Love and Lucy
Lucy said nothing; whereupon Mabel showed her clear sight. "And I
suppose you know now who turned the light off." At that terrible
surmise Lucy got up and stood above her sister. "Mabel, I don't know
what to do."
"I am sure you don't," said Mabel. "On the other hand, you know what
you have to do."
"Yes," Lucy replied; "but it isn't so easy as you would think. You
see, I have never spoken to him about it, nor he to me; and it seems
almost impossible to begin--now."
Mabel was out of her depth. "Do you mean--? What do you really mean?"
"I mean exactly what I say. I found out the truth, by a kind of
accident--one day. It wasn't possible to doubt. Well, then--it went
on, you know--"
"Of course it did," said Mabel. "Well?"
--"And there was no disguise about it, after there couldn't be."
"Why should there be, if there couldn't be?" Mabel was at her wits'
end.
"There was no disguise about it, while it was going on, you know. But
in the daytime--well, we seemed to be ordinary people, and nothing was
said. Now do you see?"
Mabel did. "It makes it very awkward for you. But feeling as you do
now, you simply must have it out."
"I can't," Lucy said with conviction. "I know I can't do that. No, it
must stop another way. I must--be hateful."
"Do you mean to make him dislike you? To put him off?"
Lucy nodded. "Something like that."
"Try it," said Mabel.
"You mean it won't answer?"
"I mean that _you_ won't, my dear. You are not that sort. Much too
kind. Now I could be perfectly beastly, if I felt it the only thing."
Lucy was in a hard stare. "I don't feel kind just now. James has given
me a horror of things of the sort. I don't believe he meant it. I
think he felt snappish and thought he would relieve his feelings that
way. But there it is. He has made it all rather disgusting. It's
become like a kind of intrigue of vulgar people, in a comedy."
"These things do when you take them out and look at them," Mabel said.
"Like sham jewellery. They are all right in their cases. The velvet
lining does so much. But although you may be disgusted with James's
handling of your private affairs, you are not disgusted with--the
other?"
"No, I suppose not. I really don't know. He is the most understanding
man in the world, and I would trust him through everything. I don't
think he could tell me an untruth. Not one that mattered, anyhow. I
could see him go away from me for a year, for two, and not hear a word
from him, and yet be sure that he would come back, and be the same,
and know me to be the same. I feel so safe with him, so proud of his
liking me, so settled in life--I never felt settled before--like being
in a nest. He makes everything I love or like seem more beautiful and
precious--Lancelot, oh, I am much prouder of Lancelot than I used to
be. He has shown me things in Lancelot which I never saw. He has made
the being Lancelot's mother seem a more important, a finer thing. I
don't know how to say it, but he has simply enhanced everything--as
you say, like a velvet lining to a jewel. All this is true--and
something in me calls for him, and urges me to go to him. But now--but
yet--all this hateful jealousy--this playing off one man against
another--Francis Lingen! As if I ever had a minute's thought of
Francis Lingen--oh, it's really disgusting. I didn't think any one in
our world could be like that. It spots me--I want to be clean. I'd
much rather be miserable than feel dirty."
Here she stopped, on the edge of tears, which a sudden access of anger
dried up. She began again, more querulously. "It's his fault, of
course. It was outrageous what he did. I'm angry with him because I
can't be angry with myself--for not being angry. How could I be angry?
Oh, Mabel, if it had been James after all! But of course it wasn't,
and couldn't be; and I should be angry with him if I wasn't so awfully
sorry for him."
Mabel stared. "Sorry for James!"
"Yes, naturally. He's awfully simple, you know, and really rather
proud of me in his way. I see him looking at me sometimes, wondering
what he's done. It's pathetic. But that's not the point. The point is
that I can't get out."
"Do you want to get out?" Mabel asked.
"Yes, I do in a way. It has to be--and the sooner the better. And
whether I do or not, I don't like to feel that I can't. Nobody likes
to be tied."
"Then nobody should be married," said Mabel, who had listened to these
outbursts of speech, and pauses which had been really to find words
rather than breath, with staring and hard-rimmed eyes. She had a gift
of logic, and could be pitiless. "What it comes to, you know," she
said, "is that you want to have your fun in private. We all do, I
suppose; but that can't come off in nine cases out of ten. Especially
with a man like James, who is as sharp as a razor, and just as edgy.
The moment anybody peers at you you show a tarnish, and get put off.
It doesn't look to me as if you thought so highly of--the other as you
think you do. After all, if you come to that, the paraphernalia of a
wedding is pretty horrid; one feels awfully like a heifer at the
Cattle Show. At least, I did. The complacency of the bridegroom is
pretty repulsive. You feel like a really fine article. But one lives
it down, if one means it."
Lucy told her to go, or as good as told her. Sisters may be plain with
each other. She wasn't able to answer her, though she felt that an
answer there was.
What she had said was partly true. Lucy was a romantic without knowing
it. So had Psyche been, and the fatal lamp should have told her so.
The god removed himself. Thus she felt it to be. He seemed just
outside the door, and a word, a look, would recall him to his dark
beauty of presence. That he was beautiful so she knew too well, that
he was unbeautiful in the glare of day she felt rather than knew. The
fault, she suspected, lay in her, who could not see him in the light
without the blemish of circumstance--not his, but circumstance, in
whose evil shade he must seem smirched. What could she do with her
faulty vision, but send him away? Was that not less dishonourable than
to bid him remain and dwindle as she looked at him? What a kink in her
affairs, when she must be cruel to her love, not because she loved him
less, but rather that she might love him more!
But the spirit of adventure grew upon her in spite of herself, the
sense of something in the wind, of the morning bringing one nearer to
a great day. It pervaded the house; Crewdson got in the way of saying,
"When we are abroad, we shall find that useful, ma'am"; or "Mr.
Macartney will be asking for that in Norway." As for James, it had
changed his spots, if not his nature. James bought marvellous climbing
boots, binoculars, compasses of dodgy contrivance, sandwich-cases,
drinking-flasks, a knowing hat. He read about Norway, studied a
dictionary, and ended by talking about it, and all to do with it,
without any pragmatism. Lucy found out how he relied upon Urquhart and
sometimes forgot that he was jealous of him. Jealous he was, but not
without hope. For one thing, he liked a fight, with a good man. Lingen
caught the epidemic, and ceased to think or talk about himself. He had
heard of carpets to be had, of bold pattern and primary colouring; he
had heard of bridal crowns of silver-gilt worthy of any collector's
cabinet. He also bought boots and tried his elegant leg in a
flame-coloured sock. And to crown the rocking edifice, Lancelot came
home in a kind of still ecstasy which only uttered itself in
convulsions of the limbs, and sudden and ear-piercing whistles through
the fingers. From him above all she gained assurance. "Oh, Mr.
Urquhart, he'll put all that straight, I bet you--in two ticks!..."
and once it was, "I say, Mamma, I wonder where you and I would be
without Mr. Urquhart." James heard him, and saw Lucy catch her breath.
Not very pleasant.
CHAPTER XVII
THE SHIVERING FIT
They were to start on the 8th of August, and it was now the 5th.
Packing had begun, and Crewdson, as usual, was troublesome. He had the
habit of appearing before Lucy and presenting some small deficiency as
a final cause of ruin and defeat. "I can't find any of the Brown
Polish, ma'am. I don't know what Mr. Macartney will do without it."
This, or something like it, had become a classic in the family. It had
always been part of the fun of going away. But this year Lucy was
fretted by it. She supposed herself run down and whipped herself to
work. She found herself, too, lingering about the house, with an
affection for the familiar aspect of corners, vistas, tricks of light
and shadow, which she had never thought to possess. She felt extremely
unwilling to leave it all. It was safety, it was friendliness; it
asked no effort of her. To turn away from its lustrous and ordered
elegance and face the unknown gave her a pain in the heart. It was
odd to feel homesick before she had left home; but that was the sum of
it. She was homesick. Urquhart was very much in her mind; a letter of
his was in her writing-table drawer, under lock and key; but Urquhart
seemed part of a vague menace now, while James, though he did his
unconscious utmost to defeat himself, got his share of the sunset glow
upon the house. Fanciful, nervous, weary of it all as she was, she
devoted herself to her duties; and then, on this fifth of August, in
the afternoon, she had a waking vision, perfectly distinct, and so
vivid that, disembodied and apart, she could see herself enacting it.
It was followed by a shivering fit and depression; but that must tell
its own tale.
* * * * *
The vision occurred while she was on her knees, busied beside a trunk,
turning over garments of lace and fine linen and pale blue ribbons
which a maid, in the same fair attitude, was bestowing as she received
them. Lancelot was out for the afternoon with Crewdson and a friend.
They had gone to the Zoological Gardens, and would not be back till
late. She had the house to herself; it was cool and shadowed from the
sun. The Square, muffled in the heat, gave no disturbing sounds.
Looking up suddenly, for no apparent reason, she saw herself with
Jimmy Urquhart in a great empty, stony place, and felt the dry wind
which blew upon them both. All but her own face was visible; of that
she saw nothing but the sharp outline of her cheek, which was very
white. She saw herself holding her hat, bending sideways to the
gale; she saw her skirt cling about her legs, and flack to get free.
She wondered why she didn't hold it down. The wind was a hot one; she
felt that it was so. It made her head ache, and burned her cheek-bone.
Urquhart was quite visible. He looked into the teeth of the wind,
frowning and fretful. Why didn't she say something to him? She had a
conviction that it was useless. "There's nothing to say, nothing to
say." That rang in her head, like a church bell. "Nothing to say,
nothing to say." A sense of desolation and total loss oppressed her.
She had no hope. The vacancy, the silence, the enormous dry emptiness
about her seemed to shut out all her landmarks. Why didn't she think
of Lancelot? She wondered why, but realised that Lancelot meant
nothing out there. She saw herself turn about. She cried out, "James!
James!" started up with a sense of being caught, and saw the maid's
face of scare. She was awake in a moment. "What is it, ma'am? What is
it?"
Lucy had recovered her faculties: "Nothing, Emily; it's nothing. I was
giddy." But she was shivering and couldn't go on. "I think I'll lie
down for a minute," she said, and asked for the aspirin. She took two
tabloids and a sip of water, was covered up and left to herself. Emily
tiptoed away, full of interest in the affair.
The shivering fit lasted the better part of an hour. Lucy crouched and