Book + 

III + 

XVIII + 

I + 

A pale glint of sunshine devoid of all warmth lay over the wide expanse of the river, touching the funnel of a passing tug that tore at the water like a clumsy harrow; but a field of water is not for the sowing and the river closed back in the wake of the tug, deftly obliterating all traces of its noisy and foolish passing. The trees along the Chelsea Embankment bent and creaked in a sharp March wind. The wind was urging the sap in their branches to flow with a more determined purpose, but the skin of their bodies was blackened and soot clogged so that when touched it left soot on the fingers, and knowing this they were always disheartened and therefore a little slow to respond to the urge of the wind⁠—they were city trees which are always somewhat disheartened. Away to the right against a toneless sky stood the tall factory chimneys beloved of young artists⁠—especially those whose skill is not great, for few can go wrong over factory chimneys⁠—while across the stream Battersea Park still looked misty as though barely convalescent from fog. + 

In her large, long, rather low-ceilinged study whose casement windows looked over the river, sat Stephen with her feet stretched out to the fire and her hands thrust into her jacket pockets. Her eyelids drooped, she was all but asleep although it was early afternoon. She had worked through the night, a deplorable habit and one of which Puddle quite rightly disapproved, but when the spirit of work was on her it was useless to argue with Stephen. + 

Puddle looked up from her embroidery frame and pushed her spectacles on to her forehead the better to see the drowsy Stephen, for Puddle’s eyes had grown very long-sighted so that the room looked blurred through her glasses. + 

She thought: “Yes, she’s changed a good deal in these two years⁠—” then she sighed half in sadness and half in contentment, “All the same she is making good,” thought Puddle, remembering with a quick thrill of pride that the long-limbed creature who lounged by the fire had suddenly sprung into something like fame thanks to a fine first novel. + 

Stephen yawned, and readjusting her spectacles Puddle resumed her wool-work. + 

It was true that the two long years of exile had left their traces on Stephen’s face; it had grown much thinner and more determined, some might have said that the face had hardened, for the mouth was less ardent and much less gentle, and the lips now drooped at the corners. The strong rather massive line of the jaw looked aggressive these days by reason of its thinness. Faint furrows had come between the thick brows and faint shadows showed at times under the eyes; the eyes themselves were the eyes of a writer, always a little tired in expression. Her complexion was paler than it had been in the past, it had lost the look of wind and sunshine⁠—the open-air look⁠—and the fingers of the hand that slowly emerged from her jacket pocket were heavily stained with nicotine⁠—she was now a voracious smoker. Her hair was quite short. In a mood of defiance she had suddenly walked off to the barber’s one morning and had made him crop it close like a man’s. And mightily did this fashion become her, for now the fine shape of her head was unmarred by the stiff clumpy plait in the nape of her neck. Released from the torment imposed upon it the thick auburn hair could breathe and wave freely, and Stephen had grown fond and proud of her hair⁠—a hundred strokes must it have with the brush every night until it looked burnished. Sir Philip also had been proud of his hair in the days of his youthful manhood. + 

Stephen’s life in London had been one long endeavour, for work to her had become a narcotic. Puddle it was who had found the flat with the casement windows that looked on the river, and Puddle it was who now kept the accounts, paid the rent, settled bills and managed the servants; all these details Stephen calmly ignored and the faithful Puddle allowed her to do so. Like an ageing and anxious Vestal Virgin she tended the holy fire of inspiration, feeding the flame with suitable food⁠—good grilled meat, light puddings and much fresh fruit, varied by little painstaking surprises from Jackson’s or Fortnum and Mason. For Stephen’s appetite was not what it had been in the vigorous days of Morton; now there were times when she could not eat, or if she must eat she did so protesting, fidgeting to go back to her desk. At such times Puddle would steal into the study with a tin of Brand’s Essence⁠—she had even been known to feed the recalcitrant author piecemeal, until Stephen must laugh and gobble up the jelly for the sake of getting on with her writing. + 

Only one duty apart from her work had Stephen never for a moment neglected, and that was the care and the welfare of Raftery. The cob had been sold, and her father’s chestnut she had given away to Colonel Antrim, who had sworn not to let the horse out of his hands for the sake of his lifelong friend, Sir Philip⁠—but Raftery she had brought up to London. She herself had found and rented his stable with comfortable rooms above for Jim, the groom she had taken from Morton. Every morning she rode very early in the Park, which seemed a futile and dreary business, but now only thus could the horse and his owner contrive to be together for a little. Sometimes she fancied that Raftery sighed as she cantered him round and round the Row, and then she would stoop down and speak to him softly: + 

“My Raftery, I know, it’s not Castle Morton or the hills or the big, green Severn Valley⁠—but I love you.” + 

And because he had understood her he would throw up his head and begin to prance sideways, pretending that he still felt very youthful, pretending that he was wild with delight at the prospect of cantering round the Row. But after a while these two sorry exiles would droop and move forward without much spirit. Each in a separate way would divine the ache in the other, the ache that was Morton, so that Stephen would cease to urge the beast forward, and Raftery would cease to pretend to Stephen. But when twice a year at her mother’s request, Stephen must go back to visit her home, then Raftery went too, and his joy was immense when he felt the good springy turf beneath him, when he sighted the red brick stables of Morton, when he rolled in the straw of his large, airy loosebox. The years would seem to slip from his shoulders, he grew sleeker, he would look like a five-year-old⁠—yet to Stephen these visits of theirs were anguish because of her love for Morton. She would feel like a stranger within the gates, an unwanted stranger there only on sufferance. It would seem to her that the old house withdrew itself from her love very gravely and sadly, that its windows no longer beckoned, invited: “Come home, come home, come inside quickly, Stephen!” And she would not dare to proffer her love, which would burden her heart to breaking. + 

She must now pay many calls with her mother, must attend all the formal social functions⁠—this for the sake of appearances, lest the neighbours should guess the breach between them. She must keep up the fiction that she found in a city the stimulus necessary to her work, she who was filled with a hungry longing for the green of the hills, for the air of wide spaces, for the mornings and the noontides and the evenings of Morton. All these things she must do for the sake of her father, aye, and for the sake of Morton. + 

On her first visit home Anna had said very quietly one day: “There’s something, Stephen, that I think I ought to tell you perhaps, though it’s painful to me to reopen the subject. There has been no scandal⁠—that man held his tongue⁠—you’ll be glad to know this because of your father. And Stephen⁠—the Crossbys have sold The Grange and gone to America, I believe⁠—” she had stopped abruptly, not looking at Stephen, who had nodded, unable to answer. + 

So now there were quite different folk at The Grange, folk very much more to the taste of the county⁠—Admiral Carson and his apple-cheeked wife who, childless herself, adored Mothers’ Meetings. Stephen must sometimes go to The Grange with Anna, who liked the Carsons. Very grave and aloof had Stephen become; too reserved, too self-assured, thought her neighbours. They supposed that success had gone to her head, for no one was now allowed to divine the terrible shyness that made social intercourse such a miserable torment. Life had already taught Stephen one thing, and that was that never must human beings be allowed to suspect that a creature fears them. The fear of the one is a spur to the many, for the primitive hunting instinct dies hard⁠—it is better to face a hostile world than to turn one’s back for a moment. + 

But at least she was spared meeting Roger Antrim, and for this she was most profoundly thankful. Roger had gone with his regiment to Malta, so that they two did not see each other. Violet was married and living in London in the: “perfect duck of a house in Belgravia.” From time to time she would blow in on Stephen, but not often, because she was very much married with one baby already and another on the way. She was somewhat subdued and much less maternal that she had been when first she met Alec. + 

If Anna was proud of her daughter’s achievement she said nothing beyond the very few words that must of necessity be spoken: “I’m so glad your book has succeeded, Stephen.” + 

“Thank you, mother⁠—” + 

Then as always these two fell silent. Those long and eloquent silences of theirs were now of almost daily occurrence when they found themselves together. Nor could they look each other in the eyes any more, their eyes were forever shifting, and sometimes Anna’s pale cheeks would flush very slightly when she was alone with Stephen⁠—perhaps at her thoughts. + 

And Stephen would think: “It’s because she can’t help remembering.” + 

For the most part, however, they shunned all contact by common consent, except when in public. And this studied avoidance tore at their nerves; they were now well-nigh obsessed by each other, forever secretly laying their plans in order to avoid a meeting. Thus it was that these obligatory visits to Morton were a pretty bad strain on Stephen. She would get back to London unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to write, and with such a despairing and sickening heartache for the grave old house the moment she had left it, that Puddle would have to be very severe in order to pull her together. + 

“I’m ashamed of you, Stephen; what’s happened to your courage? You don’t deserve your phenomenal success; if you go on like this, God help the new book. I suppose you’re going to be a one-book author!” + 

Scowling darkly, Stephen would go to her desk⁠—she had no wish to be a one-book author. + 

II + 

Yet as everything comes as grist to the mill of those who are destined from birth to be writers⁠—poverty or riches, good or evil, gladness or sorrow, all grist to the mill⁠—so the pain of Morton burning down to the spirit in Stephen had kindled a bright, hot flame, and all that she had written she had written by its light, seeing exceedingly clearly. As though in a kind of self-preservation, her mind had turned to quite simple people, humble people sprung from the soil, from the same kind soil that had nurtured Morton. None of her own strange emotions had touched them, and yet they were part of her own emotions; a part of her longing for simplicity and peace, a part of her curious craving for the normal. And although at this time Stephen did not know it, their happiness had sprung from her moments of joy; their sorrows from the sorrow she had known and still knew; their frustrations from her own bitter emptiness; their fulfilments from her longing to be fulfilled. These people had drawn life and strength from their creator. Like infants they had sucked at her breasts of inspiration, and drawn from them blood, waxing wonderfully strong; demanding, compelling thereby recognition. For surely thus only are fine books written, they must somehow partake of the miracle of blood⁠—the strange and terrible miracle of blood, the giver of life, the purifier, the great final expiation. + 

III + 

But one thing there was that Puddle still feared, and this was the girl’s desire for isolation. To her it appeared like a weakness in Stephen; she divined the bruised humility of spirit that now underlay this desire for isolation, and she did her best to frustrate it. It was Puddle who had forced the embarrassed Stephen to let in the Press photographers, and Puddle it was who had given the details for the captions that were to appear with the pictures: “If you choose to behave like a hermit crab I shall use my own judgment about what I say!” + 

“I don’t care a tinker’s darn what you say! Now leave me in peace do, Puddle.” + 

It was Puddle who answered the telephone calls: “I’m afraid Miss Gordon will be busy working⁠—what name did you say? Oh, The Literary Monthly! I see⁠—well suppose you come on Wednesday.” And on Wednesday morning there was old Puddle waiting to waylay the anxious young man who had been commanded to dig up some copy about the new novelist, Stephen Gordon. Then Puddle had smiled at the anxious young man and had shepherded him into her own little sanctum, and had given him a comfortable chair, and had stirred the fire the better to warm him. And the young man had noticed her charming smile and had thought how kind was this ageing woman, and how damned hard it was to go tramping the streets in quest of erratic, unsociable authors. + 

Puddle had said, still smiling kindly: “I’d hate you to go back without your copy, but Miss Gordon’s been working overtime lately, I dare not disturb her, you don’t mind, do you? Now if you could possibly make shift with me⁠—I really do know a great deal about her; as a matter of fact I’m her ex-governess, so I really do know quite a lot about her.” + 

Out had come notebook and copying pencil; it was easy to talk to this sympathetic woman: “Well, if you could give me some interesting details⁠—say, her taste in books and her recreations, I’d be awfully grateful. She hunts, I believe?” + 

“Oh, not now!” + 

“I see⁠—well then, she did hunt. And wasn’t her father Sir Philip Gordon who had a place down in Worcestershire and was killed by a falling tree or something? What kind of pupil did you find Miss Gordon? I’ll send her my notes when I’ve worked them up, but I really would like to see her, you know.” Then being a fairly sagacious young man: “I’ve just read The Furrow, it’s a wonderful book!” + 

Puddle talked glibly while the young man scribbled, and when at last he was just about going she let him out on to the balcony from which he could look into Stephen’s study. + 

“There she is at her desk! What more could you ask?” she said triumphantly, pointing to Stephen whose hair was literally standing on end, as is sometimes the way with youthful authors. She even managed occasionally, to make Stephen see the journalists herself. + 

IV + 

Stephen got up, stretched, and went to the window. The sun had retreated behind the clouds; a kind of brown twilight hung over the Embankment, for the wind had now dropped and a fog was threatening. The discouragement common to all fine writers was upon her, she was hating what she had written. Last night’s work seemed inadequate and unworthy; she decided to put a blue pencil through it and to rewrite the chapter from start to finish. She began to give way to a species of panic; her new book would be a ludicrous failure, she felt it, she would never again write a novel possessing the quality of The Furrow. The Furrow had been the result of shock to which she had, strangely enough, reacted by a kind of unnatural mental vigour. But now she could not react any more, her brain felt like overstretched elastic, it would not spring back, it was limp, unresponsive. And then there was something else that distracted, something she was longing to put into words yet that shamed her so that it held her tongue-tied. She lit a cigarette and when it was finished found another and kindled it at the stump. + 

“Stop embroidering that curtain, for God’s sake, Puddle. I simply can’t stand the sound of your needle; it makes a booming noise like a drum every time you prod that tightly stretched linen.” + 

Puddle looked up: “You’re smoking too much.” + 

“I dare say I am. I can’t write any more.” + 

“Since when?” + 

“Ever since I began this new book.” + 

“Don’t be such a fool!” + 

“But it’s God’s truth, I tell you⁠—I feel flat, it’s a kind of spiritual dryness. This new book is going to be a failure, sometimes I think I’d better destroy it.” She began to pace up and down the room, dull-eyed yet tense as a tightly drawn bow string. + 

“This comes of working all night,” Puddle murmured. + 

“I must work when the spirit moves me,” snapped Stephen. + 

Puddle put aside her wool work embroidery. She was not much moved by this sudden depression, she had grown quite accustomed to these literary moods, yet she looked a little more closely at Stephen and something that she saw in her face disturbed her. + 

“You look tired to death; why not lie down and rest?” + 

“Rot! I want to work.” + 

“You’re not fit to work. You look all on edge, somehow. What’s the matter with you?” And then very gently: “Stephen, come here and sit down by me, please, I must know what’s the matter.” + 

Stephen obeyed as though once again they two were back in the old Morton schoolroom, then she suddenly buried her face in her hands: “I don’t want to tell you⁠—why must I, Puddle?” + 

“Because,” said Puddle, “I’ve a right to know; your career’s very dear to me, Stephen.” + 

Then suddenly Stephen could not resist the blessed relief of confiding in Puddle once more, of taking this great new trouble to the faithful and wise little grey-haired woman whose hand had been stretched out to save in the past. Perhaps yet again that hand might find the strength that was needful to save her. + 

Not looking at Puddle, she began to talk quickly: “There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you, Puddle⁠—it’s about my work, there’s something wrong with it. I mean that my work could be much more vital; I feel it, I know it, I’m holding it back in some way, there’s something I’m always missing. Even in The Furrow I feel I missed something⁠—I know it was fine, but it wasn’t complete because I’m not complete and I never shall be⁠—can’t you understand? I’m not complete.⁠ ⁠…” She paused unable to find the words she wanted, then blundered on again blindly: “There’s a great chunk of life that I’ve never known, and I want to know it, I ought to know it if I’m to become a really fine writer. There’s the greatest thing perhaps in the world, and I’ve missed it⁠—that’s what’s so awful, Puddle, to know that it exists everywhere, all round me, to be constantly near it yet always held back⁠—to feel that the poorest people in the streets, the most ignorant people, know more than I do. And I dare to take up my pen and write, knowing less than these poor men and women in the street! Why haven’t I got a right to it, Puddle? Can’t you understand that I’m strong and young, so that sometimes this thing that I’m missing torments me, so that I can’t concentrate on my work any more? Puddle, help me⁠—you were young yourself once.” + 

“Yes, Stephen⁠—a long time ago I was young.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“But can’t you remember back for my sake?” And now her voice sounded almost angry in her distress: “It’s unfair, it’s unjust. Why should I live in this great isolation of spirit and body⁠—why should I, why? Why have I been afflicted with a body that must never be indulged, that must always be repressed until it grows stronger much than my spirit because of this unnatural repression? What have I done to be so cursed? And now it’s attacking my holy of holies, my work⁠—I shall never be a great writer because of my maimed and insufferable body⁠—” She fell silent, suddenly shy and ashamed, too much ashamed to go on speaking. + 

And there sat Puddle as pale as death and as speechless, having no comfort to offer⁠—no comfort, that is, that she dared to offer⁠—while all her fine theories about making good for the sake of those others; being noble, courageous, patient, honourable, physically pure, enduring because it was right to endure, the terrible birthright of the invert⁠—all Puddle’s fine theories lay strewn around her like the ruins of some false and flimsy temple, and she saw at that moment but one thing clearly⁠—true genius in chains, in the chains of the flesh, a fine spirit subject to physical bondage. And as once before she had argued with God on behalf of this sorely afflicted creature, so now she inwardly cried yet again to the Maker whose will had created Stephen: “Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet Thou dost destroy me.” Then into her heart crept a bitterness very hard to endure: “Yet Thou dost destroy me⁠—” + 

Stephen looked up and saw her face: “Never mind,” she said sharply, “it’s all right, Puddle⁠—forget it!” + 

But Puddle’s eyes filled with tears, and seeing this, Stephen went to her desk. Sitting down she groped for her manuscript: “I’m going to turn you out now, I must work. Don’t wait for me if I’m late for dinner.” + 

Very humbly Puddle crept out of the study. + 

XXIX + 

I + 

Soon after the New Year, nine months later, Stephen’s second novel was published. It failed to create the sensation that the first had created, there was something disappointing about it. One critic described this as: “A lack of grip,” and his criticism, on the whole, was a fair one. However, the Press was disposed to be kind, remembering the merits of The Furrow. + 

But the heart of the Author knoweth its own sorrows and is seldom responsive to false consolation, so that when Puddle said: “Never mind, Stephen, you can’t expect every book to be The Furrow⁠—and this one is full of literary merit,” Stephen replied as she turned away: “I was writing a novel, my dear, not an essay.” + 

After this they did not discuss it any more, for what was the use of fruitless discussion? Stephen knew well and Puddle knew also that this book fell far short of its author’s powers. Then suddenly, that spring, Raftery went very lame, and everything else was forgotten. + 

Raftery was aged, he was now eighteen, so that lameness in him was not easy of healing. His life in a city had tried him sorely, he had missed the light, airy stables of Morton, and the cruel-hard bed that lay under the tan of the Row had jarred his legs badly. + 

The vet shook his head and looked very grave: “He’s an aged horse, you know, and of course in his youth you hunted him pretty freely⁠—it all counts. Everyone comes to the end of their tether, Miss Gordon. Yes, at times I’m afraid it is painful.” Then seeing Stephen’s face: “I’m awfully sorry not to give a more cheerful diagnosis.” + 

Other experts arrived. Every good vet in London was consulted, including Professor Hobday. No cure, no cure, it was always the same, and at times, they told Stephen, the old horse suffered; but this she well knew⁠—she had seen the sweat break out darkly on Raftery’s shoulders. + 

So one morning she went into Raftery’s loosebox, and she sent the groom Jim out of the stable, and she laid her cheek against the beast’s neck, while he turned his head and began to nuzzle. Then they looked at each other very quietly and gravely, and in Raftery’s eyes was a strange, new expression⁠—a kind of half-anxious, protesting wonder at this thing men call pain: “What is it, Stephen?” + 

She answered, forcing back her hot tears: “Perhaps, for you, the beginning, Raftery.⁠ ⁠…” + 

After a while she went to his manger and let the fodder slip through her fingers; but he would not eat, not even to please her, so she called the groom back and ordered some gruel. Very gently she readjusted the clothing that had slipped to one side, first the under-blanket then the smart blue rug that was braided in red⁠—red and blue, the old stable colours of Morton. + 

The groom Jim, now a thickset stalwart young man, stared at her with sorrowful understanding, but he did not speak; he was almost as dumb as the beasts whom his life had been passed in tending⁠—even dumber, perhaps, for his language consisted of words, having no small sounds and small movements such as Raftery used when he spoke with Stephen, and which meant so much more than words. + 

She said: “I’m going now to the station to order a horsebox for tomorrow, I’ll let you know the time we start, later. And wrap him up well; put on plenty of clothing for the journey, please, he mustn’t feel cold.” + 

The man nodded. She had not told him their destination, but he knew it already; it was Morton. Then the great clumsy fellow must pretend to be busy with a truss of fresh straw for the horse’s bedding, because his face had turned a deep crimson, because his coarse lips were actually trembling⁠—and this was not really so very strange, for those who served Raftery loved him. + 

II + 

Raftery stepped quietly into his horsebox and Jim with great deftness secured the halter, then he touched his cap and hurried away to his third-class compartment, for Stephen herself would travel with Raftery on this last journey back to the fields of Morton. Sitting down on the seat reserved for a groom she opened the little wooden window into the box, whereupon Raftery’s muzzle came up and his face looked out of the window. She fondled the soft, grey plush of his muzzle. Presently she took a carrot from her pocket, but the carrot was rather hard now for his teeth, so she bit off small pieces and these she gave him in the palm of her hand; then she watched him eat them uncomfortably, slowly, because he was old, and this seemed so strange, for old age and Raftery went very ill together. + 

Her mind slipped back and back over the years until it recaptured the coming of Raftery⁠—grey-coated and slender, and his eyes as soft as an Irish morning, and his courage as bright as an Irish sunrise, and his heart as young as the wild, eternally young heart of Ireland. She remembered what they had said to each other. Raftery had said: “I will carry you bravely, I will serve you all the days of my life.” She had answered: “I will care for you night and day, Raftery⁠—all the days of your life.” She remembered their first run with hounds together⁠—she a youngster of twelve, he a youngster of five. Great deeds they had done on that day together, at least they had seemed like great deeds to them⁠—she had had a kind of fire in her heart as she galloped astride of Raftery. She remembered her father, his protective back, so broad, so kind, so patiently protective; and towards the end it had stooped a little as though out of kindness it carried a burden. Now she knew whose burden that back had been bearing so that it stooped a little. He had been very proud of the fine Irish horse, very proud of his small and courageous rider: “Steady, Stephen!” but his eyes had been bright like Raftery’s. “Steady on, Stephen, we’re coming to a stiff one!” but once they were over he had turned round and smiled, as he had done in the days when the impudent Collins had stretched his inadequate legs to their utmost to keep up with the pace of the hunters. + 

Long ago, it all seemed a long time ago. A long road it seemed, leading where? She wondered. Her father had gone away into its shadows, and now after him, limping a little, went Raftery; Raftery with hollows above his eyes and down his grey neck that had once been so firm; Raftery whose splendid white teeth were now yellowed and too feeble to bite up his carrot. + 

The train jogged and swayed so that once the horse stumbled. Springing up, she stretched out her hand to soothe him. He seemed glad of her hand: “Don’t be frightened, Raftery. Did that hurt you?” Raftery acquainted with pain on the road that led into the shadows. + 

Presently the hills showed over on the left, but a long way off, and when they came nearer they were suddenly very near on the right, so near that she saw the white houses on them. They looked dark; a kind of still, thoughtful darkness brooded over the hills and their low white houses. It was always so in the late afternoons, for the sun moved across to the wide Wye Valley⁠—it would set on the western side of the hills, over the wide Wye Valley. The smoke from the chimney-stacks bent downwards after rising a little and formed a blue haze, for the air was heavy with spring and dampness. Leaning from the window she could smell the spring, the time of mating, the time of fruition. When the train stopped a minute outside the station she fancied that she heard the singing of birds; very softly it came but the sound was persistent⁠—yes, surely, that was the singing of birds.⁠ ⁠… + 

III + 

They took Raftery in an ambulance from Great Malvern in order to spare him the jar of the roads. That night he slept in his own spacious loosebox, and the faithful Jim would not leave him that night; he sat up and watched while Raftery slept in so deep a bed of yellow-gold straw that it all but reached to his knees when standing. A last inarticulate tribute this to the most gallant horse, the most courteous horse that ever stepped out of stable. + 

But when the sun came up over Bredon, flooding the breadth of the Severn Valley, touching the slopes of the Malvern Hills that stand opposite Bredon across the valley, gilding the old red bricks of Morton and the weathervane on its quiet stables, Stephen went into her father’s study and she loaded his heavy revolver. + 

Then they led Raftery out and into the morning; they led him with care to the big north paddock and stood him beside the mighty hedge that had set the seal on his youthful valour. Very still he stood with the sun on his flanks, the groom, Jim, holding the bridle. + 

Stephen said: “I’m going to send you away, a long way away, and I’ve never left you except for a little while since you came when I was a child and you were quite young⁠—but I’m going to send you a long way away because of your pain. Raftery, this is death; and beyond, they say, there’s no more suffering.” She paused, then spoke in a voice so low that the groom could not hear her: “Forgive me, Raftery.” + 

And Raftery stood there looking at Stephen, and his eyes were as soft as an Irish morning, yet as brave as the eyes that looked into his. Then it seemed to Stephen that he had spoken, that Raftery had said: “Since to me you are God, what have I to forgive you, Stephen?” + 

She took a step forward and pressed the revolver high up against Raftery’s smooth, grey forehead. She fired, and he dropped to the ground like a stone, lying perfectly still by the mighty hedge that had set the seal on his youthful valour. + 

But now there broke out a great crying and wailing: “Oh, me! Oh, me! They’ve been murderin’ Raftery! Shame, shame, I says, on the ’and what done it, and ’im no common horse but a Christian.⁠ ⁠…” Then loud sobbing as though some very young child had fallen down and hurt itself badly. And there in a small, creaky, wicker bath-chair sat Williams, being bumped along over the paddock by a youthful niece, who had come to Morton to take care of the old and now feeble couple; for Williams had had his first stroke that Christmas, in addition to which he was almost childish. God only knew who had told him this thing; the secret had been very carefully guarded by Stephen, who, knowing his love for the horse, had taken every precaution to spare him. Yet now here he was with his face all twisted by the stroke and the sobs that kept on rising. He was trying to lift his half-paralysed hand which kept dropping back on to the arm of the bath-chair; he was trying to get out of the bath-chair and run to where Raftery lay stretched out in the sunshine; he was trying to speak again, but his voice had grown thick so that no one could understand him. Stephen thought that his mind had begun to wander, for now he was surely not screaming “Raftery” any more, but something that sounded like: “Master!” and again, “Oh, Master, Master!” + 

She said: “Take him home,” for he did not know her; “take him home. You’d no business to bring him here at all⁠—it’s against my orders. Who told him about it?” + 

And the young girl answered: “It seemed ’e just knowed⁠—it was like as though Raftery told ’im.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Williams looked up with his blurred, anxious eyes. “Who be you?” he inquired. Then he suddenly smiled through his tears. “It be good to be seein’ you, Master⁠—seems like a long while.⁠ ⁠…” His voice was now clear but exceedingly small, a small, far away thing. If a doll had spoken, its voice might have sounded very much as the old man’s did at that moment. + 

Stephen bent over him. “Williams, I’m Stephen⁠—don’t you know me? It’s Miss Stephen. You must go straight home and get back to bed⁠—it’s still rather cold on these early spring mornings⁠—to please me, Williams, you must go straight home. Why, your hands are frozen!” + 

But Williams shook his head and began to remember. “Raftery,” he mumbled, “something’s ’appened to Raftery.” And his sobs and his tears broke out with fresh vigour, so that his niece, frightened, tried to stop him. + 

“Now uncle be qui‑et I do be‑seech ’e! It’s so bad for ’e carryin’ on in this wise. What will auntie say when she sees ’e all mucked up with weepin’, and yer poor nose all red and dir‑ty? I’ll be takin’ ’e ’ome as Miss Stephen ’ere says. Now, uncle dear, do be qui‑et!” + 

She lugged the bath-chair round with a jolt and trundled it, lurching, towards the cottage. All the way back down the big north paddock Williams wept and wailed and tried to get out, but his niece put one hefty young hand on his shoulder; with the other she guided the lurching bath-chair. + 

Stephen watched them go, then she turned to the groom. “Bury him here,” she said briefly. + 

IV + 

Before she left Morton that same afternoon, she went once more into the large, bare stables. The stables were now completely empty, for Anna had moved her carriage horses to new quarters nearer the coachman’s cottage. + 

Over one loosebox was a warped oak board bearing Collins’ studbook title, “Marcus,” in red and blue letters; but the paint was dulled to a ghostly grey by encroaching mildew, while a spider had spun a large, purposeful web across one side of Collins’ manger. A cracked, sticky wine bottle lay on the floor; no doubt used at some time for drenching Collins, who had died in a fit of violent colic a few months after Stephen herself had left Morton. On the windowsill of the farthest loosebox stood a curry comb and a couple of brushes; the comb was being eaten by rust, the brushes had lost several clumps of bristles. A jam pot of hoof-polish, now hard as stone, clung tenaciously to a short stick of firewood which time had petrified into the polish. But Raftery’s loosebox smelt fresh and pleasant with the curious dry, clean smell of new straw. A deep depression towards the middle showed where his body had lain in sleep, and seeing this Stephen stooped down and touched it for a moment. Then she whispered: “Sleep peacefully, Raftery.” + 

She could not weep, for a great desolation too deep for tears lay over her spirit⁠—the great desolation of things that pass, of things that pass away in our lifetime. And then of what good, after all, are our tears, since they cannot hold back this passing away⁠—no, not for so much as a moment? She looked round her now at the empty stables, the unwanted, uncared for stables of Morton. So proud they had been that were now so humbled, even unto cobwebs and dust were they humbled; and they had the feeling of all disused places that have once teemed with life, they felt pitifully lonely. She closed her eyes so as not to see them. Then the thought came to Stephen that this was the end, the end of her courage and patient endurance⁠—that this was somehow the end of Morton. She must not see the place any more; she must, she would, go a long way away. Raftery had gone a long way away⁠—she had sent him beyond all hope of recall⁠—but she could not follow him over that merciful frontier, for her God was more stern than Raftery’s; and yet she must fly from her love for Morton. Turning, she hurriedly left the stables. + 

V + 

Anna was standing at the foot of the stairs. “Are you leaving now, Stephen?” + 

“Yes⁠—I’m going, Mother.” + 

“A short visit!” + 

“Yes, I must get back to work.” + 

“I see.⁠ ⁠…” Then after a long, awkward pause: “Where would you like him buried?” + 

“In the large north paddock where he died⁠—I’ve told Jim.” + 

“Very well, I’ll see that they carry out your orders.” She hesitated, as though suddenly shy of Stephen again, as she had been in the past; but after a moment she went on quickly: “I thought⁠—I wondered, would you like a small stone with his name and some sort of inscription on it, just to mark the place?” + 

“If you’d care to put one⁠—I shan’t need any stone to remember.” + 

The carriage was waiting to drive her to Malvern. “Goodbye, Mother.” + 

“Goodbye⁠—I shall put up that stone.” + 

“Thanks, it’s a very kind thought of yours.” + 

Anna said: “I’m so sorry about this, Stephen.” + 

But Stephen had hurried into the brougham⁠—the door closed, and she did not hear her mother. + 

XXX + 

I + 

At an old-fashioned, Kensington luncheon party, not very long after Raftery’s death, Stephen met and renewed her acquaintance with Jonathan Brockett, the playwright. Her mother had wished her to go to this luncheon, for the Carringtons were old family friends, and Anna insisted that from time to time her daughter should accept their invitations. At their house it was that Stephen had first seen this young man, rather over a year ago. Brockett was a connection of the Carringtons; had he not been Stephen might never have met him, for such gatherings bored him exceedingly, and therefore it was not his habit to attend them. But on that occasion he had not been bored, for his sharp, grey eyes had lit upon Stephen; and as soon as he well could, the meal being over, he had made his way to her side and had remained there. She had found him exceedingly easy to talk to, as indeed he had wished her to find him. + 

This first meeting had led to one or two rides in the Row together, since they both rode early. Brockett had joined her quite casually one morning; after which he had called, and had talked to Puddle as if he had come on purpose to see her and her only⁠—he had charming and thoughtful manners towards all elderly people. Puddle had accepted him while disliking his clothes, which were always just a trifle too careful; moreover she had disapproved of his cufflinks⁠—platinum links set with tiny emeralds. All the same, she had made him feel very welcome, for to her it had been any port in a storm just then⁠—she would gladly have welcomed the devil himself, had she thought that he might rouse Stephen. + 

But Stephen was never able to decide whether Jonathan Brockett attracted or repelled her. Brilliant he could be at certain times, yet curiously foolish and puerile at others; and his hands were as white and soft as a woman’s⁠—she would feel a queer little sense of outrage creeping over her when she looked at his hands. For those hands of his went so ill with him somehow; he was tall, broad-shouldered, and of an extreme thinness. His clean-shaven face was slightly sardonic and almost disconcertingly clever; an inquisitive face too⁠—one felt that it pried into everyone’s secrets without shame or mercy. It may have been genuine liking on his part or mere curiosity that had made him persist in thrusting his friendship on Stephen. But whatever it had been it had taken the form of ringing her up almost daily at one time; of worrying her to lunch or dine with him, of inviting himself to her flat in Chelsea, or what was still worse, of dropping in on her whenever the spirit moved him. His work never seemed to worry him at all, and Stephen often wondered when his fine plays got written, for Brockett very seldom if ever discussed them and apparently very seldom wrote them; yet they always appeared at the critical moment when their author had run short of money. + 

Once, for the sake of peace, she had dined with him in a species of glorified cellar. He had just then discovered the queer little place down in Seven Dials, and was very proud of it; indeed, he was making it rather the fashion among certain literary people. He had taken a great deal of trouble that evening to make Stephen feel that she belonged to these people by right of her talent, and had introduced her as “Stephen Gordon, the author of The Furrow.” But all the while he had secretly watched her with his sharp and inquisitive grey eyes. She had felt very much at ease with Brockett as they sat at their little dimly lit table, perhaps because her instinct divined that this man would never require of her more than she could give⁠—that the most he would ask for at any time would be friendship. + 

Then one day he had casually disappeared, and she heard that he had gone to Paris for some months, as was often his custom when the climate of London had begun to get on his nerves. He had drifted away like thistledown, without so much as a word of warning. He had not said goodbye nor had he written, so that Stephen felt that she had never known him, so completely did he go out of her life during his sojourn in Paris. Later on she was to learn, when she knew him better, that these disconcerting lapses of interest, amounting as they did to a breach of good manners, were highly characteristic of the man, and must of necessity be accepted by all who accepted Jonathan Brockett. + 

And now here he was back again in England, sitting next to Stephen at the Carringtons’ luncheon. And as though they had met but a few hours ago, he took her up calmly just where he had left her. “May I come in tomorrow?” + 

“Well⁠—I’m awfully busy.” + 

“But I want to come, please; I can talk to Puddle.” + 

“I’m afraid she’ll be out.” + 

“Then I’ll just sit and wait until she comes in; I’ll be quiet as a mouse.” + 

“Oh, no, Brockett, please don’t; I should know you were there and that would disturb me.” + 

“I see. A new book?” + 

“Well, no⁠—I’m trying to write some short stories; I’ve got a commission from The Good Housewife.” + 

“Sounds thrifty. I hope you’re getting well paid.” Then after a rather long pause: “How’s Raftery?” + 

For a second she did not answer, and Brockett, with quick intuition, regretted his question. “Not⁠ ⁠… not.⁠ ⁠…” he stammered. + 

“Yes,” she said slowly, “Raftery’s dead⁠—he went lame. I shot him.” + 

He was silent. Then he suddenly took her hand and, still without speaking, pressed it. Glancing up, she was surprised by the look in his eyes, so sorrowful it was, and so understanding. He had liked the old horse, for he liked all dumb creatures. But Raftery’s death could mean nothing to him; yet his sharp, grey eyes had now softened with pity because she had had to shoot Raftery. + 

She thought: “What a curious fellow he is. At this moment I suppose he actually feels something almost like grief⁠—it’s my grief he’s getting⁠—and tomorrow, of course, he’ll forget all about it.” + 

Which was true enough. Brockett could compress quite a lot of emotion into an incredibly short space of time; could squeeze a kind of emotional beef-tea from all those with whom life brought him in contact⁠—a strong brew, and one that served to sustain and revivify his inspiration. + 

II + 

For ten days Stephen heard nothing more of Brockett; then he rang up to announce that he was coming to dinner at her flat that very same evening. + 

“You’ll get awfully little to eat,” warned Stephen, who was tired to death and who did not want him. + 

“Oh, all right, I’ll bring some dinner along,” he said blithely, and with that he hung up the receiver. + 

At a quarter-past eight he arrived, late for dinner and loaded like a pack-mule with brown paper parcels. He looked cross; he had spoilt his new reindeer gloves with mayonnaise that had oozed through a box containing the lobster salad. + 

He thrust the box into Stephen’s hands. “Here, you take it⁠—it’s dripping. Can I have a wash rag?” But after a moment he forgot the new gloves. “I’ve raided Fortnum and Mason⁠—such fun⁠—I do love eating things out of cardboard boxes. Hallo, Puddle darling! I sent you a plant. Did you get it? A nice little plant with brown bobbles. It smells good, and it’s got a ridiculous name like an old Italian dowager or something. Wait a minute⁠—what’s it called? Oh, yes, a baronia⁠—it’s so humble to have such a pompous name! Stephen, do be careful⁠—don’t rock the lobster about like that. I told you the thing was dripping!” + 

He dumped his parcels on to the hall table. + 

“I’ll take them along to the kitchen,” smiled Puddle. + 

“No, I will,” said Brockett, collecting them again, “I’ll do the whole thing; you leave it to me. I adore other people’s kitchens.” + 

He was in his most foolish and tiresome mood⁠—the mood when his white hands made odd little gestures, when his laugh was too high and his movements too small for the size of his broad-shouldered, rather gaunt body. Stephen had grown to dread him in this mood; there was something almost aggressive about it; it would seem to her that he thrust it upon her, showing off like a child at a Christmas party. + 

She said sharply: “If you’ll wait, I’ll ring for the maid.” But Brockett had already invaded the kitchen. + 

She followed, to find the cook looking offended. + 

“I want lots and lots of dishes,” he announced. Then unfortunately he happened to notice the parlourmaid’s washing, just back from the laundry. + 

“Brockett, what on earth are you doing?” + 

He had put on the girl’s ornate frilled cap, and was busily tying on her small apron. He paused for a moment. “How do I look? What a perfect duck of an apron!” + 

The parlourmaid giggled and Stephen laughed. That was the worst of Jonathan Brockett, he could make you laugh in spite of yourself⁠—when you most disapproved you found yourself laughing. + 

The food he had brought was the oddest assortment: lobster, caramels, pâté de foies gras, olives, a tin of rich-mixed biscuits and a Camembert cheese that was smelling loudly. There was also a bottle of Rose’s lime-juice and another of ready-made cocktails. He began to unpack the things one by one, clamouring for plates and entrée dishes. In the process he made a great mess on the table by upsetting most of the lobster salad. + 

He swore roundly. “Damn the thing, it’s too utterly bloody! It’s ruined my gloves, and now look at the table!” In grim silence the cook repaired the damage. + 

This mishap appeared to have damped his ardour, for he sighed and removed his cap and apron. “Can anyone open this bottle of olives? And the cocktails? Here, Stephen, you can tackle the cheese; it seems rather shy, it won’t leave its kennel.” In the end it was Stephen and the cook who must do all the work, while Brockett sat down on the floor and gave them ridiculous orders. + 

III + 

Brockett it was who ate most of the dinner, for Stephen was too overtired to feel hungry; while Puddle, whose digestion was not what it had been, was forced to content herself with a cutlet. But Brockett ate largely, and as he did so he praised himself and his food between mouthfuls. + 

“Clever of me to have discovered this pâté⁠—I’m so sorry for the geese though, aren’t you, Stephen? The awful thing is that it’s simply delicious⁠—I wish I knew the esoteric meaning of these mixed emotions!” And he dug with a spoon at the side that appeared to contain the most truffles. + 

From time to time he paused to inhale the gross little cigarettes he affected. Their tobacco was black, their paper was yellow, and they came from an unpropitious island where, as Brockett declared, the inhabitants died in shoals every year of some tropical fever. He drank a good deal of the Rose’s lime-juice, for this strong, rough tobacco always made him thirsty. Whiskey went to his head and wine to his liver, so that on the whole he was forced to be temperate; but when he got home he would brew himself coffee as viciously black as his tobacco. + 

Presently he said with a sigh of repletion: “Well, you two, I’ve finished⁠—let’s go into the study.” + 

As they left the table he seized the mixed biscuits and the caramel creams, for he dearly loved sweet things. He would often go out and buy himself sweets in Bond Street, for solitary consumption. + 

In the study he sank down on to the divan. “Puddle dear, do you mind if I put my feet up? It’s my new bootmaker, he’s given me a corn on my right little toe. It’s too heartbreaking. It was such a beautiful toe,” he murmured; “quite perfect⁠—the one toe without a blemish!” + 

After this he seemed disinclined to talk. He had made himself a nest with the cushions, and was smoking, and nibbling rich-mixed biscuits, routing about in the tin for his favourites. But his eyes kept straying across to Stephen with a puzzled and rather anxious expression. + 

At last she said: “What’s the matter, Brockett? Is my necktie crooked?” + 

“No⁠—it’s not your necktie; it’s something else.” He sat up abruptly. “As I came here to say it, I’ll get the thing over!” + 

“Fire away, Brockett.” + 

“Do you think you’ll hate me if I’m frank?” + 

“Of course not. Why should I hate you?” + 

“Very well then, listen.” And now his voice was so grave that Puddle put down her embroidery. “You listen to me, you, Stephen Gordon. Your last book was quite inexcusably bad. It was no more like what we all expected, had a right to expect of you after The Furrow, than that plant I sent Puddle is like an oak tree⁠—I won’t even compare it to that little plant, for the plant’s alive; your book isn’t. Oh, I don’t mean to say that it’s not well written; it’s well written because you’re just a born writer⁠—you feel words, you’ve a perfect ear for balance, and a very good all-round knowledge of English. But that’s not enough, not nearly enough; all that’s a mere suitable dress for a body. And this time you’ve hung the dress on a dummy⁠—a dummy can’t stir our emotions, Stephen. I was talking to Ogilvy only last night. He gave you a good review, he told me, because he’s got such a respect for your talent that he didn’t want to put on the damper. He’s like that⁠—too merciful I always think⁠—they’ve all been too merciful to you, my dear. They ought to have literally skinned you alive⁠—that might have helped to show you your danger. My God! and you wrote a thing like The Furrow! What’s happened? What’s undermining your work? Because whatever it is, it’s deadly! it must be some kind of horrid dry rot. Ah, no, it’s too bad and it mustn’t go on⁠—we’ve got to do something, quickly.” + 

He paused, and she stared at him in amazement. Until now she had never seen this side of Brockett, the side of the man that belonged to his art, to all art⁠—the one thing in life he respected. + 

She said: “Do you really mean what you’re saying?” + 

“I mean every word,” he told her. + 

Then she asked him quite humbly: “What must I do to save my work?” for she realized that he had been speaking the stark, bitter truth; that indeed she had needed no one to tell her that her last book had been altogether unworthy⁠—a poor, lifeless thing, having no health in it. + 

He considered. “It’s a difficult question, Stephen. Your own temperament is so much against you. You’re so strong in some ways and yet so timid⁠—such a mixture⁠—and you’re terribly frightened of life. Now why? You must try to stop being frightened, to stop hiding your head. You need life, you need people. People are the food that we writers live on; get out and devour them, squeeze them dry, Stephen!” + 

“My father once told me something like that⁠—not quite in those words⁠—but something very like it.” + 

“Then your father must have been a sensible man,” smiled Brockett. “Now I had a perfect beast of a father. Well, Stephen, I’ll give you my advice for what it’s worth⁠—you want a real change. Why not go abroad somewhere? Get right away for a bit from your England. You’ll probably write it a damned sight better when you’re far enough off to see the perspective. Start with Paris⁠—it’s an excellent jumping-off place. Then you might go across to Italy or Spain⁠—go anywhere, only do get a move on! No wonder you’re atrophied here in London. I can put you wise about people in Paris. You ought to know Valérie Seymour, for instance. She’s very good fun and a perfect darling; I’m sure you’d like her, everyone does. Her parties are a kind of human bran-pie⁠—you just plunge in your fist and see what happens. You may draw a prize or you may draw blank, but it’s always worth while to go to her parties. Oh, but good Lord, there are so many things that stimulate one in Paris.” + 

He talked on about Paris for a little while longer, then he got up to go. “Well, goodbye, my dears, I’m off. I’ve given myself indigestion. And do look at Puddle, she’s blind with fury; I believe she’s going to refuse to shake hands! Don’t be angry, Puddle⁠—I’m very well-meaning.” + 

“Yes, of course,” answered Puddle, but her voice sounded cold. + 

IV + 

After he had gone they stared at each other, then Stephen said: “What a queer revelation. Who would have thought that Brockett could get so worked up? His moods are kaleidoscopic.” She was purposely forcing herself to speak lightly. + 

But Puddle was angry, bitterly angry. Her pride was wounded to the quick for Stephen. “The man’s a perfect fool!” she said gruffly. “And I didn’t agree with one word he said. I expect he’s jealous of your work, they all are. They’re a mean-minded lot, these writing people.” + 

And looking at her Stephen thought sadly, “She’s tired⁠—I’m wearing her out in my service. A few years ago she’d never have tried to deceive me like this⁠—she’s losing courage.” Aloud she said: “Don’t be cross with Brockett, he meant to be friendly, I’m quite sure of that. My work will buck up⁠—I’ve been feeling slack lately, and it’s told on my writing⁠—I suppose it was bound to.” Then the merciful lie, “But I’m not a bit frightened!” + 

V + 

Stephen rested her head on her hand as she sat at her desk⁠—it was well past midnight. She was heartsick as only a writer can be whose day has been spent in useless labour. All that she had written that day she would destroy, and now it was well past midnight. She turned, looking wearily round the study, and it came upon her with a slight sense of shock that she was seeing this room for the very first time, and that everything in it was abnormally ugly. The flat had been furnished when her mind had been too much afflicted to care in the least what she bought, and now all her possessions seemed clumsy or puerile, from the small, foolish chairs to the large, roll-top desk; there was nothing personal about any of them. How had she endured this room for so long? Had she really written a fine book in it? Had she sat in it evening after evening and come back to it morning after morning? Then she must have been blind indeed⁠—what a place for any author to work in! She had taken nothing with her from Morton but the hidden books found in her father’s study; these she had taken, as though in a way they were hers by some intolerable birthright; for the rest she had shrunk from depriving the house of its ancient and honoured possessions. + 

Morton⁠—so quietly perfect a thing, yet the thing of all others that she must fly from, that she must forget; but she could not forget it in these surroundings; they reminded by contrast. Curious what Brockett had said that evening about putting the sea between herself and England.⁠ ⁠… In view of her own half-formed plan to do so, his words had come as a kind of echo of her thoughts; it was almost as though he had peeped through a secret keyhole into her mind, had been spying upon her trouble. By what right did this curious man spy upon her⁠—this man with the soft, white hands of a woman, with the movements befitting those soft, white hands, yet so ill-befitting the rest of his body? By no right; and how much had the creature found out when his eye had been pressed to that secret keyhole? Clever⁠—Brockett was fiendishly clever⁠—all his whims and his foibles could not disguise it. His face gave him away, a hard, clever face with sharp eyes that were glued to other people’s keyholes. That was why Brockett wrote such fine plays, such cruel plays; he fed his genius on live flesh and blood. Carnivorous genius. Moloch, fed upon live flesh and blood! But she, Stephen, had tried to feed her inspiration upon herbage, the kind, green herbage of Morton. For a little while such food had sufficed, but now her talent had sickened, was dying perhaps⁠—or had she too fed it on blood, her heart’s blood when she had written The Furrow? If so, her heart would not bleed any more⁠—perhaps it could not⁠—perhaps it was dry. A dry, withered thing; for she did not feel love these days when she thought of Angela Crossby⁠—that must mean that her heart had died within her. A gruesome companion to have, a dead heart. + 

Angela Crossby⁠—and yet there were times when she longed intensely to see this woman, to hear her speak, to stretch out her arms and clasp them around the woman’s body⁠—not gently, not patiently as in the past, but roughly, brutally even. Beastly⁠—it was beastly! She felt degraded. She had no love to offer Angela Crossby, not now, only something that lay like a stain on the beauty of what had once been love. Even this memory was marred and defiled, by herself even more than by Angela Crossby. + 

Came the thought of that unforgettable scene with her mother. “I would rather see you dead at my feet.” Oh, yes⁠—very easy to talk about death, but not so easy to manage the dying. “We two cannot live together at Morton.⁠ ⁠… One of us must go, which of us shall it be?” The subtlety, the craftiness of that question which in common decency could have but one answer! Oh, well, she had gone and would go even farther. Raftery was dead, there was nothing to hold her, she was free⁠—what a terrible thing could be freedom. Trees were free when they were uprooted by the wind; ships were free when they were torn from their moorings; men were free when they were cast out of their homes⁠—free to starve, free to perish of cold and hunger. + 

At Morton there lived an ageing woman with sorrowful eyes now a little dim from gazing for so long into the distance. Only once, since her gaze had been fixed on the dead, had this woman turned it full on her daughter; and then her eyes had been changed into something accusing, ruthless, abominably cruel. Through looking upon what had seemed abominable to them, they themselves had become an abomination. Horrible! And yet how dared they accuse? What right had a mother to abominate the child that had sprung from her own secret moments of passion? She the honoured, the fulfilled, the fruitful, the loving and loved, had despised the fruit of her love. Its fruit? No, rather its victim. + 

She thought of her mother’s protected life that had never had to face this terrible freedom. Like a vine that clings to a warm southern wall it had clung to her father⁠—it still clung to Morton. In the spring had come gentle and nurturing rains, in the summer the strong and health-giving sunshine, in the winter a deep, soft covering of snow⁠—cold yet protecting the delicate tendrils. All, all she had had. She had never gone empty of love in the days of her youthful ardour; had never known longing, shame, degradation, but rather great joy and great pride in her loving. Her love had been pure in the eyes of the world, for she had been able to indulge it with honour. Still with honour, she had borne a child to her mate⁠—but a child who, unlike her, must go unfulfilled all her days, or else live in abject dishonour. Oh, but a hard and pitiless woman this mother must be for all her soft beauty; shamelessly finding shame in her offspring. “I would rather see you dead at my feet.⁠ ⁠…” “Too late, too late, your love gave me life. Here am I the creature you made through your loving; by your passion you created the thing that I am. Who are you to deny me the right to love? But for you I need never have known existence.” + 

And now there crept into Stephen’s brain the worst torment of all, a doubt of her father. He had known and knowing he had not told her; he had pitied and pitying had not protected; he had feared and fearing had saved only himself. Had she had a coward for a father? She sprang up and began to pace the room. Not this⁠—she could not face this new torment. She had stained her love, the love of the lover⁠—she dared not stain this one thing that remained, the love of the child for the father. If this light went out the engulfing darkness would consume her, destroying her entirely. Man could not live by darkness alone, one point of light he must have for salvation⁠—one point of light. The most perfect Being of all had cried out for light in His darkness⁠—even He, the most perfect Being of all. And then as though in answer to prayer, to some prayer that her trembling lips had not uttered, came the memory of a patient, protective back, bowed as though bearing another’s burden. Came the memory of horrible, soul-sickening pain: “No⁠—not that⁠—something urgent⁠—I want⁠—to say. No drugs⁠—I know I’m⁠—dying⁠—Evans.” And again an heroic and tortured effort: “Anna⁠—it’s Stephen⁠—listen.” Stephen suddenly held out her arms to this man who, though dead, was still her father. + 

But even in this blessed moment of easement, her heart hardened again at the thought of her mother. A fresh wave of bitterness flooded her soul so that the light seemed all but extinguished; very faintly it gleamed like the little lantern on a buoy that is tossed by tempest. Sitting down at her desk she found pen and paper. + 

She wrote: “Mother, I am going abroad quite soon, but I shall not see you to say goodbye, because I don’t want to come back to Morton. These visits of mine have always been painful, and now my work is beginning to suffer⁠—that I can not allow; I live only for my work and so I intend to guard it in future. There can now be no question of gossip or scandal, for everyone knows that I am a writer and as such may have occasion to travel. But in any case I care very little these days for the gossip of neighbours. For nearly three years I have borne your yoke⁠—I have tried to be patient and understanding. I have tried to think that your yoke was a just one, a just punishment, perhaps, for my being what I am, the creature whom you and my father created; but now I am going to bear it no longer. If my father had lived he would have shown pity, whereas you showed me none, and yet you were my mother. In my hour of great need you utterly failed me; you turned me away like some unclean thing that was unfit to live any longer at Morton. You insulted what to me seemed both natural and sacred. I went, but now I shall not come back any more to you or to Morton. Puddle will be with me because she loves me; if I’m saved at all it is she who has saved me, and so for as long as she wishes to throw in her lot with mine I shall let her. Only one thing more; she will send you our address from time to time, but don’t write to me, Mother, I am going away in order to forget, and your letters would only remind me of Morton.” + 

She read over what she had written, three times, finding nothing at all that she wished to add, no word of tenderness, or of regret. She felt numb and then unbelievably lonely, but she wrote the address in her firm handwriting: “The Lady Anna Gordon,” she wrote, “Morton Hall. Near Upton-on-Severn.” And when she wept, as she presently must do, covering her face with her large, brown hands, her spirit felt unrefreshed by this weeping, for the hot, angry tears seemed to scorch her spirit. Thus was Anna Gordon baptized through her child as by fire, unto the loss of their mutual salvation. + 

XXXI + 

I + 

It was Jonathan Brockett who had recommended the little hotel in the Rue St. Roch, and when Stephen and Puddle arrived one evening that June, feeling rather tired and dejected, they found their sitting-room bright with roses⁠—roses for Puddle⁠—and on the table two boxes of Turkish cigarettes for Stephen. Brockett, they learnt, had ordered these things by writing specially from London. + 

Barely had they been in Paris a week, when Jonathan Brockett turned up in person: “Hallo, my dears, I’ve come over to see you. Everything all right? Are you being looked after?” He sat down in the only comfortable chair and proceeded to make himself charming to Puddle. It seemed that his flat in Paris being let, he had tried to get rooms at their hotel but had failed, so had gone instead to the Meurice. “But I’m not going to take you to lunch there,” he told them, “the weather’s too fine, we’ll go to Versailles. Stephen, ring up and order your car, there’s a darling! By the way, how is Burton getting on? Does he remember to keep to the right and to pass on the left?” His voice sounded anxious. Stephen reassured him good-humouredly, she knew that he was apt to be nervous in motors. + 

They lunched at the Hotel des Reservoirs, Brockett taking great pains to order special dishes. The waiters were zealous, they evidently knew him: “Oui, monsieur, tout de suite⁠—à l’instant, monsieur!” Other clients were kept waiting while Brockett was served, and Stephen could see that this pleased him. All through the meal he talked about Paris with ardour, as a lover might talk of a mistress. + 

“Stephen, I’m not going back for ages. I’m going to make you simply adore her. You’ll see, I’ll make you adore her so much that you’ll find yourself writing like a heaven-born genius. There’s nothing so stimulating as love⁠—you’ve got to have an affair with Paris!” Then looking at Stephen rather intently, “I suppose you’re capable of falling in love?” + 

She shrugged her shoulders, ignoring his question, but she thought: “He’s putting his eye to the keyhole. His curiosity’s positively childish at times,” for she saw that his face had fallen. + 

“Oh, well, if you don’t want to tell me⁠—” he grumbled. + 

“Don’t be silly! There’s nothing to tell,” smiled Stephen. But she made a mental note to be careful. Brockett’s curiosity was always most dangerous when apparently merely childish. + 

With quick tact he dropped the personal note. No good trying to force her to confide, he decided, she was too damn clever to give herself away, especially before the watchful old Puddle. He sent for the bill and when it arrived, went over it item by item, frowning. + 

“Maître d’hotel!” + 

“Oui monsieur?” + 

“You’ve made a mistake; only one liqueur brandy⁠—and here’s another mistake, I ordered two portions of potatoes, not three; I do wish to God you’d be careful!” When Brockett felt cross he always felt mean. “Correct this at once, it’s disgusting!” he said rudely. Stephen sighed, and hearing her Brockett looked up unabashed: “Well, why pay for what we’ve not ordered?” Then he suddenly found his temper again and left a very large tip for the waiter. + 

II + 

There is nothing more difficult to attain to than the art of being a perfect guide. Such an art, indeed, requires a real artist, one who has a keen perception for contrasts, and an eye for the large effects rather than for details, above all one possessed of imagination; and Brockett, when he chose, could be such a guide. + 

Having waved the professional guides to one side, he himself took them through a part of the palace, and his mind re-peopled the place for Stephen so that she seemed to see the glory of the dancers led by the youthful Roi Soleil; seemed to hear the rhythm of the throbbing violins, and the throb of the rhythmic dancing feet as they beat down the length of the Galerie des Glaces; seemed to see those other mysterious dancers who followed step by step, in the long line of mirrors. But most skilfully of all did he recreate for her the image of the luckless queen who came after; as though for some reason this unhappy woman must appeal in a personal way to Stephen. And true it was that the small, humble rooms which the queen had chosen out of all that vast palace, moved Stephen profoundly⁠—so desolate they seemed, so full of unhappy thoughts and emotions that were even now only half forgotten. + 

Brockett pointed to the simple garniture on the mantelpiece of the little salon, then he looked at Stephen: “Madame de Lamballe gave those to the queen,” he murmured softly. + 

She nodded, only vaguely apprehending his meaning. + 

Presently they followed him out into the gardens and stood looking across the Tapis Vert that stretches its quarter mile of greenness towards a straight, lovely line of water. + 

Brockett said, very low, so that Puddle should not hear him: “Those two would often come here at sunset. Sometimes they were rowed along the canal in the sunset⁠—can’t you imagine it, Stephen? They must often have felt pretty miserable, poor souls; sick to death of the subterfuge and pretences. Don’t you ever get tired of that sort of thing? My God, I do!” But she did not answer, for now there was no mistaking his meaning. + 

Last of all he took them to the Temple d’Amour, where it rests amid the great silence of the years that have long lain upon the dead hearts of its lovers; and from there to the Hameau, built by the queen for a whim⁠—the tactless and foolish whim of a tactless and foolish but loving woman⁠—by the queen who must play at being a peasant, at a time when her downtrodden peasants were starving. The cottages were badly in need of repair; a melancholy spot it looked, this Hameau, in spite of the birds that sang in its trees and the golden glint of the afternoon sunshine. + 

On the drive back to Paris they were all very silent. Puddle was feeling too tired to talk, and Stephen was oppressed by a sense of sadness⁠—the vast and rather beautiful sadness that may come to us when we have looked upon beauty, the sadness that aches in the heart of Versailles. Brockett was content to sit opposite Stephen on the hard little let-down seat of her motor. He might have been comfortable next to the driver, but instead he preferred to sit opposite Stephen, and he too was silent, surreptitiously watching the expression of her face in the gathering twilight. + 

When he left them he said with his cold little smile: “Tomorrow, before you’ve forgotten Versailles, I want you to come to the Conciergerie. It’s very enlightening⁠—cause and effect.” + 

At that moment Stephen disliked him intensely. All the same he had stirred her imagination. + 

III + 

In the weeks that followed, Brockett showed Stephen just as much of Paris as he wished her to see, and this principally consisted of the tourist’s Paris. Into less simple pastures he would guide her later on, always provided that his interest lasted. For the present, however, he considered it wiser to tread delicately like Agag. The thought of this girl had begun to obsess him to a very unusual extent. He who had prided himself on his skill in ferreting out other people’s secrets, was completely baffled by this youthful abnormal. That she was abnormal he had no doubt whatever, but what he was keenly anxious to find out was just how her own abnormality struck her⁠—he felt pretty sure that she worried about it. And he genuinely liked her. Unscrupulous he might be in his vivisection of men and women; cynical too when it came to his pleasures, himself an invert, secretly hating the world which he knew hated him in secret; and yet in his way he felt sorry for Stephen, and this amazed him, for Jonathan Brockett had long ago, as he thought, done with pity. But his pity was a very poor thing at best, it would never defend and never protect her; it would always go down before any new whim, and his whim at the moment was to keep her in Paris. + 

All unwittingly Stephen played into his hands, while having no illusions about him. He represented a welcome distraction that helped her to keep her thoughts off England. And because under Brockett’s skilful guidance she developed a fondness for the beautiful city, she felt very tolerant of him at moments, almost grateful she felt, grateful too towards Paris. And Puddle also felt grateful. + 

The strain of the sudden complete rupture with Morton had told on the faithful little grey woman. She would scarcely have known how to counsel Stephen had the girl come to her and asked for her counsel. Sometimes she would lie awake now at nights thinking of that ageing and unhappy mother in the great silent house, and then would come pity, the old pity that had come in the past for Anna⁠—she would pity until she remembered Stephen. Then Puddle would try to think very calmly, to keep the brave heart that had never failed her, to keep her strong faith in Stephen’s future⁠—only now there were days when she felt almost old, when she realized that indeed she was ageing. When Anna would write her a calm, friendly letter, but with never so much as a mention of Stephen, she would feel afraid, yes, afraid of this woman, and at moments almost afraid of Stephen. For none might know from those guarded letters what emotions lay in the heart of their writer; and none might know from Stephen’s set face when she recognized the writing, what lay in her heart. She would turn away, asking no questions about Morton. + 

Oh, yes, Puddle felt old and actually frightened, both of which sensations she deeply resented; so being what she was, an indomitable fighter, she thrust out her chin and ordered a tonic. She struggled along through the labyrinths of Paris beside the untiring Stephen and Brockett; through the galleries of the Luxembourg and the Louvre; up the Eiffel Tower⁠—in a lift, thank heaven; down the Rue de la Paix, up the hill to Montmartre⁠—sometimes in the car but quite often on foot, for Brockett wished Stephen to learn her Paris⁠—and as likely as not, ending up with rich food that disagreed badly with the tired Puddle. In the restaurants people would stare at Stephen, and although the girl would pretend not to notice, Puddle would know that in spite of her calm, Stephen was inwardly feeling resentful, was inwardly feeling embarrassed and awkward. And then because she was tired, Puddle too would feel awkward when she noticed those people staring. + 

Sometimes Puddle must really give up and rest, in spite of the aggressive chin and the tonic. Then all alone in the Paris hotel, she would suddenly grow very homesick for England⁠—absurd of course and yet there it was, she would feel the sharp tug of England. At such moments she would long for ridiculous things; a penny bun in the train at Dover; the good red faces of English porters⁠—the old ones with little stubby side-whiskers; Harrods Stores; a properly upholstered armchair; bacon and eggs; the sea front at Brighton. All alone and via these ridiculous things, Puddle would feel the sharp tug of England. + 

And one evening her weary mind must switch back to the earliest days of her friendship with Stephen. What a lifetime ago it seemed since the days when a lanky colt of a girl of fourteen had been licked into shape in the schoolroom at Morton. She could hear her own words: “You’ve forgotten something, Stephen; the books can’t walk to the bookcase, but you can, so suppose that you take them with you,” and then: “Even my brain won’t stand your complete lack of method.” Stephen fourteen⁠—that was twelve years ago. In those years she, Puddle, had grown very tired, tired with trying to see some way out, some way of escape, of fulfilment for Stephen. And always they seemed to be toiling, they two, down an endless road that had no turning; she an ageing woman herself unfulfilled; Stephen still young and as yet still courageous⁠—but the day would come when her youth would fail, and her courage, because of that endless toiling. + 

She thought of Brockett, Jonathan Brockett, surely an unworthy companion for Stephen; a thoroughly vicious and cynical man, a dangerous one too because he was brilliant. Yet she, Puddle, was actually grateful to this man; so dire were their straits that she was grateful to Brockett. Then came the remembrance of that other man, of Martin Hallam⁠—she had had such high hopes. He had been very simple and honest and good⁠—Puddle felt that there was much to be said for goodness. But for such as Stephen men like Martin Hallam could seldom exist; as friends they would fail her, while she in her turn would fail them as lover. Then what remained? Jonathan Brockett? Like to like. No, no, an intolerable thought! Such a thought as that was an outrage on Stephen. Stephen was honourable and courageous; she was steadfast in friendship and selfless in loving; intolerable to think that her only companions must be men and women like Jonathan Brockett⁠—and yet⁠—after all what else? What remained? Loneliness, or worse still, far worse because it so deeply degraded the spirit, a life of perpetual subterfuge, of guarded opinions and guarded actions, of lies of omission if not of speech, of becoming an accomplice in the world’s injustice by maintaining at all times a judicious silence, making and keeping the friends one respected, on false pretences, because if they knew they would turn aside, even the friends one respected. + 

Puddle abruptly controlled her thoughts; this was no way to be helpful to Stephen. Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof. Getting up she went into her bedroom where she bathed her face and tidied her hair. + 

“I look scarcely human,” she thought ruefully, as she stared at her own reflection in the glass; and indeed at that moment she looked more than her age. + 

IV + 

It was not until nearly the middle of July that Brockett took Stephen to Valérie Seymour’s. Valérie had been away for some time, and was even now only passing through Paris en route for her villa at St. Tropez. + 

As they drove to her apartment on the Quai Voltaire, Brockett began to extol their hostess, praising her wit, her literary talent. She wrote delicate satires and charming sketches of Greek mœurs⁠—the latter were very outspoken, but then Valérie’s life was very outspoken⁠—she was, said Brockett, a kind of pioneer who would probably go down to history. Most of her sketches were written in French, for among other things Valérie was bilingual; she was also quite rich, an American uncle had had the foresight to leave her his fortune; she was also quite young, being just over thirty, and according to Brockett, good-looking. She lived her life in great calmness of spirit, for nothing worried and few things distressed her. She was firmly convinced that in this ugly age one should strive to the top of one’s bent after beauty. But Stephen might find her a bit of a free lance, she was libre penseuse when it came to the heart; her love affairs would fill quite three volumes, even after they had been expurgated. Great men had loved her, great writers had written about her, one had died, it was said, because she refused him, but Valérie was not attracted to men⁠—yet as Stephen would see if she went to her parties, she had many devoted friends among men. In this respect she was almost unique, being what she was, for men did not resent her. But then of course all intelligent people realized that she was a creature apart, as would Stephen the moment she met her. + 

Brockett babbled away, and as he did so his voice took on the effeminate timbre that Stephen always hated and dreaded: “Oh, my dear!” he exclaimed with a high little laugh, “I’m so excited about this meeting of yours, I’ve a feeling it may be momentous. What fun!” And his soft, white hands grew restless, making their foolish gestures. + 

She looked at him coldly, wondering the while how she could tolerate this young man⁠—why indeed, she chose to endure him. + 

V + 

The first thing that struck Stephen about Valérie’s flat was its large and rather splendid disorder. There was something blissfully unkempt about it, as though its mistress were too much engrossed in other affairs to control its behaviour. Nothing was quite where it ought to have been, and much was where it ought not to have been, while over the whole lay a faint layer of dust⁠—even over the spacious salon. The odour of somebody’s Oriental scent was mingling with the odour of tuberoses in a sixteenth century chalice. On a divan, whose truly regal proportions occupied the best part of a shadowy alcove, lay a box of Fuller’s peppermint creams and a lute, but the strings of the lute were broken. + 

Valérie came forward with a smile of welcome. She was not beautiful nor was she imposing, but her limbs were very perfectly proportioned, which gave her a fictitious look of tallness. She moved well, with the quiet and unconscious grace that sprang from those perfect proportions. Her face was humorous, placid and worldly; her eyes very kind, very blue, very lustrous. She was dressed all in white, and a large white fox skin was clasped round her slender and shapely shoulders. For the rest she had masses of thick fair hair, which was busily ridding itself of its hairpins; one could see at a glance that it hated restraint, like the flat it was in rather splendid disorder. + 

She said: “I’m so delighted to meet you at last, Miss Gordon, do come and sit down. And please smoke if you want to,” she added quickly, glancing at Stephen’s telltale fingers. + 

Brockett said: “Positively, this is too splendid! I feel that you’re going to be wonderful friends.” + 

Stephen thought: “So this is Valérie Seymour.” + 

No sooner were they seated than Brockett began to ply their hostess with personal questions. The mood that had incubated in the motor was now becoming extremely aggressive, so that he fidgeted about on his chair, making his little inadequate gestures. “Darling, you’re looking perfectly lovely! But do tell me, what have you done with Polinska? Have you drowned her in the blue grotto at Capri? I hope so, my dear, she was such a bore and so dirty! Do tell me about Polinska. How did she behave when you got her to Capri? Did she bite anybody before you drowned her? I always felt frightened; I loathe being bitten!” + 

Valérie frowned: “I believe she’s quite well.” + 

“Then you have drowned her, darling!” shrilled Brockett. + 

And now he was launched on a torrent of gossip about people of whom Stephen had never even heard: “Pat’s been deserted⁠—have you heard that, darling? Do you think she’ll take the veil or cocaine or something? One never quite knows what may happen next with such an emotional temperament, does one? Arabella’s skipped off to the Lido with Jane Grigg. The Grigg’s just come into pots and pots of money, so I hope they’ll be deliriously happy and silly while it lasts⁠—I mean the money.⁠ ⁠… Oh, and have you heard about Rachel Morris? They say.⁠ ⁠…” He flowed on and on like a brook in spring flood, while Valérie yawned and looked bored, making monosyllabic answers. + 

And Stephen as she sat there and smoked in silence, thought grimly: “This is all being said because of me. Brockett wants to let me see that he knows what I am, and he wants to let Valérie Seymour know too⁠—I suppose this is making me welcome.” She hardly knew whether to feel outraged or relieved that here, at least, was no need for pretences. + 

But after a while she began to fancy that Valérie’s eyes had become appraising. They were weighing her up and secretly approving the result, she fancied. A slow anger possessed her. Valérie Seymour was secretly approving, not because her guest was a decent human being with a will to work, with a well-trained brain, with what might some day become a fine talent, but rather because she was seeing before her all the outward stigmata of the abnormal⁠—verily the wounds of One nailed to a cross⁠—that was why Valérie sat there approving. + 

And then, as though these bitter thoughts had reached her, Valérie suddenly smiled at Stephen. Turning her back on the chattering Brockett, she started to talk to her guest quite gravely about her work, about books in general, about life in general; and as she did so Stephen began to understand better the charm that many had found in this woman; a charm that lay less in physical attraction than in a great courtesy and understanding, a great will to please, a great impulse towards beauty in all its forms⁠—yes, therein lay her charm. And as they talked on it dawned upon Stephen that here was no mere libertine in love’s garden, but rather a creature born out of her epoch, a pagan chained to an age that was Christian, one who would surely say with Pierre Louÿs: “Le monde moderne succombe sous un envahissement de laideur.” And she thought that she discerned in those luminous eyes, the pale yet ardent light of the fanatic. + 

Presently Valérie Seymour asked her how long she would be remaining in Paris. + 

And Stephen answered: “I’m going to live here,” feeling surprised at the words as she said them, for not until now had she made this decision. + 

Valérie seemed pleased: “If you want a house, I know of one in the Rue Jacob; it’s a tumbledown place, but it’s got a fine garden. Why not go and see it? You might go tomorrow. Of course you’ll have to live on this side, the Rive Gauche is the only possible Paris.” + 

“I should like to see the old house,” said Stephen. + 

So Valérie went to the telephone there and then and proceeded to call up the landlord. The appointment was made for eleven the next morning. “It’s rather a sad old house,” she warned, “no one has troubled to make it a home for some time, but you’ll alter all that if you take it, because I suppose you’ll make it your home.” + 

Stephen flushed: “My home’s in England,” she said quickly, for her thoughts had instantly flown back to Morton. + 

But Valérie answered: “One may have two homes⁠—many homes. Be courteous to our lovely Paris and give it the privilege of being your second home⁠—it will feel very honoured, Miss Gordon.” She sometimes made little ceremonious speeches like this, and coming from her, they sounded strangely old-fashioned. + 

Brockett, rather subdued and distinctly pensive as sometimes happened if Valérie had snubbed him, complained of a pain above his right eye: “I must take some phenacetin,” he said sadly, “I’m always getting this curious pain above my right eye⁠—do you think it’s the sinus?” He was very intolerant of all pain. + 

His hostess sent for the phenacetin, and Brockett gulped down a couple of tablets: “Valérie doesn’t love me any more,” he sighed, with a woebegone look at Stephen. “I do call it hard, but it’s always what happens when I introduce my best friends to each other⁠—they foregather at once and leave me in the cold; but then, thank heaven, I’m very forgiving.” + 

They laughed and Valérie made him get on to the divan where he promptly lay down on the lute. + 

“Oh God!” he moaned, “now I’ve injured my spine⁠—I’m so badly upholstered.” Then he started to strum on the one sound string of the lute. + 

Valérie went over to her untidy desk and began to write out a list of addresses: “These may be useful to you, Miss Gordon.” + 

“Stephen!” exclaimed Brockett, “Call the poor woman Stephen!” + 

“May I?” + 

Stephen acquiesced: “Yes, please do.” + 

“Very well then, I’m Valérie. Is that a bargain?” + 

“The bargain is sealed,” announced Brockett. With extraordinary skill he was managing to strum “O Sole Mio” on the single string, when he suddenly stopped: “I knew there was something⁠—your fencing, Stephen, you’ve forgotten your fencing. We meant to ask Valérie for Buisson’s address; they say he’s the finest master in Europe.” + 

Valérie looked up: “Does Stephen fence, then?” + 

“Does she fence! She’s a marvellous, champion fencer.” + 

“He’s never seen me fence,” explained Stephen, “and I’m never likely to be a champion.” + 

“Don’t you believe her, she’s trying to be modest. I’ve heard that she fences quite as finely as she writes,” he insisted. And somehow Stephen felt touched, Brockett was trying to show off her talents. + 

Presently she offered him a lift in the car, but he shook his head: “No, thank you, dear one, I’m staying.” So she wished them goodbye; but as she left them she heard Brockett murmuring to Valérie Seymour, and she felt pretty sure that she caught her own name. + 

VI + 

“Well, what did you think of Miss Seymour?” inquired Puddle, when Stephen got back about twenty minutes later. + 

Stephen hesitated: “I’m not perfectly certain. She was very friendly, but I couldn’t help feeling that she liked me because she thought me⁠—oh, well, because she thought me what I am, Puddle. But I may have been wrong⁠—she was awfully friendly. Brockett was at his very worst though, poor devil! His environment seemed to go to his head.” She sank down wearily on to a chair: “Oh, Puddle, Puddle, it’s a hell of a business.” + 

Puddle nodded. + 

Then Stephen said rather abruptly: “All the same, we’re going to live here in Paris. We’re going to look at a house tomorrow, an old house with a garden in the Rue Jacob.” + 

For a moment Puddle hesitated, then she said: “There’s only one thing against it. Do you think you’ll ever be happy in a city? You’re so fond of the life that belongs to the country.” + 

Stephen shook her head: “That’s all past now, my dear; there’s no country for me away from Morton. But in Paris I might make some sort of a home, I could work here⁠—and then of course there are people.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Something started to hammer in Puddle’s brain: “Like to like! Like to like! Like to like!” it hammered. + 

XXXII + 

I + 

Stephen bought the house in the Rue Jacob, because as she walked through the dim, grey archway that led from the street to the cobbled courtyard, and saw the deserted house standing before her, she knew at once that there she would live. This will happen sometimes, we instinctively feel in sympathy with certain dwellings. + 

The courtyard was sunny and surrounded by walls. On the right of this courtyard some iron gates led into the spacious, untidy garden, and woefully neglected though this garden had been, the trees that it still possessed were fine ones. A marble fountain long since choked with weeds, stood in the centre of what had been a lawn. In the farthest corner of the garden some hand had erected a semicircular temple, but that had been a long time ago, and now the temple was all but ruined. + 

The house itself would need endless repairs, but its rooms were of careful and restful proportions. A fine room with a window that opened on the garden, would be Stephen’s study; she could write there in quiet; on the other side of the stone-paved hall was a smaller but comfortable salle à manger; while past the stone staircase a little round room in a turret would be Puddle’s particular sanctum. Above there were bedrooms enough and to spare; there was also the space for a couple of bathrooms. The day after Stephen had seen this house, she had written agreeing to purchase. + 

Valérie rang up before leaving Paris to inquire how Stephen had liked the old house, and when she heard that she had actually bought it, she expressed herself as being delighted. + 

“We’ll be quite close neighbours now,” she remarked, “but I’m not going to bother you until you evince, not even when I get back in the autumn. I know you’ll be literally snowed under with workmen for months, you poor dear, I feel sorry for you. But when you can, do let me come and see you⁠—meanwhile if I can help you at all.⁠ ⁠…” And she gave her address at St. Tropez. + 

And now for the first time since leaving Morton, Stephen turned her mind to the making of a home. Through Brockett she found a young architect who seemed anxious to carry out all her instructions. He was one of those very rare architects who refrain from thrusting their views on their clients. So into the ancient, deserted house in the Rue Jacob streamed an army of workmen, and they hammered and scraped and raised clouds of dust from early morning, all day until evening⁠—smoking harsh caporal as they joked or quarrelled or idled or spat or hummed snatches of song. And amazingly soon, wherever one trod one seemed to be treading on wet cement or on dry, gritty heaps of brick dust and rubble, so that Puddle would complain that she spoilt all her shoes, while Stephen would emerge with her neat blue serge shoulders quite grey, and with even her hair thickly powdered. + 

Sometimes the architect would come to the hotel in the evening and then would ensue long discussions. Bending over the little mahogany table, he and Stephen would study the plans intently, for she wished to preserve the spirit of the place intact, despite alterations. She decided to have an Empire study with grey walls and curtains of Empire green, for she loved the great roomy writing tables that had come into being with the first Napoleon. The walls of the salle à manger should be white and the curtains brown, while Puddle’s round sanctum in its turret should have walls and paintwork of yellow, to give the illusion of sunshine. And so absorbed did Stephen become in these things, that she scarcely had time to notice Jonathan Brockett’s abrupt departure for a mountain top in the Austrian Tyrol. Having suddenly come to the end of his finances, he must hasten to write a couple of plays that could be produced in London that winter. He sent her three or four picture postcards of glaciers, after which she heard nothing more from him. + 

At the end of August, when the work was well under way, she and Puddle fared forth in the motor to visit divers villages and towns, in quest of old furniture, and Stephen was surprised to find how much she enjoyed it. She would catch herself whistling as she drove her car, and when they got back to some humble auberge in the evening, she would want to eat a large supper. Every morning she diligently swung her dumbbells; she was getting into condition for fencing. She had not fenced at all since leaving Morton, having been too much engrossed in her work while in London; but now she was going to fence before Buisson, so she diligently swung her dumbbells. During these two months of holiday-making she grew fond of the wide-eyed, fruitful French country, even as she had grown fond of Paris. She would never love it as she loved the hills and the stretching valleys surrounding Morton, for that love was somehow a part of her being, but she gave to this France, that would give her a home, a quiet and very sincere affection. Her heart grew more grateful with every mile, for hers was above all a grateful nature. + 

They returned to Paris at the end of October. And now came the selecting of carpets and curtains; of fascinating blankets from the Magasin de Blanc⁠—blankets craftily dyed to match any bedroom; of fine linen, and other expensive things, including the copper batterie de cuisine, which latter, however, was left to Puddle. At last the army of workmen departed, its place being taken by a Breton ménage⁠—brown-faced folk, strong-limbed and capable looking⁠—a mother, father and daughter. Pierre, the butler, had been a fisherman once, but the sea with its hardships had prematurely aged him. He had now been in service for several years, having contracted rheumatic fever which had weakened his heart and made him unfit for the strenuous life of a fisher. Pauline, his wife, was considerably younger, and she it was who would reign in the kitchen, while their daughter Adèle, a girl of eighteen, would help both her parents and look after the housework. + 

Adèle was as happy as a blackbird in springtime; she would often seem just on the verge of chirping. But Pauline had stood and watched the great storms gather over the sea while her men were out fishing; her father had lost his life through the sea as had also a brother, so Pauline smiled seldom. Dour she was, with a predilection for dwelling in detail on people’s misfortunes. As for Pierre, he was stolid, kind and pious, with the eyes of a man who has looked on vast spaces. His grey stubbly hair was cut short to his head en brosse, and he had an ungainly figure. When he walked he straddled a little as though he could never believe in a house without motion. He liked Stephen at once, which was very propitious, for one cannot buy the goodwill of a Breton. + 

Thus gradually chaos gave place to order, and on the morning of her twenty-seventh birthday, on Christmas Eve, Stephen moved into her home in the Rue Jacob on the old Rive Gauche, there to start her new life in Paris. + 

II + 

All alone in the brown and white salle à manger, Stephen and Puddle ate their Christmas dinner. And Puddle had bought a small Christmas tree and had trimmed it, then hung it with coloured candles. A little wax Christ-child bent downwards and sideways from His branch, as though He were looking for His presents⁠—only now there were not any presents. Rather clumsily Stephen lit the candles as soon as the daylight had almost faded. Then she and Puddle stood and stared at the tree, but in silence, because they must both remember. But Pierre, who like all who have known the sea, was a child at heart, broke into loud exclamations. “Oh, comme c’est beau, l’arbre de Noël!” he exclaimed, and he fetched the dour Pauline along from the kitchen, and she too exclaimed; then they both fetched Adèle and they all three exclaimed: “Comme c’est beau, l’arbre de Noël!” So, that after all the little wax Christ-child did not very much miss His presents. + 

That evening Pauline’s two brothers arrived⁠—they were Poilus stationed just outside Paris⁠—and they brought along with them another young man, one Jean, who was ardently courting Adèle. Very soon came the sound of singing and laughter from the kitchen, and when Stephen went up to her bedroom to look for a book, there was Adèle quite flushed and with very bright eyes because of this Jean⁠—in great haste she turned down the bed and then flew on the wings of love back to the kitchen. + 

But Stephen went slowly downstairs to her study where Puddle was sitting in front of the fire, and she thought that Puddle sat there as though tired; her hands were quite idle, and after a moment Stephen noticed that she was dozing. Very quietly Stephen opened her book, unwilling to rouse the little grey woman who looked so small in the huge leather chair, and whose head kept guiltily nodding. But the book seemed scarcely worth troubling to read, so that presently Stephen laid it aside and sat staring into the flickering logs that hummed and burnt blue because it was frosty. On the Malvern Hills there would probably be snow; deep snow might be capping the Worcestershire Beacon. The air up at British Camp would be sweet with the smell of winter and open spaces⁠—little lights would be glinting far down in the valley. At Morton the lakes would be still and frozen, so Peter the swan would be feeling friendly⁠—in winter he had always fed from her hand⁠—he must be old now, the swan called Peter. Coup! C-o-u-p! and Peter waddling towards her. He, who was all gliding grace on the water, would come awkwardly waddling towards her hand for the chunk of dry bread that she held in her fingers. Jean with his Adèle along in the kitchen⁠—a nice-looking boy he was, Stephen had seen him⁠—they were young, and both were exceedingly happy, for their parents approved, so some day they would marry. Then children would come, too many, no doubt, for Jean’s slender purse, and yet in this life one must pay for one’s pleasures⁠—they would pay with their children, and this appeared perfectly fair to Stephen. She thought that it seemed a long time ago since she herself had been a small child, romping about on the floor with her father, bothering Williams down at the stables, dressing up as young Nelson and posing for Collins who had sometimes been cross to young Nelson. She was nearly thirty, and what had she done? Written one good novel and one very bad one, with few mediocre short stories thrown in. Oh, well, she was going to start writing again quite soon⁠—she had an idea for a novel. But she sighed, and Puddle woke up with a start. + 

“Is that you, my dear? Have I been asleep?” + 

“Only for a very few minutes, Puddle.” + 

Puddle glanced at the new gold watch on her wrist; it had been a Christmas present from Stephen. “It’s past ten o’clock⁠—I think I’ll turn in.” + 

“Do. Why not? I hope Adèle’s filled your hot water bottle; she’s rather lightheaded over her Jean.” + 

“Never mind, I can fill it myself,” smiled Puddle. + 

She went, and Stephen sat on by the fire with her eyes half closed and her lips set firmly. She must put away all these thoughts of the past and compel herself to think of the future. This brooding over things that were past was all wrong; it was futile, weak-kneed and morbid. She had her work, work that cried out to be done, but no more unworthy books must be written. She must show that being the thing she was, she could climb to success over all opposition, could climb to success in spite of a world that was trying its best to get her under. Her mouth grew hard; her sensitive lips that belonged by rights to the dreamer, the lover, took on a resentful and bitter line which changed her whole face and made it less comely. At that moment the striking likeness of her father appeared to have faded out of her face. + 

Yes, it was trying to get her under, this world with its mighty self-satisfaction, with its smug rules of conduct, all made to be broken by those who strutted and preened themselves on being what they considered normal. They trod on the necks of those thousands of others who, for God knew what reason, were not made as they were; they prided themselves on their indignation, on what they proclaimed as their righteous judgments. They sinned grossly; even vilely at times, like lustful beasts⁠—but yet they were normal! And the vilest of them could point a finger of scorn at her, and be loudly applauded. + 

“God damn them to hell!” she muttered. + 

Along in the kitchen there was singing again. The young men’s voices rose tuneful and happy, and with them blended Adèle’s young voice, very sexless as yet, like the voice of a choirboy. Stephen got up and opened the door, then she stood quite still and listened intently. The singing soothed her overstrained nerves as it flowed from the hearts of these simple people. For she did not begrudge them their happiness; she did not resent young Jean with his Adèle, or Pierre who had done a man’s work in his time, or Pauline who was often aggressively female. Bitter she had grown in these years since Morton, but not bitter enough to resent the simple. And then as she listened they suddenly stopped for a little before they resumed their singing, and when they resumed it the tune was sad with the sadness that dwells in the souls of most men, above all in the patient soul of the peasant. + 

“Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé, + 

Ma Doué?” + 

She could hear the soft Breton words quite clearly. + 

“Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé, + 

Pour nous dire la Messe?” + 

“Quand la nuit sera bien tombée + 

Je tiendrai ma promesse.” + 

“Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé, + 

Ma Doué, + 

Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé, + 

Sans nappe de fine toile?” + 

“Notre Doux Seigneur poserai + 

Sur un morceau de voile.” + 

“Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé, + 

Ma Doué, + 

Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé, + 

Sans chandelle et sans cierge?” + 

“Les astres seront allumés + 

Par Madame la Vierge.” + 

“Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé, + 

Ma Doué, + 

Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé, + 

Sans orgue résonnante?” + 

“Jésus touchera le clavier + 

Des vagues mugissantes.” + 

“Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé, + 

Ma Doué, + 

Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé, + 

Si l’Ennemi nous trouble?” + 

“Une seule fois je vous bénirai, + 

Les Bleus bénirai double!” + 

Closing the study door behind her, Stephen thoughtfully climbed the stairs to her bedroom. + 

XXXIII + 

I + 

With the New Year came flowers from Valérie Seymour, and a little letter of New Year’s greeting. Then she paid a rather ceremonious call and was entertained by Puddle and Stephen. Before leaving she invited them both to luncheon, but Stephen refused on the plea of her work. + 

“I’m hard at it again.” + 

At this Valérie smiled. “Very well then, à bientôt. You know where to find me, ring up when you’re free, which I hope will be soon.” After which she took her departure. + 

But Stephen was not to see her again for a very considerable time, as it happened. Valérie was also a busy woman⁠—there are other affairs beside the writing of novels. + 

Brockett was in London on account of his plays. He wrote seldom, though when he did so he was cordial, affectionate even; but now he was busy with success, and with gathering in the shekels. He had not lost interest in Stephen again, only just at the moment she did not fit in with his brilliant and affluent scheme of existence. + 

So once more she and Puddle settled down together to a life that was strangely devoid of people, a life of almost complete isolation, and Puddle could not make up her mind whether she felt relieved or regretful. For herself she cared nothing, her anxious thoughts were as always centred in Stephen. However, Stephen appeared quite contented⁠—she was launched on her book and was pleased with her writing. Paris inspired her to do good work, and as recreation she now had her fencing⁠—twice every week she now fenced with Buisson, that severe but incomparable master. + 

Buisson had been very rude at first: “Hideous, affreux, horriblement English!” he had shouted, quite outraged by Stephen’s style. All the same he took a great interest in her. “You write books; what a pity! I could make you a fine fencer. You have the man’s muscles, and the long, graceful lunge when you do not remember that you are a Briton and become⁠—what you say? ah, mais oui, self-conscious. I wish that I had find you out sooner⁠—however, your muscles are young still, pliant.” And one day he said: “Let me feel the muscles,” then proceeded to pass his hand down her thighs and across her strong loins: “Tiens, tiens!” he murmured. + 

After this he would sometimes look at her gravely with a puzzled expression; but she did not resent him, nor his rudeness, nor his technical interest in her muscles. Indeed, she liked the cross little man with his bristling black beard and his peppery temper, and when he remarked apropos of nothing: “We are all great imbeciles about nature. We make our own rules and call them la nature; we say she do this, she do that⁠—imbeciles! She do what she please and then make the long nose.” Stephen felt neither shy nor resentful. + 

These lessons were a great relaxation from work, and thanks to them her health grew much better. Her body, accustomed to severe exercise, had resented the sedentary life in London. Now, however, she began to take care of her health, walking for a couple of hours in the Bois every day, or exploring the tall, narrow streets that lay near her home in the Quarter. The sky would look bright at the end of such streets by contrast, as though it were seen through a tunnel. Sometimes she would stand gazing into the shops of the wider and more prosperous Rue des Saints Pères; the old furniture shops; the crucifix shop with its dozens of crucified Christs in the window⁠—so many crucified ivory Christs! She would think that one must surely exist for every sin committed in Paris. Or perhaps she would make her way over the river, crossing by the Pont des Arts. And one morning, arrived at the Rue des Petits Champs, what must she suddenly do but discover the Passage Choiseul, by just stepping inside for shelter, because it had started raining. + 

Oh, the lure of the Passage Choiseul, the queer, rather gawky attraction of it. Surely the most hideous place in all Paris, with its roof of stark wooden ribs and glass panes⁠—the roof that looks like the vertebral column of some prehistoric monster. The chocolate smell of the patisserie⁠—the big one where people go who have money. The humbler, student smell of Lavrut, where one’s grey rubber bands are sold by the gram and are known as Bracelets de caoutchouc. Where one buys première qualité blotting paper of a deep ruddy tint and the stiffness of cardboard, and thin but inspiring manuscript books bound in black, with mottled, shiny blue borders. Where pencils and pens are found in their legions, of all makes, all shapes, all colours, all prices; while outside on the trustful trays in the Passage, lives Gomme Onyx, masquerading as marble, and as likely to rub a hole in your paper. For those who prefer the reading of books to the writing of them, there is always Lemerre with his splendid display of yellow bindings. And for those undisturbed by imagination, the taxidermist’s shop is quite near the corner⁠—they can stare at a sad and moth-eaten flamingo, two squirrels, three parrots and a dusty canary. Some are tempted by the cheap corduroy at the draper’s, where it stands in great rolls as though it were carpet. Some pass on to the little stamp merchant, while a few dauntless souls even enter the chemist’s⁠—that shamelessly anatomical chemist’s, whose wares do not figure in school manuals on the practical uses of rubber. + 

And up and down this Passage Choiseul, pass innumerable idle or busy people, bringing in mud and rain in the winter, bringing in dust and heat in the summer, bringing in God knows how many thoughts, some part of which cannot escape with their owners. The very air of the Passage seems heavy with all these imprisoned thoughts. + 

Stephen’s thoughts got themselves entrapped with the others, but hers, at the moment, were those of a schoolgirl, for her eye had suddenly lit on Lavrut, drawn thereto by the trays of ornate india-rubber. And once inside, she could not resist the Bracelets de caoutchouc, or the blotting paper as red as a rose, or the manuscript books with the mottled blue borders. Growing reckless, she gave an enormous order for the simple reason that these things looked different. In the end she actually carried away one of those inspiring manuscript books, and then got herself driven home by a taxi, in order the sooner to fill it. + 

II + 

That spring, in the foyer of the Comédie Francaise, Stephen stumbled across a link with the past in the person of a middle-aged woman. The woman was stout and wore pince-nez; her sparse brown hair was already greying; her face, which was long, had a double chin, and that face seemed vaguely familiar to Stephen. Then suddenly Stephen’s two hands were seized and held fast in those of the middle-aged woman, while a voice grown loud with delight and emotion was saying: + 

“Mais oui, c’est ma petite Stévenne!” + 

Back came a picture of the schoolroom at Morton, with a battered red book on its ink-stained table⁠—the Bibliothèque Rose⁠—“Les Petites Filles Modèles,” “Les Bons Enfants,” and Mademoiselle Duphot. + 

Stephen said: “To think⁠—after all these years!” + 

“Ah, quelle joie! Quelle joie!” babbled Mademoiselle Duphot. + 

And now Stephen was being embraced on both cheeks, then held at arm’s length for a better inspection. “But how tall, how strong you are, ma petite Stévenne. You remember what I say, that we meet in Paris? I say when I go, ‘But you come to Paris when you grow up bigger, my poor little baby!’ I keep looking and looking, but I knowed you at once. I say, ‘Oui certainement, that is ma petite Stévenne, no one ’ave such another face what I love, it could only belong to Stévenne,’ I say. And now voilà! I am correct and I find you.” + 

Stephen released herself firmly but gently, replying in French to calm Mademoiselle, whose linguistic struggles increased every moment. + 

“I’m living in Paris altogether,” she told her; “you must come and see me⁠—come to dinner tomorrow; 35, Rue Jacob.” Then she introduced Puddle who had been an amused spectator. + 

The two ex-guardians of Stephen’s young mind shook hands with each other very politely, and they made such a strangely contrasted couple that Stephen must smile to see them together. The one was so small, so quiet and so English; the other so portly, so tearful, so French in her generous, if somewhat embarrassing emotion. + 

As Mademoiselle regained her composure, Stephen was able to observe her more closely, and she saw that her face was excessively childish⁠—a fact which she, when a child, had not noticed. It was more the face of a foal than a horse⁠—an innocent, newborn foal. + 

Mademoiselle said rather wistfully: “I will dine with much pleasure tomorrow evening, but when will you come and see me in my home? It is in the Avenue de la Grande Armée, a small apartment, very small but so pretty⁠—it is pleasant to have one’s treasures around one. The bon Dieu has been very good to me, Stévenne, for my Aunt Clothilde left me a little money when she died; it has proved a great consolation.” + 

“I’ll come very soon,” promised Stephen. + 

Then Mademoiselle spoke at great length of her aunt, and of Maman who had also passed on into glory; Maman, who had had her chicken on Sunday right up to the very last moment, Dieu merci! Even when her teeth had grown loose in the gums, Maman had asked for her chicken on Sunday. But alas, the poor sister who once made little bags out of beads for the shops in the Rue de la Paix, and who had such a cruel and improvident husband⁠—the poor sister had now become totally blind, and therefore dependent on Mademoiselle Duphot. So after all Mademoiselle Duphot still worked, giving lessons in French to the resident English; and sometimes she taught the American children who were visiting Paris with their parents. But then it was really far better to work; one might grow too fat if one remained idle. + 

She beamed at Stephen with her gentle brown eyes. “They are not as you were, ma chère petite Stévenne, not clever and full of intelligence, no; and at times I almost despair of their accent. However, I am not at all to be pitied, thanks to Aunt Clothilde and the good little saints who surely inspired her to leave me that money.” + 

When Stephen and Puddle returned to their stalls, Mademoiselle climbed to a humbler seat somewhere under the roof, and as she departed she waved her plump hand at Stephen. + 

Stephen said: “She’s so changed that I didn’t know her just at first, or else perhaps I’d forgotten. I felt terribly guilty, because after you came I don’t think I ever answered her letters. It’s thirteen years since she left.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Puddle nodded. “Yes, it’s thirteen years since I took her place and forced you to tidy that abominable schoolroom!” And she laughed. “All the same, I like her,” said Puddle. + 

III + 

Mademoiselle Duphot admired the house in the Rue Jacob, and she ate very largely of the rich and excellent dinner. Quite regardless of her increasing proportions, she seemed drawn to all those things that were fattening. + 

“I cannot resist,” she remarked with a smile, as she reached for her fifth marron glacé. + 

They talked of Paris, of its beauty, its charm. Then Mademoiselle spoke yet again of her Maman and of Aunt Clothilde who had left them the money, and of Julie, her blind sister. + 

But after the meal she quite suddenly blushed. “Oh, Stévenne, I have never inquired for your parents! What must you think of such great impoliteness? I lose my head the moment I see you and grow selfish⁠—I want you to know about me and my Maman; I babble about my affairs. What must you think of such great impoliteness? How is that kind and handsome Sir Philip? And your mother, my dear, how is Lady Anna?” + 

And now it was Stephen’s turn to grow red. “My father died.⁠ ⁠…” She hesitated, then finished abruptly, “I don’t live with my mother any more, I don’t live at Morton.” + 

Mademoiselle gasped. “You no longer live⁠ ⁠…” she began, then something in Stephen’s face warned her kind but bewildered guest not to question. “I am deeply grieved to hear of your father’s death, my dear,” she said very gently. + 

Stephen answered: “Yes⁠—I shall always miss him.” + 

There ensued a long, rather painful silence, during which Mademoiselle Duphot felt awkward. What had happened between the mother and daughter? It was all very strange, very disconcerting. And Stephen, why was she exiled from Morton? But Mademoiselle could not cope with these problems, she knew only that she wanted Stephen to be happy, and her kind brown eyes grew anxious, for she did not feel certain that Stephen was happy. Yet she dared not ask for an explanation, so instead she clumsily changed the subject. + 

“When will you both come to tea with me, Stévenne?” + 

“We’ll come tomorrow if you like.” Stephen told her. + 

Mademoiselle Duphot left rather early; and all the way home to her apartment her mind felt exercised about Stephen. + 

She thought: “She was always a strange little child, but so dear. I remember her when she was little, riding her pony astride like a boy; and how proud he would seem, that handsome Sir Philip⁠—they would look more like father and son, those two. And now⁠—is she not still a little bit strange?” + 

But these thoughts led her nowhere, for Mademoiselle Duphot was quite unacquainted with the bypaths of nature. Her innocent mind was untutored and trustful; she believed in the legend of Adam and Eve, and no careless mistakes had been made in their garden! + 

IV + 

The apartment in the Avenue de la Grande Armée was as tidy as Valérie’s had been untidy. From the miniature kitchen to the miniature salon, everything shone as though recently polished, for here in spite of restricted finances, no dust was allowed to harbour. + 

Mademoiselle Duphot beamed on her guests as she herself opened the door to admit them. “For me this is very real joy,” she declared. Then she introduced them to her sister Julie, whose eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. + 

The salon was literally stuffed with what Mademoiselle had described as her “treasures.” On its tables were innumerable useless objects which appeared for the most part, to be mementoes. Coloured prints of Bouguereaus hung on the walls, while the chairs were upholstered in a species of velvet so hard as to be rather slippery to sit on, yet that when it was touched felt rough to the fingers. The woodwork of these inhospitable chairs had been coated with varnish until it looked sticky. Over the little inadequate fireplace smiled a portrait of Maman when she was quite young. Maman, dressed in tartan for some strange reason, but in tartan that had never hobnobbed with the Highlands⁠—a present this portrait had been from a cousin who had wished to become an artist. + 

Julie extended a white, groping hand. She was like her sister only very much thinner, and her face had the closed rather blank expression that is sometimes associated with blindness. + 

“Which is Stévenne?” she inquired in an anxious voice; “I have heard so much about Stévenne!” + 

Stephen said: “Here I am,” and she grasped the hand, pitiful of this woman’s affliction. + 

But Julie smiled broadly. “Yes, I know it is you from the feel,”⁠—she had started to stroke Stephen’s coat-sleeve⁠—“my eyes have gone into my fingers these days. It is strange, but I seem to see through my fingers.” Then she turned and found Puddle whom she also stroked. “And now I know both of you,” declared Julie. + 

The tea when it came was that straw-coloured liquid which may even now be met with in Paris. + 

“English tea bought especially for you, my Stévenne,” remarked Mademoiselle proudly. “We drink only coffee, but I said to my sister, Stévenne likes the good tea, and so, no doubt, does Mademoiselle Puddle. At four o’clock they will not want coffee⁠—you observe how well I remember your England!” + 

However, the cakes proved worthy of France, and Mademoiselle ate them as though she enjoyed them. Julie ate very little and did not talk much. She just sat there and listened, quietly smiling; and while she listened she crocheted lace as though, as she said, she could see through her fingers. Then Mademoiselle Duphot explained how it was that those delicate hands had become so skilful, replacing the eyes which their ceaseless labour had robbed of the blessed privilege of sight⁠—explained so simply yet with such conviction, that Stephen must marvel to hear her. + 

“It is all our little Thérèse,” she told Stephen. “You have heard of her? No? Ah, but what a pity! Our Thérèse was a nun at the Carmel at Lisieux, and she said: ‘I will let fall a shower of roses when I die.’ She died not so long ago, but already her Cause has been presented at Rome by the Very Reverend Father Rodrigo! That is very wonderful, is it not, Stévenne? But she does not wait to become a saint; ah, but no, she is young and therefore impatient. She cannot wait, she has started already to do miracles for all those who ask her. I asked that Julie should not be unhappy through the loss of her eyes⁠—for when she is idle she is always unhappy⁠—so our little Thérèse has put a pair of new eyes in her fingers.” + 

Julie nodded. “It is true,” she said very gravely; “before that I was stupid because of my blindness. Everything felt very strange, and I stumbled about like an old blind horse. I was terribly stupid, far more so than many. Then one night Véronique asked Thérèse to help me, and the next day I could find my way round our room. From then on my fingers saw what they touched, and now I can even make lace quite well because of this sight in my fingers.” Then turning to the smiling Mademoiselle Duphot: “But why do you not show her picture to Stévenne?” + 

So Mademoiselle Duphot went and fetched the small picture of Thérèse, which Stephen duly examined, and the face that she saw was ridiculously youthful⁠—round with youth it still was, and yet very determined. Sœur Thérèse looked as though if she really intended to become a saint, the devil himself would be hard put to it to stop her. Then Puddle must also examine the picture, while Stephen was shown some relics, a piece of the habit and other things such as collect in the wake of sainthood. + 

When they left, Julie asked them to come again; she said: “Come often, it will give us such pleasure.” Then she thrust on her guests twelve yards of coarse lace which neither of them liked to offer to pay for. + 

Mademoiselle murmured: “Our home is so humble for Stévenne; we have very little to offer.” She was thinking of the house in the Rue Jacob, a grand house, and then too she remembered Morton. + 

But Julie, with the strange insight of the blind, or perhaps because of those eyes in her fingers, answered quickly: “She will not care, Véronique, I cannot feel that sort of pride in your Stévenne.” + 

V + 

After their first visit they went very often to Mademoiselle’s modest little apartment. Mademoiselle Duphot and her quiet blind sister were indeed their only friends now in Paris, for Brockett was in America on business, and Stephen had not rung up Valérie Seymour. + 

Sometimes when Stephen was busy with her work, Puddle would make her way there all alone. Then she and Mademoiselle would get talking about Stephen’s childhood, about her future, but guardedly, for Puddle must be careful to give nothing away to the kind, simple woman. As for Mademoiselle, she too must be careful to accept all and ask no questions. Yet in spite of the inevitable gaps and restraints, a real sympathy sprang up between them, for each sensed in the other a valuable ally who would fight a good fight on behalf of Stephen. And now Stephen would quite often send her car to take the blind Julie for a drive beyond Paris. Julie would sniff the air and tell Burton that through smelling their greenness she could see the trees; he would listen to her broken and halting English with a smile⁠—they were a queer lot these French. Or perhaps he would drive the other Mademoiselle up to Montmartre for early Mass on a Sunday. She belonged to something to do with a heart; it all seemed rather uncanny to Burton. He thought of the Vicar who had played such fine cricket, and suddenly felt very homesick for Morton. Fruit would find its way to the little apartment, together with cakes and large marrons glacés. Then Mademoiselle Duphot would become frankly greedy, eating sweets in bed while she studied her booklets on the holy and very austere Thérèse, who had certainly not eaten marrons glacés. + 

Thus the spring, that gentle yet fateful spring of 1914, slipped into the summer. With the budding of flowers and the singing of birds it slipped quietly on towards great disaster; while Stephen, whose book was now nearing completion, worked harder than ever in Paris. + 

XXXIV + 

I + 

War. The incredible yet long predicted had come to pass. People woke in the mornings with a sense of disaster, but these were the old who, having known war, remembered. The young men of France, of Germany, of Russia, of the whole world, looked round them amazed and bewildered; yet with something that stung as it leapt in their veins, filling them with a strange excitement⁠—the bitter and ruthless potion of war that spurred and lashed at their manhood. + 

They hurried through the streets of Paris, these young men; they collected in bars and cafés; they stood gaping at the ominous government placards summoning their youth and strength to the colours. + 

They talked fast, very fast, they gesticulated: “C’est la guerre! C’est la guerre!” they kept repeating. + 

Then they answered each other: “Oui, c’est la guerre.” + 

And true to her traditions the beautiful city sought to hide stark ugliness under beauty, and she decked herself as though for a wedding; her flags streamed out on the breeze in their thousands. With the paraphernalia and pageantry of glory she sought to disguise the true meaning of war. + 

But where children had been playing a few days before, troops were now encamped along the Champs Élysées. Their horses nibbled the bark from the trees and pawed at the earth, making little hollows; they neighed to each other in the watches of the night, as though in some fearful anticipation. In bystreets the unreasoning spirit of war broke loose in angry and futile actions; shops were raided because of their German names and their wares hurled out to lie in the gutters. Around every street corner some imaginary spy must be lurking, until people tilted at shadows. + 

“C’est la guerre,” murmured women, thinking of their sons. + 

Then they answered each other: “Oui, c’est la guerre.” + 

Pierre said to Stephen: “They will not take me because of my heart!” And his voice shook with anger, and the anger brought tears which actually splashed the jaunty stripes of his livery waistcoat. + 

Pauline said: “I gave my father to the sea and my eldest brother. I have still two young brothers, they alone are left and I give them to France. Bon Dieu! It is terrible being a woman, one gives all!” But Stephen knew from her voice that Pauline felt proud of being a woman. + 

Adèle said: “Jean is certain to get promotion, he says so, he will not long remain a Poilu. When he comes back he may be a captain⁠—that will be fine, I shall marry a captain! War, he says, is better than piano-tuning, though I tell him he has a fine ear for music. But Mademoiselle should just see him now in his uniform! We all think he looks splendid.” + 

Puddle said: “Of course England was bound to come in, and thank God we didn’t take too long about it!” + 

Stephen said: “All the young men from Morton will go⁠—every decent man in the country will go.” Then she put away her unfinished novel and sat staring dumbly at Puddle. + 

II + 

England, the land of bountiful pastures, of peace, of mothering hills, of home. England was fighting for her right to existence. Face to face with dreadful reality at last, England was pouring her men into battle, her army was even now marching across France. Tramp, tramp; tramp, tramp; the tread of England whose men would defend her right to existence. + 

Anna wrote from Morton. She wrote to Puddle, but now Stephen took those letters and read them. The agent had enlisted and so had the bailiff. Old Mr. Percival, agent in Sir Philip’s lifetime, had come back to help with Morton. Jim the groom, who had stayed on under the coachman after Raftery’s death, was now talking of going; he wanted to get into the cavalry, of course, and Anna was using her influence for him. Six of the gardeners had joined up already, but Hopkins was past the prescribed age limit; he must do his small bit by looking after his grape vines⁠—the grapes would be sent to the wounded in London. There were now no menservants left in the house, and the home farm was short of a couple of hands. Anna wrote that she was proud of her people, and intended to pay those who had enlisted half wages. They would fight for England, but she could not help feeling that in a way they would be fighting for Morton. She had offered Morton to the Red Cross at once, and they had promised to send her convalescent cases. It was rather isolated for a hospital, it seemed, but would be just the place for convalescents. The Vicar was going as an army chaplain; Violet’s husband, Alec, had joined the Flying Corps; Roger Antrim was somewhere in France already; Colonel Antrim had a job at the barracks in Worcester. + 

Came an angry scrawl from Jonathan Brockett, who had rushed back to England posthaste from the States: “Did you ever know anything quite so stupid as this war? It’s upset my applecart completely⁠—can’t write jingo plays about St. George and the dragon, and I’m sick to death of ‘Business as usual!’ Ain’t going to be no business, my dear, except killing, and blood always makes me feel faint.” Then the postscript: “I’ve just been and gone and done it! Please send me tuck-boxes when I’m sitting in a trench; I like caramel creams and of course mixed biscuits.” Yes, even Jonathan Brockett would go⁠—it was fine in a way that he should have enlisted. + 

Morton was pouring out its young men, who in their turn might pour out their lifeblood for Morton. The agent, the bailiff, in training already. Jim the groom, inarticulate, rather stupid, but wanting to join the cavalry⁠—Jim who had been at Morton since boyhood. The gardeners, kindly men smelling of soil, men of peace with a peaceful occupation; six of these gardeners had gone already, together with a couple of lads from the home farm. There were no men servants left in the house. It seemed that the old traditions still held, the traditions of England, the traditions of Morton. + 

The Vicar would soon play a sterner game than cricket, while Alec must put away his law books and take unto himself a pair of wings⁠—funny to associate wings with Alec. Colonel Antrim had hastily got into khaki and was cursing and swearing, no doubt, at the barracks. And Roger⁠—Roger was somewhere in France already, justifying his manhood. Roger Antrim, who had been so intolerably proud of that manhood⁠—well, now he would get a chance to prove it! + 

But Jonathan Brockett, with the soft white hands, and the foolish gestures, and the high little laugh⁠—even he could justify his existence, for they had not refused him when he went to enlist. Stephen had never thought to feel envious of a man like Jonathan Brockett. + 

She sat smoking, with his letter spread out before her on the desk, his absurd yet courageous letter, and somehow it humbled her pride to the dust, for she could not so justify her existence. Every instinct handed down by the men of her race, every decent instinct of courage, now rose to mock her so that all that was male in her makeup seemed to grow more aggressive, aggressive perhaps as never before, because of this new frustration. She felt appalled at the realization of her own grotesqueness; she was nothing but a freak abandoned on a kind of no-man’s-land at this moment of splendid national endeavour. England was calling her men into battle, her women to the bedsides of the wounded and dying, and between these two chivalrous, surging forces she, Stephen, might well be crushed out of existence⁠—of less use to her country, she was, than Brockett. She stared at her bony masculine hands, they had never been skilful when it came to illness; strong they might be, but rather inept; not hands wherewith to succour the wounded. No, assuredly her job, if job she could find, would not lie at the bedsides of the wounded. And yet, good God, one must do something! + 

Going to the door she called in the servants: “I’m leaving for England in a few days,” she told them, “and while I’m away you’ll take care of this house. I have absolute confidence in you.” + 

Pierre said: “All things shall be done as you would wish, Mademoiselle.” And she knew that it would be so. + 

That evening she told Puddle of her decision, and Puddle’s face brightened: “I’m so glad, my dear, when war comes one ought to stand by one’s country.” + 

“I’m afraid they won’t want my sort⁠ ⁠…” Stephen muttered. + 

Puddle put a firm little hand over hers: “I wouldn’t be too sure of that, this war may give your sort of woman her chance. I think you may find that they’ll need you, Stephen.” + 

III + 

There were no farewells to be said in Paris except those to Buisson and Mademoiselle Duphot. + 

Mademoiselle Duphot shed a few tears: “I find you only to lose you, Stévenne. Ah, but how many friends will be parted, perhaps forever, by this terrible war⁠—and yet what else could we do? We are blameless!” + 

In Berlin people were also saying: “What else could we do? We are blameless!” + 

Julie’s hand lingered on Stephen’s arm: “You feel so strong,” she said, sighing a little, “it is good to be strong and courageous these days, and to have one’s eyes⁠—alas, I am quite useless.” + 

“No one is useless who can pray, my sister,” reproved Mademoiselle almost sternly. + 

And indeed there were many who thought as she did, the churches were crowded all over France. A great wave of piety swept through Paris, filling the dark confessional boxes, so that the priests had now some ado to cope with such shoals of penitent people⁠—the more so as every priest fit to fight had been summoned to join the army. Up at Montmartre the church of the Sacré Cœur echoed and reechoed with the prayers of the faithful, while those prayers that were whispered with tears in secret, hung like invisible clouds round its altars. + 

“Save us, most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Have pity upon us, have pity upon France. Save us, oh, Heart of Jesus!” + 

So all day long must the priests sit and hear the time-honoured sins of body and spirit; a monotonous hearing because of its sameness, since nothing is really new under the sun, least of all our manner of sinning. Men who had not been to Mass for years, now began to remember their first Communion; thus it was that many a hardy blasphemer, grown suddenly tongue-tied and rather sheepish, clumped up to the altar in his new army boots, having made an embarrassed confession. + 

Young clericals changed into uniform and marched side by side with the roughest Poilus, to share in their hardships, their hopes, their terrors, their deeds of supremest valour. Old men bowed their heads and gave of the strength which no longer animated their bodies, gave of that strength through the bodies of their sons who would charge into battle shouting and singing. Women of all ages knelt down and prayed, since prayer has long been the refuge of women. “No one is useless who can pray, my sister.” The women of France had spoken through the lips of the humble Mademoiselle Duphot. + 

Stephen and Puddle said goodbye to the sisters, then went on to Buisson’s Academy of Fencing, where they found him engaged upon greasing his foils. + 

He looked up, “Ah, it’s you. I must go on greasing. God knows when I shall use these again, tomorrow I join my regiment.” But he wiped his hands on a stained overall and sat down, after clearing a chair for Puddle. “An ungentlemanly war it will be,” he grumbled. “Will I lead my men with a sword? Ah, but no! I will lead my men with a dirty revolver in my hand. Parbleu! Such is modern warfare! A machine could do the whole cursèd thing better⁠—we shall all be nothing but machines in this war. However, I pray that we may kill many Germans.” + 

Stephen lit a cigarette while the master glared, he was evidently in a very vile temper: “Go on, go on, smoke your heart to the devil, then come here and ask me to teach you fencing! You smoke in lighting one from the other, you remind me of your horrible Birmingham chimneys⁠—but of course a woman exaggerates always,” he concluded, with an evident wish to annoy her. + 

Then he made a few really enlightening remarks about Germans in general, their appearance, their morals, above all their personal habits⁠—which remarks were more seemly in French than they would be in English. For, like Valérie Seymour, this man was filled with a loathing for the ugliness of his epoch, an ugliness to which he felt the Germans were just now doing their best to contribute. Buisson’s heart was not buried in Mitylene, but rather in the glories of a bygone Paris, where a gentleman lived by the skill of his rapier and the graceful courage that lay behind it. + 

“In the old days we killed very beautifully,” sighed Buisson, “now we merely slaughter or else do not kill at all, no matter how gross the insult.” + 

However, when they got up to go, he relented: “War is surely a very necessary evil, it thins down the imbecile populations who have murdered their most efficacious microbes. People will not die, very well, here comes war to mow them down in their tens of thousands. At least for those of us who survive, there will be more breathing space, thanks to the Germans⁠—perhaps they too are a necessary evil.” + 

Arrived at the door Stephen turned to look back. Buisson was once more greasing his foils, and his fingers moved slowly yet with great precision⁠—he might almost have been a beauty doctor engaged upon massaging ladies’ faces. + 

Preparations for departure did not take very long, and in less than a week’s time Stephen and Puddle had shaken hands with their Breton servants, and were driving at top speed en route for Havre, from whence they would cross to England. + 

IV + 

Puddle’s prophecy proved to have been correct, work was very soon forthcoming for Stephen. She joined The London Ambulance Column, which was well under way by that autumn; and presently Puddle herself got a job in one of the Government departments. She and Stephen had taken a small service flat in Victoria, and here they would meet when released from their hours of duty. But Stephen was obsessed by her one idea, which was, willy-nilly, to get out to the front, and many and varied were the plans and discussions that were listened to by the sympathetic Puddle. An ambulance had managed to slip over to Belgium for a while and had done some very fine service. Stephen had hit on a similar idea, but in her case the influence required had been lacking. In vain did she offer to form a Unit at her own expense; the reply was polite but always the same, a monotonous reply: England did not send women to the front line trenches. She disliked the idea of joining the throng who tormented the patient passport officials with demands to be sent out to France at once, on no matter how insufficient a pretext. What was the use of her going to France unless she could find there the work that she wanted? She preferred to stick to her job in England. + 

And now quite often while she waited at the stations for the wounded, she would see unmistakable figures⁠—unmistakable to her they would be at first sight, she would single them out of the crowd as by instinct. For as though gaining courage from the terror that is war, many a one who was even as Stephen, had crept out of her hole and come into the daylight, come into the daylight and faced her country: “Well, here I am, will you take me or leave me?” And England had taken her, asking no questions⁠—she was strong and efficient, she could fill a man’s place, she could organize too, given scope for her talent. England had said: “Thank you very much. You’re just what we happen to want⁠ ⁠… at the moment.” + 

So, side by side with more fortunate women, worked Miss Smith who had been breeding dogs in the country; or Miss Oliphant who had been breeding nothing since birth but a litter of hefty complexes; or Miss Tring who had lived with a very dear friend in the humbler purlieus of Chelsea. One great weakness they all had, it must be admitted, and this was for uniforms⁠—yet why not? The good workman is worthy of his Sam Browne belt. And then too, their nerves were not at all weak, their pulses beat placidly through the worst air raids, for bombs do not trouble the nerves of the invert, but rather that terrible silent bombardment from the batteries of God’s good people. + 

Yet now even really nice women with hairpins often found their less orthodox sisters quite useful. It would be: “Miss Smith, do just start up my motor⁠—the engine’s so cold I can’t get the thing going;” or: “Miss Oliphant, do glance through these accounts, I’ve got such a rotten bad head for figures;” or: “Miss Tring, may I borrow your British Warm? The office is simply arctic this morning!” + 

Not that those purely feminine women were less worthy of praise, perhaps they were more so, giving as they did of their best without stint⁠—for they had no stigma to live down in the war, no need to defend their right to respect. They rallied to the call of their country superbly, and may it not be forgotten by England. But the others⁠—since they too gave of their best, may they also not be forgotten. They might look a bit odd, indeed some of them did, and yet in the streets they were seldom stared at, though they strode a little, perhaps from shyness, or perhaps from a slightly self-conscious desire to show off, which is often the same thing as shyness. They were part of the universal convulsion and were being accepted as such, on their merits. And although their Sam Browne belts remained swordless, their hats and their caps without regimental badges, a battalion was formed in those terrible years that would never again be completely disbanded. War and death had given them a right to life, and life tasted sweet, very sweet to their palates. Later on would come bitterness, disillusion, but never again would such women submit to being driven back to their holes and corners. They had found themselves⁠—thus the whirligig of war brings in its abrupt revenges. + 

V + 

Time passed; the first year of hostilities became the second while Stephen still hoped, though no nearer to her ambition. Try as she might she could not get to the front; no work at the actual front seemed to be forthcoming for women. + 

Brockett wrote wonderfully cheerful letters. In every letter was a neat little list telling Stephen what he wished her to send him; but the sweets he loved were getting quite scarce, they were no longer always so easy to come by. And now he was asking for Houbigant soap to be included in his tuck-box. + 

“Don’t let it get near the coffee fondants or it may make them taste like it smells,” he cautioned, “and do try to send me two bottles of hair-wash, ‘Eau Athénienne,’ I used to buy it at Truefitt’s.” He was on a perfectly damnable front, they had sent him to Mesopotamia. + 

Violet Peacock, who was now a V.A.D. with a very imposing Red Cross on her apron, occasionally managed to catch Stephen at home, and then would come reams of tiresome gossip. Sometimes she would bring her overfed children along, she was stuffing them up like capons. By fair means or foul Violet always managed to obtain illicit cream for her nursery⁠—she was one of those mothers who reacted to the war by wishing to kill off the useless aged. + 

“What’s the good of them? Eating up the food of the nation!” she would say, “I’m going all out on the young, they’ll be needed to breed from.” She was very extreme, her perspective had been upset by the air raids. + 

Raids frightened her as did the thought of starvation, and when frightened she was apt to grow rather sadistic, so that now she would want to rush off and inspect every ruin left by the German marauders. She had also been the first to applaud the dreadful descent of a burning zeppelin. + 

She bored Stephen intensely with her ceaseless prattle about Alec, who was one of London’s defenders, about Roger, who had got the Military Cross and was just on the eve of becoming a major, about the wounded whose faces she sponged every morning, and who seemed so pathetically grateful. + 

From Morton came occasional letters for Puddle; they were more in the nature of reports now these letters. Anna had such and such a number of cases; the gardeners had been replaced by young women; Mr. Percival was proving very devoted, he and Anna were holding the estate well together; Williams had been seriously ill with pneumonia. Then a long list of humble names from the farms, from among Anna’s staff or from cottage homesteads, together with those from such houses as Morton⁠—for the rich and the poor were in death united. Stephen would read that long list of names, so many of which she had known since her childhood, and would realize that the stark arm of war had struck deep at the quiet heart of the Midlands. + 