Читать книгу Notwithstanding - Mary Cholmondeley - Страница 10

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"I was as children be

Who have no care;

I did not think or sigh,

I did not sicken;

But lo, Love beckoned me,

And I was bare,

And poor and starved and dry,

And fever-stricken."

Thomas Hardy.

It was five months later, the middle of February. Annette was lying in a deck-chair by the tank in the shade of the orange trees. All was still, with the afternoon stillness of Teneriffe, which will not wake up till sunset. Even the black goats had ceased to bleat and ring their bells. The hoopoe which had been saying Cuk—Cuk—Cuk all the morning in the pepper tree was silent. The light air from the sea, bringing with it a whiff as from a bride's bouquet, hardly stirred the leaves. The sunlight trembled on the yellow stone steps, and on the trailing, climbing bougainvillea which had flung its mantle of purple over the balustrade. Through an opening in a network of almond blossom Annette could look down across the white water-courses and green terraces to the little town of Santa Cruz, lying glittering in the sunshine, with its yellow and white and mauve walls and flat roofs and quaint cupolas, outlined as if cut out in white paper, sharp white against the vivid blue of the sea.

A grey lizard came slowly out of a clump of pink verbena near the tank, and spread itself in a patch of sunlight on a little round stone. Annette, as she lay motionless with thin folded hands, could see the pulse in its throat rise and fall as it turned its jewelled eyes now to this side, now to that, considering her as gravely as she was considering it.

A footfall came upon the stone steps. The lizard did not move. It was gone.

Mrs. Stoddart, an erect lilac figure under a white umbrella, came down the steps, with a cup of milk in her hand. Her forcible, incongruous countenance, with its peaked, indomitable nose and small, steady, tawny eyes under tawny eyebrows, gave the impression of having been knocked to pieces at some remote period and carelessly put together again. No feature seemed to fit with any other. If her face had not been held together by a certain shrewd benevolence which was spread all over it, she would have been a singularly forbidding-looking woman.

Annette took the cup and began dutifully to sip it, while Mrs. Stoddart sat down near her.

"Do you see the big gold-fish?" Annette said.

Her companion put up her pince-nez and watched him for a moment, swimming lazily near the surface.

"He seems much as usual," she said.

"It is not my fault if he is. I threw a tiny bit of stick at him a few minutes ago, and he bolted it at once; and then, just when I was beginning to feel anxious, he spat it out again to quite a considerable distance. He must have a very strong pop-gun in his inside."

Mrs. Stoddart took the empty cup from her and put it down on the edge of the tank.

"You have one great quality, Annette," she said: "you are never bored."

"How could I be, with so much going on round me? I have just had my first interview with a lizard. And before that a mantis called upon me. Look, there he is again, on that twig. Doesn't he look exactly like a child's drawing of a dragon?"

A hideous grey mantis, about three inches long, walked slowly down an almond-blossomed branch.

"He really walks with considerable dignity, considering his legs bend the wrong way," said Mrs. Stoddart. "But I don't wish for his society."

"Oh, don't you? Look! Now he is going to pray."

And the mantis suddenly sat up and appeared to engage in prayer.

Annette watched him, fascinated, until his orisons were over, and he slowly went down again on all fours and withdrew himself into the bougainvillea.

Mrs. Stoddart looked searchingly at her, not without a certain pride. She had still the bruised, sunken eyes of severe illness, and she rolled them slowly at Mrs. Stoddart, at the mantis, at the sky, at everything in turn, in a manner which exasperated the other occupants of the pension—two ladies from Hampstead who considered her a mass of affectation. The only thing about Annette which was beautiful was her hands, which were transparent, blue-veined, ethereal. But her movements with them also were so languid, so "studied," that it was impossible for spectators as impartial as the Hampstead ladies not to deplore her extreme vanity about them. To Mrs. Stoddart, who knew the signs of illness, it was evident that she was still weak, but it was equally evident that the current of health was surely flowing back.

"I remember," said Mrs. Stoddart, "being once nearly bored to extinction, not by an illness, but by my convalescence after it."

"I have no time to be bored," said Annette, "even if there is no mantis and no lizard. Since I have been better so many things come crowding into my mind, that though I lie still all day I hardly have time to think of them all. The day is never long enough for me."

There was a short silence.

"I often wonder," said Annette slowly, "about you."

"About me?"

"Yes. Why you do everything for me as if I were your own child, and most of all why you never ask me any questions—why you never even hint to me that it is my duty to tell you about myself."

Mrs. Stoddart's eyes dropped. Her heart began to beat violently.

"When you took charge of me you knew nothing of me except evil."

"I knew the one thing needful."

"What do you mean?"

"That you were in trouble."

"For a long time," said Annette, "I have been wanting to tell you about myself, but I couldn't."

"Don't tell me, if it distresses you."

"Nothing distresses me now. The reason I could not was because for a long time I did not rightly know how things were, or who I was. And I saw everything distorted—horrible. It was as if I were too near, like being in a cage of hot iron, and beating against the bars first on one side and then on the other, till it seemed as if one went mad. You once read me, long ago, that poem of Verlaine's ending 'Et l'oubli d'ici-bas.' And I thought that was better than any of the promises in the Bible which you read sometimes. I used to say it over to myself like a kind of prayer: 'Et l'oubli d'ici-bas.' That would be heaven—at least, it would have been to me. But since I have got better everything has gone a long way off—like that island." And she pointed to the Grand Canary, lying like a cloud on the horizon. "I can bear to think about it and to look at it."

"I understand that feeling. I have known it."

"It does not burn me now. I thought it would always burn while I lived."

"That is the worst of pain—that one thinks it will never lessen. But it does."

"Yes, it lessens. And then one can attend to other things a little."

And Annette told Mrs. Stoddart the long story of her life. For at twenty-two we have all long, long histories to unfold of our past, if we can find a sympathetic listener. It is only in middle age that we seem to have nothing of interest to communicate. Or is it only that we realize that when once the talisman of youth has slipped out of our hand, our part is to listen?

Mrs. Stoddart certainly listened. She had been ready to do so for a long time.

And Annette told her of her childhood spent in London under the charge of her three spinster aunts. Her mother, an Englishwoman, had been the only good-looking one of four sisters. In the thirties, after some disappointment, she had made a calamitous run-away marriage with a French courier.

"I always thought I could understand mother running away from that home," said Annette. "I would have run away too, if I could. I did once as a small child, but I only got as far as Bethnal Green."

"Then your mother died when you were quite small?"

"Yes; I can just remember being with her in lodgings after she left father—for she had to leave him. But he got all her money from her first—at least, all she had it in her power to give up. I can remember how she used to sob at night when she thought I was asleep. And then, my next remembrance is the aunts and the house in London. They meant to be kind. They were kind. I was their niece, after all. But they were Nevills. It seems it is a very noble, mysterious thing to be a Nevill. Now, I was only half a Nevill, and only half English, and dark like father. I take after father. And of course I am not quite a lady. They felt that."

"You look like one," said Mrs. Stoddart.

"Do I? I think that is only because I hold myself well and know how to put on my clothes."

"My dear Annette! As if those two facts could deceive me for a moment!"

"But I am not one, all the same," said Annette. "Gentle-people, I don't mean only the aunts but—others, don't regard me as their equal, or—or treat me so."

She was silent for a moment, and her lip quivered. Then she went on quietly—

"The minute I was twenty-one and independent I came into a hundred a year, and I left the aunts. I made them a sort of little speech on my birthday. I can see them now, all three staring at me. And I thanked them for their kindness, especially Aunt Cathie, and told them my mind was quite made up to go and live with father and become a professional singer. I had meant to do it since I was twelve."

"Did they mind much?"

"I did not think so at the time. But I see now they were so astonished that, for the moment, it overcame all other feelings. They were so amazed at my wish to make any movement, go anywhere, do anything. Aunt Harriet the invalid wrung her hands, and said that if only she had not been tied to a sofa my upbringing would have been so different, that I should not have wished to leave them. And Aunt Maria said that she, of all people, would be the last to interfere with a vocation, but she did not consider the stage was a suitable profession for a young girl. Aunt Cathie did not say anything. She only cried. I felt leaving Aunt Cathie. She had been kind. She had taken me to plays and concerts. She hated music, but she sat through long concerts for my sake. Aunt Maria never had time, and Aunt Harriet never was well enough to do anything she did not like. Aunt Cathie used to slave for them both, and when she had time—for me. I used to think that if the other two died I could have lived with Aunt Cathie. But existing in that house was like just not suffocating under a kind of moral bindweed. When you were vexed with me the other day for tiring myself by tearing the convolvulus off that little orange tree, it was because I could not bear to see it choked. I had been choked myself. But I broke away at last. And I found father. He had married again, a woman in his own rank of life, and was keeping a cabaret in the Rue du Bac. I lived with them for nearly six months, till—last September. I liked the life at first. It was so new and so unaccustomed, and even the slipshodness of it was pleasant after the dry primness of my upbringing. And after all I am my father's daughter. I never could bear her, but he was kind to me in a way, while I had money. He had been the same to mother. And like mother, I did not find him out at first. I was easily taken in. And he thought it was a capital idea that I should become a singer. He was quite enthusiastic about it. I had a pretty voice. I don't know whether I have it still. But the difficulty was the training, and the money for it. And he found a man, a well-known musician, who was willing to train me for nothing when he had heard me sing. And I was to pay him back later on. And father was very keen about it, and so was I, and so was the musician. He was rather a dreadful man somehow, but I did not mind that. He was a real artist. But after a little bit I found he expected me to pay him another way, and I had to give up going to him. I told father, and he laughed at me for a fool, and told me to go back to him. And when I wouldn't he became very angry, and asked me what I had expected, and said all English were hypocrites. I ought to have known from that that I could not trust father. And then, when I was very miserable about losing my training, an English gentleman began to be very kind to me."

Annette's voice faltered and stopped. Mrs. Stoddart's thin cheek flushed a little.

Across the shadow of the orange trees a large yellow butterfly came floating. Annette's eyes followed it. It settled on a crimson hibiscus, hanging like a flame against the pale stem of a coral tree. The two ardent colours quivered together in the vivid sunshine.

Annette's grave eyes watched the yellow wings close and expand, close and expand, and then rise and float away again.

"He seemed to fall in love with me," she said. "Of course now I know he didn't really; but he seemed to. And he was a real gentleman—not like father, nor that other one, the man who offered to teach me. He seemed honourable. He looked upright and honest and refined. And he was young—not much older than myself, and very charming-looking. He was unlike any of the people in the Quartier Latin. I fell in love with him after a little bit. At first I hung back, because I thought it was too good to be true, too like a fairy story. I had never been in love before. I fell in—very deep. And I was grateful to him for loving me, for he was much above me, the heir to something large and a title—I forget exactly what—when his old uncle died. I thought it was so kind of him not to mind the difference of rank. … I am sure you know what is coming. I suppose I ought to have known. But I didn't. I never thought of it. The day came when he asked me very gravely if I loved him, and I said I did, and he told me he loved me. I remember when I was in my room again alone, thinking that whatever life took from me, it could never take that wonderful hour. I should have that as a possession always, when I was old and white-headed. I am afraid now I shall have it always."

Annette passed her blue-veined hand over her eyes in a manner that would have outraged the other residents, and then went on:—

"We sat a long time together that evening, with his arm round me, and he talked and I listened, but I was not listening to him. I was listening to love. I knew then that I had never lived before, never known anything before. I seemed to have waked up suddenly in Paradise, and I was dazed. Perhaps he did not realize that. It was like walking in a long, long field of lilies under a new moon. I told him it was like that, and he said it was the same to him. Perhaps he thought he had said things to show me his meaning. Perhaps he thought father had told me. But I did not understand. And then—a few hours later—I had to understand suddenly, without any warning. I thought he had gone mad, but it was I who went mad. And I locked myself into my room, and crept out of the house at dawn, when all was quiet. I realized father had sold me. That was why I told you I had no home to go to. … And I walked and walked in the early morning in the river mist, not knowing what I was doing. At last, when I was worn out, I went and sat where there was a lot of wood stacked on a great wharf. No one saw me because of the mist. And I sat still and tried to think. But I could not think. It was as if I had fallen from the top of the house. Part of me was quite inert, like a stupid wounded animal, staring at the open wound. And the other part of me was angry with a cold anger that seemed to mount and mount: that jeered at everything, and told me I had made a fuss about nothing, and I might just as well go back and be his mistress—anybody's mistress: that there was nothing true or beautiful or pure or clean in the world. Everything was a seething mass of immorality and putrefaction, and he was only the same as all the rest. … And all the time I could hear the river speaking through the mist, hinting at something it would not quite say. At last, when the sun was up, the mist cleared, and workmen came, and I had to go. And I wandered away again near the water. I clung to the river, it seemed to know something. And I went and stood on the Pont Neuf and made up my mind. I would go down to Melun and drown myself there. … And then Mr. Le Geyt came past, whom I knew a little—a very little. And he asked me why I was looking at the water. And I said I was going to drown myself. And he saw I meant it, and made light of it, and advised me to go down to Fontainebleau with him instead, for a week. And I did not care what I did. I went with him. I was glad in a way. I thought—he—would hear of it. I wanted to hurt him."

"You did not know what you were doing."

"Oh yes, I did. I didn't misunderstand again—I was not so silly as that. It was only the accident of Dick's illness which prevented my going wrong with him."

Mrs. Stoddart started.

"Then you never——" she said diffidently, but with controlled agitation.

"No," said Annette, "but it's the same as if I had. I meant to."

There was a moment's silence.

"No one," thought Mrs. Stoddart, "but Annette would have left me all these months believing the worst had happened—not because she was concealing the truth purposely, but because it did not strike her that I could regard her as innocent when she did not consider herself so."

"It is not the same as if you had," said Mrs. Stoddart sternly. "If you mean to do a good and merciful action, and something prevents you, is it the same as if you had done it? Is anyone the better for it?"

"No."

"Well, then, remember, Annette, that it is the same with evil actions. You were not actually guilty of it. Be thankful you were not."

"I am."

"When I saw you that first night at Fontainebleau, I thought you were on the verge of brain fever. I never slept for thinking of you."

"Well, you were right," said Annette tranquilly. "I suppose that is what you nursed me through. But that night I had no idea I was ill."

"You were absolutely desperate."

"Was I? I was angry. I must never be angry like that again. Dick said that, and he was right. Do you know what I was thinking of when you came out to me with the milk? Once, long ago, when I was a child, I was sent to a country farm after an illness, and I saw one of the farm hands moving some faggots. And behind it on the ground was a nest with a hen, a common hen, sitting on it, and a little baby-chicken looking out from under her wing. She was just hatching them out. I was quite delighted. I had never seen anything so pretty before. And the stupid men frightened her, and she thought they were coming for her young ones. And first she spread out her wings over them, and then she became angry. A kind of dreadful rage took her. And she trod down the eggs with her great feet, the eggs she had sat patiently on so long; and then she killed the little chickens with her strong beak. I can see her now, standing at bay in her broken nest with her bill streaming, making a horrible low sound. Don't laugh at me when I say that I felt just like that old hen. I was ready to rend everything to pieces, myself included, that night. When I was a child I thought it so strange of the hen to behave like that. I laughed at her at the time—just as Dick laughed at me. But I understand her now—poor thing."