Bliss, and other stories
the eyelids of Egyptian dancers.”
When he looked up at her and said: “Bertha, this is a very admirable
_soufflée!_” she almost could have wept with child-like pleasure.
Oh, why did she feel so tender towards the whole world to-night?
Everything was good—was right. All that happened seemed to fill again
her brimming cup of bliss.
And still, in the back of her mind, there was the pear tree. It would
be silver now, in the light of poor dear Eddie’s moon, silver as Miss
Fulton, who sat there turning a tangerine in her slender fingers that
were so pale a light seemed to come from them.
What she simply couldn’t make out—what was miraculous—was how she
should have guessed Miss Fulton’s mood so exactly and so instantly. For
she never doubted for a moment that she was right, and yet what had she
to go on? Less than nothing.
“I believe this does happen very, very rarely between women. Never
between men,” thought Bertha. “But while I am making the coffee in the
drawing-room perhaps she will ‘give a sign.’”
What she meant by that she did not know, and what would happen after
that she could not imagine.
While she thought like this she saw herself talking and laughing. She
had to talk because of her desire to laugh.
“I must laugh or die.”
But when she noticed Face’s funny little habit of tucking something
down the front of her bodice—as if she kept a tiny, secret hoard of
nuts there, too—Bertha had to dig her nails into her hands—so as not to
laugh too much.
It was over at last. And: “Come and see my new coffee machine,” said
Bertha.
“We only have a new coffee machine once a fortnight,” said Harry. Face
took her arm this time; Miss Fulton bent her head and followed after.
The fire had died down in the drawing-room to a red, flickering “nest
of baby phœnixes,” said Face.
“Don’t turn up the light for a moment. It is so lovely.” And down she
crouched by the fire again. She was always cold . . . “without her
little red flannel jacket, of course,” thought Bertha.
At that moment Miss Fulton “gave the sign.”
“Have you a garden?” said the cool, sleepy voice.
This was so exquisite on her part that all Bertha could do was to obey.
She crossed the room, pulled the curtains apart, and opened those long
windows.
“There!” she breathed.
And the two women stood side by side looking at the slender, flowering
tree. Although it was so still it seemed, like the flame of a candle,
to stretch up, to point, to quiver in the bright air, to grow taller
and taller as they gazed—almost to touch the rim of the round, silver
moon.
How long did they stand there? Both, as it were, caught in that circle
of unearthly light, understanding each other perfectly, creatures of
another world, and wondering what they were to do in this one with all
this blissful treasure that burned in their bosoms and dropped, in
silver flowers, from their hair and hands?
For ever—for a moment? And did Miss Fulton murmur: “Yes. Just _that._”
Or did Bertha dream it?
Then the light was snapped on and Face made the coffee and Harry said:
“My dear Mrs. Knight, don’t ask me about my baby. I never see her. I
shan’t feel the slightest interest in her until she has a lover,” and
Mug took his eye out of the conservatory for a moment and then put it
under glass again and Eddie Warren drank his coffee and set down the
cup with a face of anguish as though he had drunk and seen the spider.
“What I want to do is to give the young men a show. I believe London is
simply teeming with first-chop, unwritten plays. What I want to say to
’em is: ‘Here’s the theatre. Fire ahead.’”
“You know, my dear, I am going to decorate a room for the Jacob
Nathans. Oh, I am so tempted to do a fried-fish scheme, with the backs
of the chairs shaped like frying pans and lovely chip potatoes
embroidered all over the curtains.”
“The trouble with our young writing men is that they are still too
romantic. You can’t put out to sea without being seasick and wanting a
basin. Well, why won’t they have the courage of those basins?”
“A _dreadful_ poem about a _girl_ who was _violated_ by a beggar
without a nose in a lit-tle wood. . . .”
Miss Fulton sank into the lowest, deepest chair and Harry handed round
the cigarettes.
From the way he stood in front of her shaking the silver box and saying
abruptly: “Egyptian? Turkish? Virginian? They’re all mixed up,” Bertha
realized that she not only bored him; he really disliked her. And she
decided from the way Miss Fulton said: “No, thank you, I won’t smoke,”
that she felt it, too, and was hurt.
“Oh, Harry, don’t dislike her. You are quite wrong about her. She’s
wonderful, wonderful. And, besides, how can you feel so differently
about someone who means so much to me. I shall try to tell you when we
are in bed to-night what has been happening. What she and I have
shared.”
At those last words something strange and almost terrifying darted into
Bertha’s mind. And this something blind and smiling whispered to her:
“Soon these people will go. The house will be quiet—quiet. The lights
will be out. And you and he will be alone together in the dark room—the
warm bed. . . .”
She jumped up from her chair and ran over to the piano.
“What a pity someone does not play!” she cried. “What a pity somebody
does not play.”
For the first time in her life Bertha Young desired her husband.
Oh, she’d loved him—she’d been in love with him, of course, in every
other way, but just not in that way. And, equally, of course, she’d
understood that he was different. They’d discussed it so often. It had
worried her dreadfully at first to find that she was so cold, but after
a time it had not seemed to matter. They were so frank with each
other—such good pals. That was the best of being modern.
But now—ardently! ardently! The word ached in her ardent body! Was this
what that feeling of bliss had been leading up to? But then then——
“My dear,” said Mrs. Norman Knight, “you know our shame. We are the
victims of time and train. We live in Hampstead. It’s been so nice.”
“I’ll come with you into the hall,” said Bertha. “I loved having you.
But you must not miss the last train. That’s so awful, isn’t it?”
“Have a whisky, Knight, before you go?” called Harry.
“No, thanks, old chap.”
Bertha squeezed his hand for that as she shook it.
“Good night, good-bye,” she cried from the top step, feeling that this
self of hers was taking leave of them for ever.
When she got back into the drawing-room the others were on the move.
“. . . Then you can come part of the way in my taxi.”
“I shall be _so_ thankful _not_ to have to face _another_ drive _alone_
after my _dreadful_ experience.”
“You can get a taxi at the rank just at the end of the street. You
won’t have to walk more than a few yards.”
“That’s a comfort. I’ll go and put on my coat.”
Miss Fulton moved towards the hall and Bertha was following when Harry
almost pushed past.
“Let me help you.”
Bertha knew that he was repenting his rudeness—she let him go. What a
boy he was in some ways—so impulsive—so—simple.
And Eddie and she were left by the fire.
“I _wonder_ if you have seen Bilks’ _new_ poem called _Table d’Hôte_,”
said Eddie softly. “It’s _so_ wonderful. In the last Anthology. Have
you got a copy? I’d _so_ like to _show_ it to you. It begins with an
_incredibly_ beautiful line: ‘Why Must it Always be Tomato Soup?’”
“Yes,” said Bertha. And she moved noiselessly to a table opposite the
drawing-room door and Eddie glided noiselessly after her. She picked up
the little book and gave it to him; they had not made a sound.
While he looked it up she turned her head towards the hall. And she saw
. . . Harry with Miss Fulton’s coat in his arms and Miss Fulton with
her back turned to him and her head bent. He tossed the coat away, put
his hands on her shoulders and turned her violently to him. His lips
said: “I adore you,” and Miss Fulton laid her moonbeam fingers on his
cheeks and smiled her sleepy smile. Harry’s nostrils quivered; his lips
curled back in a hideous grin while he whispered: “To-morrow,” and with
her eyelids Miss Fulton said: “Yes.”
“Here it is,” said Eddie. “‘Why Must it Always be Tomato Soup?’ It’s so
_deeply_ true, don’t you feel? Tomato soup is so _dreadfully_ eternal.”
“If you prefer,” said Harry’s voice, very loud, from the hall, “I can
phone you a cab to come to the door.”
“Oh, no. It’s not necessary,” said Miss Fulton, and she came up to
Bertha and gave her the slender fingers to hold.
“Good-bye. Thank you so much.”
“Good-bye,” said Bertha.
Miss Fulton held her hand a moment longer.
“Your lovely pear tree!” she murmured.
And then she was gone, with Eddie following, like the black cat
following the grey cat.
“I’ll shut up shop,” said Harry, extravagantly cool and collected.
“Your lovely pear tree—pear tree—pear tree!”
Bertha simply ran over to the long windows.
“Oh, what is going to happen now?” she cried.
But the pear tree was as lovely as ever and as full of flower and as
still.
The Wind Blows
Suddenly—dreadfully—she wakes up. What has happened? Something dreadful
has happened. No—nothing has happened. It is only the wind shaking the
house, rattling the windows, banging a piece of iron on the roof and
making her bed tremble. Leaves flutter past the window, up and away;
down in the avenue a whole newspaper wags in the air like a lost kite
and falls, spiked on a pine tree. It is cold. Summer is over—it is
autumn—everything is ugly. The carts rattle by, swinging from side to
side; two Chinamen lollop along under their wooden yokes with the
straining vegetable baskets—their pigtails and blue blouses fly out in
the wind. A white dog on three legs yelps past the gate. It is all
over! What is? Oh, everything! And she begins to plait her hair with
shaking fingers, not daring to look in the glass. Mother is talking to
grandmother in the hall.
“A perfect idiot! Imagine leaving anything out on the line in weather
like this. . . . Now my best little Teneriffe-work teacloth is simply
in ribbons. _What_ is that extraordinary smell? It’s the porridge
burning. Oh, heavens—this wind!”
She has a music lesson at ten o’clock. At the thought the minor
movement of the Beethoven begins to play in her head, the trills long
and terrible like little rolling drums. . . . Marie Swainson runs into
the garden next door to pick the “chrysanths” before they are ruined.
Her skirt flies up above her waist; she tries to beat it down, to tuck
it between her legs while she stoops, but it is no use—up it flies. All
the trees and bushes beat about her. She picks as quickly as she can
but she is quite distracted. She doesn’t mind what she does—she pulls
the plants up by the roots and bends and twists them, stamping her foot
and swearing.
“For heaven’s sake keep the front door shut! Go round to the back,”
shouts someone. And then she hears Bogey:
“Mother, you’re wanted on the telephone. Telephone, Mother. It’s the
butcher.”
How hideous life is—revolting, simply revolting. . . . And now her
hat-elastic’s snapped. Of course it would. She’ll wear her old tam and
slip out the back way. But Mother has seen.
“Matilda. Matilda. Come back im-me-diately! What on earth have you got
on your head? It looks like a tea cosy. And why have you got that mane
of hair on your forehead.”
“I can’t come back. Mother. I’ll be late for my lesson.”
“Come back immediately!”
She won’t. She won’t. She hates Mother. “Go to hell,” she shouts,
running down the road.
In waves, in clouds, in big round whirls the dust comes stinging, and
with it little bits of straw and chaff and manure. There is a loud
roaring sound from the trees in the gardens, and standing at the bottom