feel his arms round her, see his eyes looking kind. She would go down in her blanket. It wrapped her up from top to toe. Only her feet were bare; but they were quite warm, and anyhow feet didn't matter.

So Lucy padded softly downstairs, making hardly a sound, and certainly none that could be heard above the noise of the wind by Lizzie in the bedroom, frantically throwing clothes about.

She knocked at the library door.

Wemyss's voice said, 'Come in.'

So he had unlocked it. So he had hoped she would come.

He didn't, however, look round. He was sitting with his back to the door at the writing-table in the window, writing.

'I want my flowers in here,' he said, without turning his head.

So he had rung. So he thought it was the parlourmaid. So he hadn't unlocked the door because he hoped she would come.

But his flowers,—he wanted his birthday flowers in there because they were all that were left to him of his ruined birthday.

When she heard this order Lucy's heart rushed out to him. She shut the door softly and with her bare feet making no sound went up behind him.

He thought the parlourmaid had shut the door, and gone to carry out his order. Feeling an arm put round his shoulder he thought the parlourmaid hadn't gone to carry out his order, but had gone mad instead.

'Good God!' he exclaimed, jumping up.

At the sight of Lucy in her blanket, with her bare feet and her confused hair, his face changed. He stared at her without speaking.

'I've come to tell you—I've come to tell you–' she began.

Then she faltered, for his mouth was a mere hard line.

'Everard, darling,' she said entreatingly, lifting her face to his, 'let's be friends—please let's be friends—I'm so sorry—so sorry–'

His eyes ran over her. It was evident that all she had on was that blanket. A strange fury came into his face, and he turned his back on her and marched with a heavy tread to the door, a tread that made Lucy, for some reason she couldn't at first understand, think of Elgar. Why Elgar? part of her asked, puzzled, while the rest of her was blankly watching Wemyss. Of course: the march: Pomp and Circumstance.

At the door he turned and said, 'Since you thrust yourself into my room when I have shown you I don't desire your company you force me to leave it.'

Then he added, his voice sounding queer and through his teeth, 'You'd better go and put your clothes on. I assure you I'm proof against sexual allurements.'

Then he went out.

Lucy stood looking at the door. Sexual allurements? What did he mean? Did he think—did he mean–

She flushed suddenly, and gripping her blanket tight about her she too marched to the door, her eyes bright and fixed.

Considering the blanket, she walked upstairs with a good deal of dignity, and passed the bedroom door just as Lizzie, her arms full of a complete set of clothing, came out of it.

'Lumme!' once more exclaimed Lizzie, who seemed marked down for shocks; and dropped a hairbrush and a shoe.

Disregarding her, Lucy proceeded up the next flight with the same dignity, and having reached Vera's room crossed to the fire, where she stood in silence while Lizzie, who had hurried after her and was reproaching her for having gone downstairs like that, dressed her and brushed her hair.

She was quite silent. She didn't move. She was miles away from Lizzie, absorbed in quite a new set of astonished, painful thoughts. But at the end, when Lizzie asked her if there was anything more she could do, she looked at her a minute and then, having realised her, put out her hand and laid it on her arm.

'Thank you very much for everything,' she said earnestly.

'I'm terribly sorry about that window, mum,' said Lizzie, who was sure she had been the cause of trouble. 'I don't know what come over me to forget it.'

Lucy smiled faintly at her. 'Never mind,' she said; and she thought that if it hadn't been for that window she and Everard—well, it was no use thinking like that; perhaps there would have been something else.

Lizzie went. She was a recent acquisition, and was the only one of the servants who hadn't known the late Mrs. Wemyss, but she told herself that anyhow she preferred this one. She went; and Lucy stood where she had left her, staring at the floor, dropping back into her quite new set of astonished, painful thoughts.

Everard,—that was an outrage, that about sexual allurements; just simply an outrage. She flushed at the remembrance of it; her whole body seemed to flush hot. She felt as though never again would she be able to bear him making love to her. He had spoilt that. But that was a dreadful way to feel, that was destructive of the very heart of marriage. No, she mustn't let herself,—she must stamp that feeling out; she must forget what he had said. He couldn't really have meant it. He was still in a temper. She oughtn't to have gone down. But how could she know? All this was new to her, a new side of Everard. Perhaps, she thought, watching the reflection of the flames flickering on the shiny, slippery oak floor, only people with tempers should marry people with tempers. They would understand each other, say the same sorts of things, tossing them backwards and forwards like a fiery, hissing ball, know the exact time it would last, and be saved by their vivid emotions from the deadly hurt, the deadly loneliness of the one who couldn't get into a rage.

Loneliness.

She lifted her head and looked round the room.

No, she wasn't lonely. There was still–

Suddenly she went to the bookshelves, and began pulling out the books quickly, hungrily reading their names, turning over their pages in a kind of starving hurry to get to know, to get to understand, Vera....

XXI

Meanwhile Wemyss had gone into the drawing-room till such time as his wife should choose to allow him to have his own library to himself again.

For a long while he walked up and down it thinking bitter things, for he was very angry. The drawing-room was a big gaunt room, rarely used of recent years. In the early days, when people called on the newly arrived Wemysses, there had been gatherings in it,—retaliatory festivities to the vicar, to the doctor, to the landlord, with a business acquaintance or two of Wemyss's, wife appended, added to fill out. These festivities, however, died of inanition. Something was wanting, something necessary to nourish life in them. He thought of them as he walked about the echoing room from which the last guest had departed years ago. Vera, of course. Her fault that the parties had left off. She had been so slack, so indifferent. You couldn't expect people to come to your house if you took no pains to get them there. Yet what a fine room for entertaining. The grand piano, too. Never used. And Vera who made such a fuss about music, and pretended she knew all about it.