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Vanessa paid the first visit of her life to London in the spring of 1882.

Old Lady Herries had, during the last two years, invited her repeatedly to stay in Hill Street, but the trouble had been that her father refused to go with her and Vanessa would not leave him.

Adam was obdurate and Vanessa was obdurate.

‘No, my dear, I won’t go. I hope never to see London again. I am sixty-six and entitled at last to my own way. London would upset me. I know I’m nothing at all, but London would make me feel less than nothing. I’m quite contented where I am. But of course you must go. It’s time that they saw you and fell down before you. It’s always been the custom that the family in London should see the Cumberland branch once and again and realise how superior it is. Your grandmother took me up when I was a boy and they all fell flat before her—so they shall before you.’

Vanessa refused. She did not want to go, she did not wish to see London, they would all think her an absurd country cousin and mock at her. With her father at her side she could mock back at them, but alone she would not dare to open her mouth. (None of these were, of course, real reasons. She longed to see London and she was afraid of no one.) He wished her to go because he was afraid that they were growing, as he described it, ‘inside one another.’

For the last two years Vanessa had been strange. She was, it seemed, quite content to be alone with her father and, except for visits to Elizabeth at the Fortress and to Uldale, saw nobody. She seemed happy enough, but there were times when she appeared abstracted, lost, far away. Once or twice he wondered whether Benjie Herries had anything to do with this. Benjie had been out of England for most of the two years, deserting, everyone said, his mother most shamefully. Could it be that Vanessa still cared for him? Adam put the thought violently away from him. He had an affection for Benjie, but the fellow was a wanderer, a wastrel, would come, Adam very much feared, to no kind of good. And yet some wildness that there was in Adam attracted him to the man. He might have been, had things gone otherwise, just such himself. And Vanessa had some wildness in her too. Was it that that kept the men of the county away from her? No one doubted that she was better-looking than any other girl in the North of England. And she was gentle with them, gave herself no airs. But she was alone. Save for her father, Elizabeth, and little Jane Bellairs at Uldale, she had no friends. Oh yes, and the children at Uldale—she adored them, especially young Tim.

But there it was: she had no friends of her own age, had no gaieties, did not appear to wish for any. It was not good for her. She must go to London.

And at last she yielded. He could not tell the reason. A letter came from Lady Herries. She looked across the table at Adam and said: ‘Very well, Papa; I’ll go.’

Then, when it was all arranged, he did not want her to go. He realised that he would be most damnably lonely. He was sure that, after this visit, she would never be the same again. She was still, in spite of her twenty-three years, very much of a child. She could be surprisingly naïve and impetuous. She seemed at one moment to judge human nature most wisely and then she would trust someone for no reason at all. She reminded him constantly of her grandmother in her simple directness to everyone, her lack of all affectation, her complete ignoring of class differences, her generosity and warmth both of heart and temper. But she was unlike Judith in that she had many reserves and no wish to dominate anybody. In those things she resembled himself. Oh, he would be all right, he supposed. There was plenty to do—his writing, his garden, the hills of which he never wearied; he was still, in spite of his sixty-six years, strong enough to walk over Stye Head into Eskdale and so to the sea, or over Watendlath to Grasmere. He had old Will Leathwaite for company. But he would miss her—miss her damnably. There was no one else he cared for now but Will. He was growing old. He continued to write—he could not help himself—but it was poor, secondary stuff. Not at all what he had meant once to do. Why, Dickens had told him once that he would be the equal of them all. But Dickens was warm-hearted, generous, with his variegated waistcoats and passion for theatricals. A great man: no one like him now. Him and Wordsworth, that arrogant but child-hearted little man whose genius seemed now to cover all the country like a soft sunny cloud, impregnating the air, calling the scent from the flowers, echoed in the birds’ call. Dickens and Wordsworth—simple men both of them—while to-day these Merediths and Swinburnes and Rossettis ... He picked up the Poems and Ballads from the table, read a line or two, turned away with a sigh. Very clever. You could not call Wordsworth clever, thank God.

And so she went. It was arranged very easily, because Mrs. Osmaston was travelling to London at the same time. Mrs. Osmaston was a good serious woman who would bore Vanessa considerably. That would teach her, Adam thought quite fiercely, to leave her old father!

She went: and Adam discovered, not for the first time in his history, the tactful beauties in Will Leathwaite’s character. Will had all the Cumbrian gift of showing his affection without mentioning it. He scolded and grumbled and protested as he had always done. In the evening they played backgammon together, and Will invariably won.

‘You have the most damnable luck,’ Adam swore at him.

‘Aye,’ said Will, ‘I have. And I play nicely too.’

Four days after her departure Adam received a letter, the first that he had ever had from his dear daughter.

‘My dearest Papa,’ it began.

‘A letter from my daughter,’ he said to Will, who was sprawling against the door-post, his hands in his pockets. He was fat now, red in the face and grizzled in the hair. It was in his eyes that you saw his youth, for their blue was as clear, gay and sparkling as though they were fresh from their Maker.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘That’s grand. Hope she’s enjoying herself. Not too much, you know. She’s better than anything London can give her.’

Adam, after glancing through, read Will her letter. Will never stirred. His eyes, shining, luminous, and in some fashion rather sardonic, were fixed on his friend—as though he said: ‘Yes. She’s spreading her wings. You’ll find I’m the only stay-by. We’re a pair of left-overs. And who cares?’

The letter was:

My dearest Papa—I don’t know how to begin I’ve so much to tell you. The journey was very long of course, the carriage smelt of escaping gas and oh, it was cold the last part! My feet were frozen. We couldn’t see to read but it would not have been so bad had Mrs. Osmaston not chattered so! She is so contented, so fortunate, has so perfect a husband, such lovely children (you know little Mary and James Osmaston—not lovely at all!) but the worst is that she loves all the world. Her charity is too general to be personal. We are all God’s children in a kind of celestial nursery. Well, I must get on.

Here I am two days in Hill Street and I must say that I am enjoying it. I find them very kind. Do you know that Lady Herries is seventy-eight? She is immensely proud of it and all our relations are proud of it too. If you live long enough in our family you are always looked up to whatever you may be or do. It is when you are young that you must be careful. She paints of course prodigiously and wears the brightest colours. Bustles have come in again you know, and she likes a sash and a bow at the waist! But I must not mock for she is really kind and wants me to be happy. So does Ellis. He is grave and nervous. He is dreadfully afraid of doing the wrong thing. He is exceedingly wealthy everyone tells me and ought to be married. I am very sorry for him because he does not know how to be careless and happy. Rose Ormerod says that he is always his own Governess and that no sooner does he do a thing than the Governess tells him he should not. Hill Street is a kind of Temple for the family. They come here and worship the god of the clan—a three-faced god, one face Queen Victoria, one face Commerce and one face the Herries features, high cheek-bones, noble foreheads and a cold eye. They are very different though. Barney Newmark, old Amery and his son Alfred, Rose and her brother Horace, Emily Newmark. These are the principal ones who come to the house. Captain Will Herries and his wife are in town. Also the Rockages. I think they like me. I amuse them and perhaps shock them. I like Barney the best. He laughs at everyone. The house is very large and very cold, but of course you know it and I should imagine that it has not altered at all in thirty years. Very cold, full of noises from pipes and cisterns, masses of furniture, statues and little fires that burn up the chimney. There is the great Charles, too. Charles is the butler and he is so large that it is always warmer when he is in the room with one. He is very gracious and would be perfect if his eyes were not so glassy.

Just imagine! We have been to the theatre both nights! The first night was Romeo and Juliet with Mr. Irving and Miss Ellen Terry. Shall I whisper to you, dear Papa, that I was a little disappointed? Mr. Irving is better when he is not making love. In the balcony scene he stood behind such a ridiculous little tree that it was difficult not to laugh. When he makes love it is not the real thing. He has thought it all out beforehand. Miss Terry is lovely. Oh, how beautiful and charming! But she too acts better when she is not with Mr. Irving. With the Nurse she is perfection. I liked Mr. Terriss as Mercutio but the best of all is Mrs. Stirling as the Nurse although propriety makes them cut out all her best lines. The scenery is almost too good to be true I think. You admire the moonlight when you ought to be lost with the lovers. At least that is what I felt.

Will you be very ashamed of me when I tell you that I enjoyed the second evening more? The piece was The Manager at the Court Theatre. This was Barney’s party and I think Ellis was a little ashamed at laughing at a Farce. But he could not help himself. There is an actress in this piece called Lottie Venne who is perfect and Mr. Clayton splendid! I laughed so much that Rose, who was with us, said Mr. Clayton played twice as well as usual!

Of course I have not seen very much of London yet. Rose and I are to have a morning’s shopping to-morrow. There is to be a grand party in Hill Street next week and Madame Trebelli of the Opera is to sing. I have ridden in a hansom cab and found it very exciting.

And now I must go to bed. I have been writing this in my room and I am so cold that there is an icicle on the end of my nose! Do you miss me? I do hope so, but also I hope that you are not lonely. Give Will my love and the children at Uldale if you see them. If I allow myself I shall be homesick, but that will never do. Last night I dreamt that you and I walked to Robinson and met five sheep who turned into the five Miss Clewers from Troutbeck! Have you seen Elizabeth? Is her cold quite gone now? I am hoping there will be a letter from you to-morrow.—Your very loving daughter,

Vanessa.

‘That’s grand,’ said Will and went off to his work.

No one could guess from Vanessa’s letter, nor indeed from anything that she herself said or thought, that her arrival in London was the sensation of the year for her relations. Afterwards among them all 1882 was remembered as the year ‘when Vanessa first came to town.’ And this for two reasons. One was the natural astonishment at her beauty, for which they were quite unprepared, although some of them recollected that ‘she had been a damned pretty child at old Madame’s Hundredth Birthday.’

By chance it happened that the fashion of the moment suited Vanessa: the dresses looped up behind, crossed with fringed draperies rather in the manner of the heavy window curtains of the time, the waists very narrow (and Vanessa had, all her life, a marvellous waist), the top portion of the costume following as closely as possible the lines of the corset, flaring out below the hips in frills and bows and trimmings. The violent colours just then popular also suited her dark hair and soft skin. The dress that she wore at her first Herries party, dark blue with an edging of scarlet, white lace frills at the throat and wrists, was long remembered. She arrived with only a dress or two and they of Keswick make, but Adam had insisted that she must ‘dress like a peacock in London’ and gave her money to do it with. They were the first grand costumes of her life, and Rose Ormerod saw to it that they were fine. Her beauty staggered them all, the more that she seemed to be perfectly unaware of it. And they saw immediately that here was a family asset.

This raw naïve girl from Cumberland might marry anybody. There was no limit to the possibilities. Old Amery said to his son Alfred (Amery had married late in life a parson’s infant fresh from the schoolroom: she presented him with Alfred in ‘62 and incontinently died) after his first sight of Vanessa in the Hill Street drawing-room: ‘That girl will be a Duchess—bet you a “monkey.”’ These possibilities gave her at once a great importance in their eyes—one more factor in the rise of Herries power!

And here that queer old Lady Herries, known familiarly as ‘the witch of Hill Street,’ comes into the story. No one in London knew anything about that old woman save that she was useful as an entertainer and adored her son. When Will Herries had married her she had been a buxom, silly, empty-headed woman of no character and less common sense. She had given Will a son, and that was the only sensible thing she’d ever been known to do. But as Ellis grew to manhood her love for him created in her a kind of personality. People must always admire in this world any strong, undeviating, unfaltering devotion: for one thing it is rare, for another it appears unselfish although it may have all its roots in selfishness. This example was the more admired because Ellis was, most certainly, not everybody’s money. Only was anybody’s money, in fact, because he had himself such a profusion of that admirable commodity. They led, those two, in the Hill Street house a life of extraordinary loneliness. In spite of the dinners, receptions, conversaziones, balls and theatre-parties, they had no friends, nor did they communicate, so far as anyone could see, with one another. Old Lady Herries broke into frequent rages with her son and to these he listened with a grave and unaccommodating silence. Abroad she talked of him incessantly, his brilliance in the City, his nobility, his love for his fellow-men. At home she often told him he was stupid, ungrateful and cold. Her extravagances grew with her age, her paint, gay colours, fantastic screams of laughter. She was a sight with her trimmings, fichus, shawls, her little hats perched high on her old head, her fingers covered with rings, bands and twists of hair, dyed, and interwoven with strands of ribbon and sprays of foliage. It remained, however, that she won respect because it was known that, selfish in everything else, clinging to life like a tigress, she would die for her son at any moment if the call came.

On the night of Vanessa’s arrival, when the house was as silent as the moon, Ellis visited his mother in her bedroom. Sitting up in bed she looked the old, shrivelled, lonely, exhausted monkey that she really was. Ellis stood gravely beside her bed and said:

‘Well, Mama, it is as I thought. Vanessa is the only woman whom I will ever marry.’

Lady Herries blinked her eyes. For eight years now, ever since the Hundredth Birthday in Cumberland, he had told her this. She did not care for Vanessa; she had thought Adam a country yokel, old Judith a mountebank. Moreover the girl’s mother was a German. But if Ellis wanted anything he was to have it. God, she thought—she believed in a God made exactly in the image of herself—must be of the same opinion.

She could not deny that she had been struck by the girl’s beauty. She had both the scorn and jealousy of beauty felt by many women who have fought life’s battle without that great advantage. But this girl was exceptional. Raw, untrained, straight from the country: nevertheless with care and attention the girl could undoubtedly be turned into something. She had long made it a practice to refuse, at first, any request that Ellis might make of her, because she never lost hope that he might one day become more urgent in his prayers. She knew, in her heart, that this was one of the many hopes that would never be fulfilled.

So now she said: ‘Nonsense. The girl’s straight from a farm or a dairy or whatever it is. She’s got no breeding.’

‘She has perfect breeding,’ Ellis said, and left her.

Next morning, considering the matter, she determined to make the girl devoted to her. Assuming, as do many old people, that she would live for ever, it was important that when Ellis married his wife they should continue to live in Hill Street. To lose Ellis was, of course, not to be thought of, but Vanessa might influence him. In her grinning, chattering way she did her best to be charming. It was not difficult to win Vanessa’s affections if sincerity was there, and Lady Herries was, in this, sincere. Before three days were out the old woman felt that for the first time in her life someone cared for her. For the first time in her life she herself cared for someone other than her son. But truly everything was enchantment to Vanessa. She never saw London again as she saw it in those early days.

Everything about London was a miracle. The first morning she walked out she saw an old crossing-sweeper who stood at the corner of Berkeley Square and Charles Street dressed in an old faded scarlet hunting-coat, given him, Barney told her, by Lord Cork, Master of the Buckhounds. That old man, with his broom, in his scarlet coat, seemed to her delighted eyes the very symbol of London, its incongruity, unexpected romance, humanity and pathos. There was an Indian crossing-sweeper, too, who stood with his broom outside the Naval and Military Club. There were the many Punch and Judy shows, the poor, dark, melancholy Italian sellers of cheap statuettes, and the old hurdy-gurdy man with his monkey.

Hyde Park was her chief delight. Lady Herries liked to drive in the afternoon, and so they paraded in a grand victoria, the old woman sitting with a back like a poker, gay as the rainbow, while Simon the coachman, in a multi-coloured livery, in figure like a sea-lion, drove, as though he were acting in a pageant, his magnificent horses.

But it was all like a pageant, the small phaetons with their high-stepping horses, the pony chaises conveying ladies of fashion, the victorias, the smart buggies driven by men about town, and the quiet-looking little broughams containing, it was supposed, all sorts of mysterious occupants!

This was a fine and warm April, and in the evening, between five and seven, everyone took the air in the Park. It was, it seemed, a world of infinite leisure where no one had anything to do but to see and be seen. On the other hand, there was nothing extravagant or forced in the display. No one, it appeared, wished to stagger anyone else. Everyone’s position was too sure and certain. Rotten Row was, in fact, for more sophisticated eyes than Vanessa’s, a superb affair.

In every way London was a magnificent show. The omnibuses alone gave it an air, for painted red or royal blue or green they were always handsome and individual with their strong horses and their swaggering accomplished drivers who had, with the flick of their whips, the air of conjurers about to produce rabbits out of their great-coats.

The horses indeed were wonderful, Vanessa thought, never needing the whip, the drivers’ cheerful hiss all the encouragement they wanted. They were, she thought, both fiery and gentle, a glorious combination. The doors, the straw on the floor, these things were gone. The omnibuses were now the final word in the modern science of travel. But best of all were the hansom-cabs, the splendid horses driven by the most elegant cabmen who wore glossy hats and had flowers in their button-holes. On the first day that Barney took Vanessa down Piccadilly and Westminster in a hansom-cab, she sat, her hands clasped, her eyes shining, her smart little hat perched on her dark hair, Queen, it seemed to her, of all Fairyland.

Finally London then was a town of constant surprises. You never knew what at any moment would turn up. Every building had life and character of its own, little crooked houses next to big straight ones, sudden little streets—dark, twisted and eccentric—leading to calm dignified squares, fantastic statues, glittering fountains, shops blazing with splendour, hostelries that had not altered for hundreds of years. Everywhere colour, leisure, and, in this first superficial view, light-hearted happiness.

In that first week she spent her days with Lady Herries (Ellis was in the City all day), Rose Ormerod and her brother Horace. The power that Rose had over Vanessa from the beginning came from her jollity, her kindness, her humour, her warm-heartedness. Rose had also other qualities which appeared later in their friendship. Horace, her brother, had a job as secretary to some big benevolent society. He was rosy-cheeked, square-shouldered, spoke well of everyone, was the friend of all the world. He was a little naïve. He talked frankly about himself. He was modest.

‘I’m nothing exceptional, you know, Vanessa. I don’t suppose you think I am. What I say is—why not see the best in everyone? It’s easy enough if you try. People have a hard enough time. Why shouldn’t we all make it pleasant for one another? I must confess that I find life a good thing.’

He was very jolly, had a hearty laugh, seemed generous and genial to everyone. There was something faintly episcopal about him as though he were in training to be a bishop. Rose was sometimes a little sarcastic about her brother, but then she was sarcastic about everyone.

Vanessa was happy, but underneath this exciting London adventure one consuming thought possessed her. Where was Benjie?

This was April 1882. The time had come when Benjie would demand the conclusion to the vow that they had made by the water-dolphin of Ireby. Perhaps because she had seen him so seldom in these two years the thought of him by now completely possessed her. If she had loved him two years ago it was by this time as though he were part of her very flesh. She was neither romantic nor sentimental in her idea of him. She saw him as he was just as she saw herself as she was. Would he come? Where was he? He had written to her, on some dozen occasions, little letters, from Burma, China, India, North America. In these he had not said much, and yet she knew that he needed her, that he was thinking of her as she of him. Would he come? London brought him nearer. When the first sharp excitement of her visit paled a little she began to look for him, in the Park, the streets, the theatre. Often she thought that she saw his small stocky figure, dark face, often fancied that she recognised the quick determined step with which he walked. Would he come, and, if April passed without him, what would she do? Was he faithless, volatile, careless, as they all said of him? Could she trust that he was faithful at least to her? Would he, oh, would he come? She spoke of him, of course, to no one, not even to Rose.

And then, in the second week of her visit, she began to be embarrassed by Ellis. She liked Ellis. She understood him better than others did. Most of all she was sorry for him. She wanted, as she so often wanted with people, to make him happy. There was something about his spare, grave figure that touched her heart. He was so alone. He wanted, she was sure, to be jolly with everyone but did not know how to set about it. She saw in him sometimes an eagerness as though he said: ‘Now this time I shall be lucky and find touch.’ But always his shyness, his fear of a rebuff, checked him. As Lady Herries became more confidential the old lady poured out to Vanessa the truth about Ellis as she saw it, his goodness, kindliness of heart, diffidence. ‘He can’t chatter away,’ Lady Herries said indignantly, ‘like Barney Newmark or Horace Ormerod; but he has ten times their brains.’

Vanessa supposed that he had. He must be very clever to remain so silent for so long.

As the days passed she had an odd impression that he was approaching her ever nearer and nearer. He was not in reality; he always sat at a distance from her and when he walked with her seemed deliberately to take care that he should not by accident touch her. And yet she was ever more and more conscious of his body, his high cheek-bones, the pale skin pulled tightly over them, his sharp-pointed nose, very Herries, with nostrils open, slightly raw, sensitive; his thin mouth, his high shoulder-blades, his spare slim hands, his long legs that seemed always so lonely and desolate inside his over-official London clothes. He was very tall and walked as though he had a poker down his back. He was distinguished certainly with his top-hat, his shining black tie, collar and cuffs almost too starched and gleaming, his pale gloves, his neatly rolled umbrella with its gold top. People looked after him and wondered who he might be, just as once they had wondered about his father. His pale thin face peered out anxiously at the world over his high collar. When he spoke you felt that his words were important although they seldom were so. He had a nervous little cough and often he blinked with his eyes.

One fine spring day he took a holiday from the City and in the company of Horace and Rose and Vanessa walked in the Park. Very soon Vanessa found herself sitting alone with him while Rose and Horace talked to friends. She was wearing her most beautiful frock, rose and white, the pleated and flounced skirt with tucked panniers over the hips, the bodice cut high in the neck, long and pointed at the waist-line. The wide skirt, the modified bustle, the little hat with roses, the different shades of rose in the dress itself, all these things were remembered by her when many times afterwards she recalled that costume as one of the loveliest of her life and the one that she was wearing when Ellis first proposed marriage.

He plunged at once like a man flinging himself with the courage of despair into icy water.

‘Vanessa, I must tell you. I can avoid it no longer. I love you with all my soul. Please—please—will you marry me?’

It was then, although his seat was apart from hers, that she felt as if the moment, which for days had been approaching, had arrived. He seemed to have flung his body on to hers; she felt his thin hands at her neck, his bony cheek against hers, she could feel his heart wildly, furiously beating. She looked and saw that he had not moved. He was sitting, staring in front of him at the carriages, the riders, the colours, the sun; his gloved hands were folded on the gold knob of his umbrella.

She wanted then, as never before in her life, to be kind.

‘Ellis! Marry you! But I don’t want to marry anybody!’

(That was untrue. She wanted, oh, how she wanted, to marry Benjie!)

He had recovered himself a little.

‘I know that it must be a shock to you, dear Vanessa. I recognise that. I must give you time. But you must not think that it is any sudden idea of mine. I have had no other thought since I first saw you, years ago, in Cumberland. That time—we were downstairs at Uldale. From that moment I knew that only you of everyone in the world could be my wife.’

She laid her hand for a moment on his knee.

‘I am proud that you should think of me like that,’ she said slowly, ‘but I’m afraid I can’t. Ellis, I like you very much, but I don’t want to be married—really I don’t. I couldn’t leave my father. It wouldn’t be kind to him now he is all alone.’

(How stupid and stiff her words were! She wanted to be good to him, to say something that would take that wistful, forlorn look from his eyes.)

‘Your father could come and live with us.’

‘I’m afraid he could never live in London. He is miserable now if he is away from Cumberland.’

‘If you could—if you could—love me a little, Vanessa. I would wait. I would be very patient. Perhaps you could love me a little——’

She must be honest.

‘No. I don’t love you, Ellis. Love is very rare, isn’t it? I like you so much——’

‘Well, then,’ he caught her up eagerly, ‘that will perhaps turn into love. If you stay with us a little while. My mother likes you so much. I have never known her like anyone so much before. I can be very patient. I will give you as much time as you like——’

‘I am afraid time will not alter it,’ she answered gently. ‘Friendship and love are so different——’

But he did not seem to hear. He went on eagerly.

‘I will give you everything you can want. There’s nothing you can ask for that you shan’t have. I will never interfere with you. Only let me love you and serve you. I am not a man who has many friends. You have noticed that perhaps. I have been always shy in company, but with you beside me I feel that I could do anything. You are so good, so beautiful——’

Now the little scene was becoming dreadful to her. His intensity, his earnestness shamed her as though she had been caught in some misconduct.

‘Ellis, dear. Listen. I don’t love you. I’m afraid I never shall. We would be both of us most unhappy. Let us be friends, better and better friends, and you will find someone who will love you, who will make you so very happy——’

Words that every lady has used to every disconsolate lover! She knew it. She had not conceived that she could be so stupid. But, it seemed, he had not heard her. Rose and Horace gaily approached them, Horace laughing, greeting all the world as a jolly brother.

‘Never mind, Vanessa,’ Ellis said quietly. ‘I will ask you again. It is a shock, of course. I am afraid that I was very sudden.’

‘We do apologise,’ cried Rose. ‘That was Colonel Norton. I haven’t seen him for an age. We were only gone a minute.’

It seemed to Vanessa that they had been an hour away.

When, alone in her room that night, she was dressing for dinner, she most unexpectedly had a fit of crying. She did not often cry, although young ladies thought nothing of it. But now, sitting in front of the glass, twisting her hair into ringlets, she found that the tears made ridiculous splashes on the pincushion, which was fat and round like a large white toad with a bright pink eye. She was crying, she discovered, because that Ellis should love her made her want Benjie so terribly. Oh, if it had been Benjie who had said those words in the Park! But it was not. It was Ellis. Then she found that she was crying because she felt, for the first time in her life, lonely and needed her father. She seemed to see him in the glass facing her, his brown beard, his soft rather ironical, rather sleepy eyes, his broad shoulders, rough coat.... She thought that to-morrow morning, as early as possible, she would take the train to Cumberland....

Her tears very quickly dried because she was, she saw in the glass, so long and lanky. Now Rose might cry very prettily because she was slight and delicate in spite of her dark colour. But Vanessa was too tall for tears. She stood up in her skirt, all flounces and frills, raised her arms, threw up her head. Because Ellis had proposed to her was no reason for tears!

Then she laughed. The day before she had paid a visit with Rose to one of Rose’s friends, a Mrs. Pettinger. Mrs. Pettinger’s husband was an artist, and their little house in Pimlico had shone with the new aestheticism. The walls had Morris wallpapers, everywhere there were Japanese fans, bamboo tables, lilies in tall thin glasses, Japanese prints. Also two drawings by Mr. Whistler which, privately, Vanessa had thought very beautiful. Privately, because Rose had confided to her that she found them absurd.

‘Why, anyone could do that!’ she said. ‘I could. Just take your pencil and draw a few lines up and down. You have to stand a mile away to see what they’re about.’

What made her laugh was the contrast between the room that she was in now and Mrs. Pettinger’s house. It seemed symbolically to be the contrast that she felt between her love for Benjie and Ellis’ proposal. Her large cold bedroom had not, she supposed, been changed in detail for thirty years. Especially did she notice, as though seeing them for the first time, two armchairs of light oak carved with floral decorations and upholstered with dark green velvet having a floral pattern. When you sat down in one of them it clung to you as though asserting its righteousness. Then the frame of Tonbridge-ware that contained a picture of a little girl outside a church made in seaweed, the Coalport toilet service, the dressing-table and mirror trimmed with glazed linen and muslin, the mahogany bedstead, the needlework bell-pulls. Yes, she thought, sitting down on the green-velvet armchair, there were two worlds, as her father had always told her. Sitting there, without moving, staring before her, thinking of her mother, her father, Benjie, all those whom she loved, she moved naturally, simply into another world that had been, all her life, as real to her as the plush chair on which she was sitting. There was no effort, no conscious act of the will. An inner life flowed like a strong stream beneath all external things. This life had its own history, its own progress, its own destiny. She never spoke of it nor tried to explain it. It needed no explanation. Sometimes the two lives met, the two streams flowed together, but whereas the external life had its checks, its alarms, its vanities and empty disappointments, this inner life flowed steadily, was always there. Yes, two worlds in everything. How to connect them? The Saints, she supposed, were those who had learnt the answer, men and women in whose lives one life always interpenetrated the other. But she, Vanessa, was no saint. She could only, at certain moments, be conscious of an awareness, an illumination, that irradiated everything so that in that brilliant light both things and people had suddenly their proper values.

Sitting on her plush chair she had now such a moment....

In the days that followed, Ellis behaved to her exactly as he had always done. It was as though their little conversation in the Park had never been. She obtained increasingly from the Herries family both instruction and amusement. Old Amery greatly amused her with his intimate stories of high places, of the adventures, for example, of King William of the Netherlands, one of whose ladies broke all the crockery in his palace during one of her tempers, of some Italian prince in Paris who disguised himself as an organ-grinder for a whole month that he might station himself outside his lady-love’s door, of young Lord So-and-so who, rejected by his mistress, put a large black band on his hat, went to his rooms, and committed suicide by cutting his wrist open with a razor, remembering first to place a slop-pail by the chair that there might be no mess. Young Alfred amused her because he would tolerate anyone who promised to be notable. She liked Captain Will with his breezy manner of finding the sea the only possible place, and yet now he never went there. The Rockages were redolent of the country. Carey himself, although he was tidy enough, seemed to carry good Wiltshire mud on his boots, and little Lady Rockage walked as though she were ready to spring on to a horse’s back at any moment. She soon knew them all and liked them all with the single exception of Emily, Barney’s sister, who was pious but not charitable, prudish with an unpleasant inquisitiveness, and a mischief-maker for the best of motives.

She found them all most strangely alike in some basic way. They had no pose, made no attempts to assert themselves, took everything for granted. For them all the Herries were the backbone of England, and England was the only country in the world that mattered at all. It was Barney Newmark, however, who best explained the family position to her, sitting beside her on the occasion of the splendid Herries party in Hill Street when Mme. Trebelli sang and Signor Pesto played so enthusiastically the violin.

Vanessa liked Barney best of them all. Rose, of course, excepted. Barney was now fifty-two, stout, fresh-coloured and carelessly dressed but not untidy. He looked a little Bohemian but not very; you would not know that he was a writer, said Vanessa. That was a period when writers looked like writers. He took life very lightly, laughed at everyone and everything, but behind that was, she thought, a disappointed man. He had published a dozen novels and lived comfortably on the proceeds. She had read several of them. They were not very good and not very bad. They were like the books of other authors. But he never spoke of his novels, laughed scornfully when they were mentioned to him. She felt, however, that he would like it very much if someone else praised them. At their first meeting in London she said what she could. At once he stopped her.

‘Dear Vanessa. Thank you very much. And now we need never mention them again, need we? No friends of mine can read my novels. That is a sign of their friendship.’ Very different, had she but known it, from the man who once at a prize-fight had clasped Mortimer Collins by the shoulder!

They sat now in a corner of the big drawing-room and watched the splendid affair. The room was very crowded. It looked for the first time alive, for the heavy furniture was gone and, save for the palms, ferns and flowers packed into the corners, round the piano, in front of the great marble fireplace, only human beings filled it. The ladies wore their jewels, their shoulders gleamed under the gaslight, everyone was splendid, dignified, assured and, it appeared, happy. Vanessa would never have had courage to penetrate the throng, but almost at once she saw Barney, who carried her off into a corner, saying: ‘Now I shall be the proudest man here for five minutes, before you are discovered, you know. Soon there will be so many proud men that you won’t be able to breathe.’

She was very happy alone with him. She would like to stay thus throughout the evening.

‘Tell me who everyone is, Barney dear,’ she said.

He pointed out a few. ‘That dignified cleric is the Bishop of London. That fine fellow there is Mr. Bancroft.’

‘And oh, who is that darling old man?’

That darling old man looked like a ship’s captain. He had a grey beard, grey hair erect and curly through which he often ran his hands, a florid complexion, clear eyes. He was the finest man in the room.

‘That is Mr. Madox Brown,’ said Barney.

‘And that lovely lady?’

‘That lovely lady is Mrs. Samuel Maguire, and her husband gives her a diamond every morning with her coffee.’

‘And that very dark man?’

‘That is Isaac Lowenfeld, the financier. He once blacked gentlemen’s shoes in Constantinople. Jews are coming in. The Prince of Wales likes them, and why should he not? I like them myself. They have the best hearts, the best brains and the staunchest religion in London.’

She noticed two young men with high white foreheads, long pale hair and a very languishing manner.

‘And those?’

‘Those are the aesthetes. They look at a lily for breakfast, worship china teacups, and lisp in poetry. I don’t like ‘em myself. They are not my kind. But they have their uses.’

‘Everyone is here then? Lady Herries will be pleased.’

‘Yes, it is a success because soon the room will be so crowded that no one can move, so noisy that no one will hear anyone else, and so hot that several young ladies will faint.’

She soon found members of the Herries family here and there.

‘There is Emily. How nice and healthy Captain Will looks! I think Alfred is over-dressed.’

‘Yes, we are all here,’ said Barney. ‘A great satisfaction to all of us. A fine family. And yet we are not of the first rank. Oh, I don’t mean in history. We are, I suppose, as old as any family in England. But we are not, and never shall be, like the Chichesters, the Medleys. Nor like the Beaminsters, the Cecils, the Howards. Although in fact we are a kind of relation of the Howards. But we’re not like the new democrats either, people like the Ruddards, the Denisons. All very poor kind of talk this, but it’s important, the social history of England, partly because it’s history, partly because in another fifty years’ time there won’t be any social history. There, do you see that little woman in black with that jade pendant—with the hard mouth and the small nose? That’s the Duchess of Wrexe. That’s her daughter, Adela Beaminster, with her. Well, she walks as though she owned the world, every scrap of it. Contrast her with Lady Herries. Oh, I know she isn’t a Herries really, but she’s acquired all the Herries characteristics. The wives of Herries men always do. That’s what I mean. We are upper middle-class. We belong in the country, small Squires, maiden ladies in places like Bournemouth and Harrogate, houses like Uldale for example. That’s where we are. For the last hundred years we’ve been rising or seeming to. Will made a heap of money and Ellis is making more. Then there are the Rockages, a small pocket-nobility. But we are not first-class in anything. We write—well, as I do. We are parsons and one of us becomes an Archdeacon. We make money in the City but can’t touch Lowenfeld. We entertain, but when we bring off a party like this it’s a kind of accident. Not that we see ourselves like that. We think there’s nobody to touch us, but that’s because we have no imagination. That’s why we are of real importance in the country. If there’s ever a revolution in England it’s the Herries and others like them who will save us all. Even as we begin to die out the lower ranks take our places and become just like us. We are filled up from below, but we never rise any higher. We have our good points—we are not acquisitive, we are not greedy, we are kind if we are not attacked, generous even; we never lose our heads, we adore our country although we criticise it. We never have to speak foreign languages, we revel in our abominable climate, on the whole we are contented.’

‘But——?’ asked Vanessa.

‘We have one great weakness. We are terrified of anything out of the normal. If we see it we fight and slay it. Unhappily there is a strain of the artist in our family. It breaks out again and again. Then we are shamed, disgraced, humiliated. We have never learnt how to assimilate it. That is why if we breed an artist he is always second-rate. The family is too strong for him. That is why we fight among ourselves and why some of us, if we are courageous enough not to come to terms, are so unhappy. Oh, you needn’t look at me, my dear. I have come to terms. I couldn’t fight it out. That is why I am what I am. I am always hoping that we shall breed an artist who because he is forced to fight becomes a great artist. Why have the English the finest poets in the world? Because the other members of the family have always done their best to kill them. Why was your grandmother so splendid? Because she never capitulated.’

‘Father always says that she declared that she did capitulate,’ said Vanessa.

‘Capitulate? She? Think of her! Capitulate? Not she! If she were in this room to-night she’d blow out the Duchess of Wrexe like a farthing dip!’

‘And have you altogether capitulated, Barney?’

‘Yes, my dear. Entirely. I’m no good at all. But I tell you who hasn’t capitulated. That’s Benjie!’

At the unexpected sound of his name the lights blurred, the voices faded.

‘No,’ said Barney, ‘but if he doesn’t they’ll drum him out of the field. You watch them. It will be a fight worth beholding!’

And now the room was crammed indeed. The roar of conversation, like the break of the tide on shingle with here a whisper, here a grating clatter of pebbles, here a resounding hiss, made private talk impossible, so Barney, pleased with his analysis of his relations, stood up and looked about him while Vanessa watched Mr. Madox Brown roaring at the Bishop of London, and the lovely Mrs. Williamson (who was reputed to bathe in milk every morning) listening kindly to one of the young aesthetes, who twisted and bent like a reed in a gale.

She caught fragments of conversation. ‘I heard Trebelli at Sims Reeves’ concert in February. No, he couldn’t appear, so we had Trebelli and Santley instead. Oh, of course Trebelli’s the best contralto in the world. But to tell you the honest truth I enjoyed better Santley’s “Vicar of Bray”—irresistible. Quite irresistible. ...’

‘Oh, but Bradlaugh...!’

‘And then, my love, what do you think? She went to the pastrycook’s round the corner and herself fetched a dozen cream buns in a paper bag....’

‘Yes, but what I say is that they could keep Jumbo here perfectly well, doncherknow, if they wanted to—really wanted to. What I mean is, that Jumbo is important for the country, for the Tourists, doncherknow—something for them to go to the Zoo and look at. What I mean is, we all feel it personally....’

‘Very unkind of Punch, I think. Poor Mr. Irving—to print his picture and then quote “Romeo! Romeo! Wherefore are thou Romeo?” That’s too personal in my opinion. All the same he is not the young, ardent lover ...’

‘Yes, but what Russell wants is to buy out the Irish landlords and present the holdings to the tenants! Simple! I should think so! If Gladstone would only say what he means ...’

‘And so, darling, Henry said to him, “That lady is intended evidently for a Chinese”—trying to be witty, poor man, and the large man with the teeth whom he’d never seen before said furiously “And why, pray? That lady is my sister.” And oh, wasn’t Henry clever? He answered at once, “Why, because she has such exquisitely small feet.”’

It was Vanessa’s first London party, and, standing there, waiting before she should be drawn into the middle of it, she knew, as her grandmother had known on just such another occasion, that something in her responded to this with excitement and eagerness. It was as though, a vagabond and wanderer, peering in through a window at a splendid feast, she exclaimed to herself: ‘I can do this as well as anyone. I know all the tricks.’ She would never truly belong to it, but it was a part that she could play as well as anyone there. The personal drama had seized her. The drama of London, the Park with the brilliant sunlit figures, the old crossing-sweeper with the scarlet coat, Ellen Terry laughing into the wicked eyes of old Mrs. Stirling, Mr. Conway rebuking his errant daughter, Gladstone in his high collar thundering at the House, old Lady Herries fixing, with trembling hands, the jewels about her throat, the melancholy wail of the hurdy-gurdy two streets away, the Prince of Wales talking to Mr. Lowenfeld, the ‘greenery-yallery’ young men yearning over a Japanese print, the carts packed with flowers arriving in the early morning at Covent Garden, Gambetta drinking his morning coffee in Paris, and that picturesque brigand Arabi ordering an execution in Egypt, an account that she had read only last week in a paper of a Professor who had invented ‘little electric lamps of wires of platinum inside glass bulbs,’ Ellis loving her and Horace Ormerod’s friendliness, and Rose’s adventurousness, Barney’s kindness, and, behind it all, sitting in the hut at the top of the Cat Bells garden, watching the thin spidery rain veil the Lake in webs of lawn while fragments of blue sky, as bright as speedwells, flashed and vanished and flashed again. Her mind was a jumble of this kind; at the back of the jumble was the deep unceasing preoccupation. Would Benjie come before the month was out? Would he keep his word? Was there nothing that could still this burning ceaseless preoccupation of hers? And, if he cared no longer for her, could she make her life without him? She could! She could! She was not so weak, so helpless! But her throat was dry at the thought! Her hand touched her breast to check the wild beating of her heart.

She was discovered. Rose and Horace discovered her. They led her into the throng and at once her own life was broken into little scattered fragments. She had no life. She was nothing but a laughing, smiling, murmuring adjunct to all the other laughs, smiles, murmurs.

She was introduced to Mr. Madox Brown. They sat down together near the piano. At first he said nothing, pushing his strong brown hand through his curly hair, muttering a little, looking as though he wanted to escape. Then something happened. She did not know what it was. In actual fact it was his sudden realisation of her beauty. He never saw her again, but many times after he would growl:

‘One night at one of those damned musical parties I came on a girl ... you never saw anyone so lovely. Quite unconscious of it too.’

He became gentle and most friendly. He told her about his son. ‘He died seven years ago. There never was anyone so talented. Only nineteen when he died. One day when he was dying and I sitting at his bedside he smiled and said I smelt of tobacco. I said, “All right. I’ll not smoke again until you’re better.” I never shall smoke again. Never. Paint? Write? He could do anything. And sweet-natured. Oliver was the only genius I’ve known. No one else. Not genius. Genius is something from another world. Nothing to do with this shabby one.’

He asked her where she came from.

She told him, Cumberland.

‘Oh yes, Wordsworth and all that.’

Looking at her he said:

‘You have beautiful eyes. Forgive an old painter’s impertinence, my dear. I always begin with the eyes, you know. Paint the eyes of the central figure first and that gives tone to the picture. I begin at the top left hand of the canvas and go straight down to the bottom. And what do you do?’

‘I can’t paint,’ she answered, laughing. ‘I can’t do anything.’

‘You don’t need to,’ he told her.

They could have become great friends had life arranged it.

Then she was alone with Rose, sitting behind a gigantic pessimistic palm. They were clearing the space about the piano. Trebelli was going to sing. What, she thought, was Rose’s power over her? Why was she so fond of her? Rose was like a carnation, set deep in colour, slight, with a wine-dark air. Not beautiful, for her eyes were too large for her small face, her nose a little snub, and her mouth, Vanessa must confess, rather hard. Her eyes laughed, danced, sparkled, but her mouth was always a little cold, a little cruel. If you judged people by their eyes, then Rose was a dear sweet girl, but if by their mouth, then Rose was nothing of the kind. She said once to Vanessa:

‘Horace and I are both completely hard and self-seeking!’

‘Oh no!’ protested Vanessa.

‘Oh yes, we are! The only difference between us is that I look at myself in the glass and know exactly what I am. Horace looks greedily into other people’s faces for his reflection and woe betide you if it isn’t a pleasant one.’ She added: ‘We are both adventurers. We have scarcely a penny to our name. I’m the Becky Sharp in Thackeray’s stupid novel except that I’m sometimes sentimental. After I’ve been sentimental I’m so angry with everyone that I could commit murder. I dare say I shall one day. Probably my husband. First I must get one. I’m twenty-seven, you know.’

She talked a great deal about herself, and this Vanessa found delightful, but Rose’s real attraction for her was that she knew life so thoroughly. Girls who were Vanessa’s contemporaries knew nothing about life at all. They were not supposed to know and, what was more, they really did not know. Most of them married without the slightest idea of what came next, with the simple result that, for the rest of their days, they were a little melancholy and looked at all men, except clergymen, with a faint distrust. The women on the other hand, like Rose, for whom life (including men) had no secrets were like gipsies who pitch their caravans at their own risk. The female world looked on them with suspicion, and the male world frequently presumed farther than slight acquaintance warranted.

Rose had by this time told Vanessa everything she knew, and Vanessa, because she possessed certain beliefs, fidelities and a strong sense of humour, was not at all shocked. She hoped nevertheless that Rose would be married soon. It would be wiser.

Rose, on her side, loved Vanessa. She might be herself a lost angel—and she was a great deal more lost than Vanessa realised—but she adored a good angel with a sense of humour. She admired passionately in Vanessa all the qualities that she did not herself possess. She was no fool about human nature. She knew quite well that even from her mercenary point of view the virtues pay better in the end than the vices.

So they sat together behind the pessimistic palm and talked about those present. Rose knew something about everyone. She knew just what to tell Vanessa, amusing things but not cruel ones. She kept her cruel ones for other audiences.

Then, touching Vanessa’s hand, she said: ‘There, I think, is the man I am going to marry.’

‘Oh, where?’ cried Vanessa. ‘Rose dear, do you mean it?’

‘I think that I mean it. That man with the eyeglass, the pale whiskers, the beautiful figure.’

Vanessa looked. He was certainly very handsome.

‘Oh, who is he?’

‘He is Captain Fred Wycherley. He is in the Army and is very rich.’

‘Oh, Rose dear, I am so glad! Has he proposed to you? Do you love him very much?’

‘No, he has not proposed, but I think within the week he will. I don’t love him, of course. It would never do for me to love my husband: it would give him too much power over me. But he is agreeable, amusing. I think we shall understand one another.’

Before they could say any more Trebelli began to sing. She had an extremely powerful voice and sang as though she were commanding a regiment. She was made, it appeared, of brass from head to foot.

After the singing everyone began to move about again and Vanessa was introduced to a number of people. Among them was a stout, round gentleman with fair hair and the face of a very good-natured pig, whose eyes beamed with kindliness. This, she discovered, was Lord John Beaminster, a son of the Duchess of Wrexe. He spoke in jerks, smiling upon her as though he had known her all her life.

‘Very hot, these parties,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said, copying Barney. ‘The hotter they are the more successful they are.’

‘Do you care for music?’

‘Yes, sometimes.’

‘That woman has deafened my ear-drum. All the opera women shout. Do you like the opera?’

‘I’ve never been in my life,’ said Vanessa. ‘I live in the country.’

‘Oh, in the country, do you? Wouldn’t want to live there. All right for a day or two. What part?’

‘Up in Cumberland.’

‘Doesn’t it rain there?’

‘Yes, when it wants to, but nobody minds the rain.’

‘I do, unless I’m shooting or hunting, you know.’ He smiled as though they had reached the most delightful intimacy. ‘Oh, that damned feller’s going to play the fiddle.’

It was then that as she looked beyond him towards the door, as though something had compelled her, the miracle of her whole life occurred. Beaminster was saying something to her. The violin began to wail. The shining shoulders of some woman at her side spread, as it appeared, into an infinite distance.

In the doorway, looking about him with a friendly grin, stood Benjie Herries.

She did not move. Beaminster, seeing a friend, said, with a bow: ‘Excuse me one moment.’

Then Benjie seemed to drive, like a swimmer breasting the tide, straight towards her. She saw people greet him. She heard (for he was very near to her now) Will Herries exclaim:

‘Hullo, Benjie! Where have you come from?’

She did not move until his hand was on her sleeve. She heard him say: ‘Come out of this. Outside.’

She went with him down the room. In the passage above the stairs there was no one. From the room within, the violin went on and on like a voice speaking only for them.

She stood up against the wall, staring at him, feeling that at any moment she might cry, unable to speak because her heart beat so fiercely, hammering her body as though it must throw her down. But there was no need to speak, no time for it.

‘You thought that I wasn’t coming back. Didn’t you? You thought that I had forgotten. Quick, Vanessa, tell me—do you love me? Do you love me as much as two years ago? Is there anyone else? If so, where is he? I’ll kill him. Quick. Tell me. I have run all the way from Brindisi. If you knew how I’ve run! Tell me. Tell me. Do you love me? Are you going to marry me? Can I go in there now and tell them all? Quick. Don’t waste a moment! Do you love me?’

‘Benjie, wait! Of course I do. I thought you’d never come! I’ve been longing——’

But she did not finish her sentence. He kissed her, patting her shoulder, her arm, laying his cheek against hers. Then he caught her hand in his.

‘Now come! At once! We must tell everyone! We mustn’t lose a moment!’

He pulled her with him to the door. The voice of the violin came towards them, dancing over the crowd, the flowers, the palms.

Seated by the door was an old lady, blazing with diamonds, listening to the music through an ear-trumpet.

‘Excuse me——’ said Benjie.

‘Hush! hush!’ said everyone near the door. The violin rose into a thin, long, vibrating note. Then ceased.

The old lady, turning to a man beside her, said:

‘And now it ought to be time for supper.’ Then, looking up: ‘Why, it’s Benjamin Herries! I thought you were in China, young man.’

Benjie wrung her hand as though she were the friend of his heart.

‘I was, Lady Mullion. I was—only yesterday. Let me introduce you to Miss Vanessa Paris. We are going to be married——’

‘Going to be what?’ she asked, her round red face ignorantly beaming.

He took the ear-trumpet and, in a voice loud enough for all the world to hear, shouted: ‘We are going to be married.’

‘Oh, is that all?’ said the old lady. ‘I thought there’d been an accident. And now I do hope we are going down to supper.’