Читать книгу Man and Maid - Glyn Elinor - Страница 7

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This morning I feel as if I could hardly bear it until Miss Sharp arrives—I dressed early, ready to begin a new chapter although I have not an idea in my head, and, as the time grows nearer, it is difficult for me to remain still here in my chair.

Have I been too impossible?—Will she not turn up?—and if she does not, what steps can I take to find her?—Maurice is at Deauville with the rest, and I do not know Miss Sharp's home address—nor if she has a telephone—probably not. My heart beats—I have every feeling of excitement as stupid as a woman! I analyse it all now, how mental emotion reacts on the physical—even the empty socket of my eye aches—I could hardly control my voice when Burton began a conversation about my orders for the day just now.

"You would not be wishin' for the company of your Aunt Emmeline, Sir Nicholas"?—he asked me—.

"Of course not, Burton, you old fool—"

"You seem so much more restless, sir—lately—"

"I am restless—please leave me alone."

He coughed and retired.

Now I am listening again—it wants two minutes to the hour—she is never late.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten—. It feels as if the blood would burst the veins—I cannot write.

She came after all, only ten minutes beyond her usual time, but they seemed an eternity when I heard the ring and Burton's slow step. I could have bounded from my chair to open the door myself.—It was a telegram! How this always happens when one is expecting anyone with desperate anxiety—A telegram from Suzette.

"I shall return to-night, Mon Chou."

Her cabbage!—Bah! I never want to see her again—.

Miss Sharp must have entered when the door was opened for the telegram, for I had begun to feel pretty low again when I heard her knock at the door of the sitting-room.

She came in and up to my chair as usual—but she did not say her accustomary cold good morning. I looked up—the horn spectacles were over her eyes again, and the rest of her face was very pale—while there was something haughty in the carriage of her small head, it seemed to me. Her eternal pad and pencil were in her little thin, red hands.

"Good morning"—I said tentatively, she made a slight inclination as much as to say—"I recognize you have spoken," then she waited for me to continue.

I felt an egregious ass, I knew I was nervous as a bird, I could not think of anything to say—I, Nicholas Thormonde, accustomed to any old thing! nervous of a little secretary!

"Er—would you read me aloud the last chapter we finished"—I barked at last lamely.

She turned to fetch the script from the other room—.

I must apologize to her, I knew.

She came back and sat down stiffly, prepared to begin.

"I am sorry I was such an uncouth brute yesterday," I said—"It was good of you to come back—. Will you forgive me?"

She bowed again. I almost hated her at that moment, she was making me feel so much—A foolish arrogance rose in me—

"We had better get to work I suppose," I went on pettishly.

She began to read—how soft her voice is, and how perfectly cultivated.—Her family must be very refined gentlefolk—ordinary English typists have not that indescribable distinction of tone.

What voices mean to one!—The delight of that exquisite sound of refinement in the pronunciation. Miss Sharp never misplaces an inflection or slurs a word, she never uses slang, and yet there is nothing pedantic in her selection of language—it is just as if her habitual associates were all of the same class as herself, and that she never heard coarse speech.—Who can she be—?

The music of her reading calmed me—how I wish we could be friends—!

"How old is Madame Bizot's grandchild?" I asked abruptly, interrupting.

"Six months," answered Miss Sharp without looking up.

"You like children?"

"Yes—."

"Perhaps you have brothers and sisters?"

"Yes—."

I knew that I was looking at her hungrily—and that she was purposely keeping her lids lowered—.

"How many?"

"Two—."

The tone said, "I consider your questions impertinent—."

I went on—

"Brothers?"

"One brother."

"And a sister?"

"Yes."

"How old?"

"Eleven and thirteen."

"That is quite a gap between your ages then?"

She did not think it necessary to reply to this—there was the faintest impatience in the way she moved the manuscript.

I was so afraid to annoy her further in case she should give me notice to go, that I let her have her way, and returned to work.

But I was conscious of her presence—thrillingly conscious of her presence all the morning. I never once was able to take the work naturally, it was will alone which made me grind out the words.

There was no sign of nervousness in Miss Sharp's manner—I simply did not exist for her—I was a bore, a selfish useless bore of an employer, who was paying her twice as much as anyone else would, and she must in return give the most perfect service. As a man I had no meaning. As a wounded human being she had no pity for me—but I did not want her pity—what did I want?—I cannot write it—I cannot face it—. Am I to have a new torment in my life?—Desiring the unattainable?—Eating my heart out; not that woman can never really love me again, but that, well or ill, the consideration of one woman is beyond my reach—.

Miss Sharp is not influenced because I am or am not a cripple—If I were as I was when I first put on my grenadier's uniform, I should still not exist for her probably—she can see the worthless creature that I am—Need I always be so?—I wish to God I knew.

Night.

She worked with her usual diligence the entire day almost, not taking the least notice of me, until at five o'clock when my tea came I rang for her—Perhaps it was the irritation reacting upon my sensitive wrenched nerves, but I felt pretty rotten, my hands were damp—another beastly unattractive thing, which as a rule does not happen to me—I asked her to pour out the tea.

"If you will be so kind," I said—"I have let Burton go out"—Mercifully this was true—she came in as a person would who knew you had a right to command—you could not have said if she minded or no.

When she was near me I felt happier for some reason.

She asked me how I took my tea—and I told her—.

"Are you not going to have some with me?" I pleaded.

"Mine is already on my table in the next room—thank you"—and she rose.

In desperation I blurted out—.

"Please—do not go!—I don't know why, but I feel most awfully rotten to-day."

She sat down again and poured out her cup.

"If you are suffering shall I read to you?" she said—"It might send you to sleep—" and somehow I fancied that while her firm mouth never softened, perhaps the eyes behind the horn spectacles might not be so stony. And yet with it all something in me resented her pity, if she felt any. Physical suffering produces some weaknesses which respond to sympathy, and the spirit rages at the knowledge that one has given way. I never felt so mad in all my year of hell that I cannot be a man and fight—as I did at that moment.

A French friend of mine said—In English books people were always having tea—handing cups of tea! Tea, tea—every chapter and every scene—tea! There is a great deal of truth in it—tea seems to bring the characters together—at tea time people talk, it is the excuse to call at that hour of leisure. We are too active as a nation to meet at any other time in the day, except for sport—So tea is our link and we shall go down through the ages as tea fiends—because our novelists who portray life accurately, chronicle that most of the thrilling scenes of our lives pass among tea cups!—I ventured to say all this to Miss Sharp by way of drawing her into conversation.

"What could one describe as the French doing most often?"—I asked her—.

She thought a moment.

"They do not make excuses for anything they do, they have not to have a pretext for action as we have—They are much less hypocritical and self-conscious."

I wanted to make her talk—.

"Why are we such hypocrites?"

"Because we have set up an impossible standard for ourselves, and hate to show each other that we cannot act up to it."

"Yes, we conceal every feeling—We show indifference when we feel interest—We pretend we have come on business when we have come simply to see someone we are attracted by—."

She let the conversation drop. This provoked me, as her last remark showed how far from stupid she is.

That nervous feeling overcame me again—Confound the woman!

"Please read," I said at last in desperation, and I closed my one eye.

She picked up a book—it happened to be a volume of de Musset—and she read at random—her French is as perfect as her English—The last thing I remember was "Mimi Pinson"—and when I awoke it was past six o'clock and she had gone home.

I wonder how many of us, since the war, know the desolation of waking—alone and in pain—and helpless—Of course there must be hundreds. If I am a rotter and a coward about suffering, at all events it does not come out in words—and perhaps it is because I am such a mixture that I am able to write it in this journal—If I were purely English I should not be able to let myself go even here—.

Suzette came to dinner—I thought how vulgar she looked—and that if her hands were white they were podgy and the nails short. The three black hairs irritated my cheek when she kissed me—I was brutal and moved my head in irritation—.

"Tiens?! Mon Ami!"—she said and pouted.

"Amuse me!" I commanded—.

"So! it is not love then, Nicholas, thou desirest—Bear!"

"Not in the least—I shall never want love again probably. Divert me!—tell me—tell me of your scheming little mouse's brain, and your kind little heart—How is it 'dans le metier'?"

Suzette settled herself on the sofa, curled up among the pillows like a plump little tabby cat. She lit a cigarette—.

"Very middling," she whiffed—"Cases of love where all my good counsel remains untaken—a madness for drugs—very foolish—A drug—yes to try—but to continue!—Mon Dieu! they will no longer make fortunes 'dans le metier'—"

"When you have made your fortune, Suzette, what will you do with it?"

"I shall buy that farm for my mother—I shall put Georgine into a convent for the nobility, and arrange a large dot for her—and for me?—I shall gamble in a controlled way at Monte Carlo—."

"You won't marry then, Suzette?"

"Marry!" she laughed a shrill laugh—"For why, Nicholas?—A tie-up to one man, hein?—to what good?—and yet who can say—to be an honored wife is the one experience I do not know yet!"—she laughed again—.

"And who is Georgine—you have not spoken of her before, Suzette?"

She reddened a little under her new terra cotta rouge.

"No?—Oh! Georgine is my little first mistake—but I have her beautifully brought up, Nicholas—with the Holy Mother at St. Brieux. I am then her Aunt—so to speak—the wife of a small shop keeper in Paris, you must know—She adores me—and I give all I can to St. Georges-des-Près—. Georgine will be a lady and marry the Mayor's son—one day—."

Something touched me infinitely. This queer little demi-mondaine mother—her thoughts set on her child's purity, and the conventional marriage for her—in the future. Her plebeian, insolent little round face so kindly in repose.

I respect Suzette far more than my friends of the world—.

When she left—it was perhaps in bad taste, but I gave her a quite heavy four figure cheque.

"For the education of Georgine—Suzette."

She flung her arms round my neck and kissed me frankly on both cheeks, and tears were brimming over in her merry black eyes.

"Thou hast after all a heart, and art after all a gentleman, Nicholas—Va!—"—and she ran from the room.