Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (324 page)

“Oh no,” Robert Grimshaw answered, “it was only that she had come to the resolution of calling in Miss Lascarides.”

“Now, I should have thought it was more than that,” Held said. “I was almost certain that it was something very bitter and unpleasant. One of those thoughts that seem suddenly to wreck one’s whole life.”

“Oh, I don’t think it was more than that,” Robert Grimshaw said; and Mr. Held went on to declare at ecstatic lengths how splendid it would be for Pauline to have Katya in the house, to have someone to confide in, to unbosom herself to, to strengthen her mentality with, and from whom to receive — he was sure she would receive it, since Miss Lascarides was Mrs. Langham’s sister — to receive a deep and clinging affection. Besides, Miss Lascarides having worked in the United States, was certain to have imbibed some of Mrs. Eddy’s doctrine, so that, except for Mr. Leicester’s state, it was, Mr. Held thought, going to be an atmosphere of pure joy in the house. Mrs. Leicester so needed a sister.

Robert Grimshaw sipped his coffee in a rather grim silence. “I wish you’d get me the ‘ABC,’ or look up the trains for Brighton,” he said.

CHAPTER IV
.

“HERE comes mother and the bad man,” Kitty said from the top of her donkey, and there sure enough to meet them, as they were returning desultorily to lunch along the cliff-top, came Ellida Langham and Robert Grimshaw. Ellida at the best of times was not much of a pedestrian, and the donkey, for all it was large and very nearly white, moved with an engrossed stubbornness that, even when she pulled it, Katya found it difficult to change. On this occasion, however, she did not even pull it, and the slowness of their mutual approach across the green grass high up in the air had the effect of the coming together of two combatant but reluctant forces.

“He’s a bad, bad man,” little Kitty said.

“And he’s a bad, bad man,” Katya answered her.

At her last parting it had been agreed between them that they parted for good, or at least until Robert Grimshaw would give in to her stipulation. He had said that this would not be until he had grown very, very tired; and Katya felt it, like Mr. Held, in her bones that Robert Grimshaw had not come now to submit to her. They approached, however, in weather that was very bright, over the short turf beneath dazzling seagulls overhead against the blue sky. And, Katya having stood aside cool and decided in her grey dress, Ellida, dressed as she always was in a loose black, flung herself upon the child. But, having showered as many kisses and endearments as for the moment she needed, she took the donkey by the bridle as a sign that she herself took charge of that particular portion of the enterprise.

“You’ve got,” she said to her sister, “to go a walk with Toto. Ill take this thing home.”

Katya gave Robert a keen scrutiny whilst she said to Ellida:

“You’ll never get it home. It will pull the arms out of your body.”

“Well, I’ll admit,” Ellida said, a little disconsolately, “that I never expected to turn into a donkey-boy, but” — and she suddenly grew more brisk—”it’s got to be done. You remember that you’re only my nursemaid.”

“That doesn’t,” Katya said amiably, “give you the right to dispose of me when it comes to followers.”

“Oh, get along, you cantankerous cat.” Ellida laughed at her. “The gentleman isn’t here as a follower. He’s heard I’ve given you notice, and he’s taken up your character. He thinks you’ll do. He wants to employ you.”

Katya uttered “Oh,” with minute displeasure, and a little colour came into her clear cheeks. She turned her profile towards them, and against the blue sky it was like an extraordinary cameo, so clear, so pale, the dark eyelashes so exact, the jet-black hair receiving only in its coils the reflection of the large, white, linen hat that Katya wore because she was careful of her complexion and her eyes and her whole face had that air of distant and inscrutable determination that goes with the aspect of a divinity like Diana.

“In fact, it’s only a matter of terms,” Robert Grimshaw said, looking away down the long slopes of the downs inland.

“Everything is always a matter of terms,” Katya said.

The white donkey was placidly browsing the short grass and the daisy heads.

“Oh, come up,” Ellida said, and eventually the white beast responded to her exertions. It wasn’t, however, until the donkey was well out of earshot that Grimshaw broke the silence that Katya seemed determined to maintain. He pointed with his stick to where — a dark patch of trees dominated by a squarish, dark tower, in the very bottom of a fold in the downs — a hamlet occupied the extreme distance.

“I want to walk to there,” he said.

“I’m not at all certain that I want to walk at all,” she answered, and he retorted:

“Oh yes, you do. Look how the weathercock shines in the sun. You know how, when we were children, we always wanted to walk to where the weathercock shone, and there was always something to prevent it. Now we’re grown up, we’re going to do it.”

“Ah, it’s different now,” she answered. “When we were children we expected to find something under the shining weathercocks.

Now there’s nothing in the world that we can want to find. It seems as if we’d got all that we’re ever going to get.”

“Still, you don’t know what we mightn’t find under there,” he said.

She looked straight into his clear olive- coloured face. She noted that his eyes were dark and tired.

“Oh, poor dear!” she said to herself, and then she uttered aloud: “Now, look here, Toto, it’s understood once and for all that I’m ready to live with you to-day. But I won’t marry you. If I go with you now, there’s to be no more talking about that.”

“Oh, that’s understood,” he said.

“Well, then,” she replied, and she unfolded her white sunshade, “let’s go and see what we find beneath the weathercock;” and she put her hand on his arm.

They strolled slowly down the turf. She was used enough to his method of waiting, as if for the psychological moment, to begin a conversation of importance, and for quite a long way they talked gaily and pleasantly of the little herbs of which, as they got farther inland, they discovered their carpet to be composed — the little mints, the little yellow blossoms, the tiny, silvery leaves like ferns — and the quiet and the thrilling of the innumerable larks. The wind seemed to move low down and cool about their feet.

And she said that he didn’t know what it meant to her to be back — just in the quiet.

“Over there,” she said, “it did seem to be rather dreadful — rather comfortless, and even a little useless. It wasn’t that they hadn’t got the things. Why, there are bits in Philadelphia and bits round Philadelphia — old bits and old families and old people. There are even grass and flowers and shade. But somehow, what was dreadful, what made it so lonely, was that they didn’t know what they were there for. It was as if no one knew — what he was there for. I don’t know.”

She stopped for a minute.

“I don’t know,” she said—” I don’t know how to express it. Over here things seem to fit in, if it’s only a history that they fit into. They go on. But over there one went on patching up people — we patched them up by the score, by the hundred. And then they went and did it all over again, and it seemed as if we only did it for the purpose of letting them go and do it all over again. It was as if instead of preparing them for life we merely prepared them for new breakdowns.”

“Well, I suppose life
isn’t
very well worth living over there?” Grimshaw asked.

“Oh, it isn’t the life,” she said. “The
life’s
worth living — more worth living than it is here.... But there’s something more than mere life. There’s — you might call it the overtone of life — the something that’s more than the mere living. It’s the what gives softness to our existence that they haven’t got. It’s the... That’s it! It’s knowing one’s place; it’s feeling that one’s part of a tradition, a link in the chain. And oh... she burst out,” I didn’t want to talk about it. But it used to come over me like a fearful doubt — the thought that I, too, might be growing into a creature without a place. That’s why it’s heaven to be back,” she ended. She looked down the valley with her eyes half closed, she leant a little on his arm. “It’s heaven, heaven!” she repeated in a whisper.

“You were afraid,” he said, “that we shouldn’t keep a place for you — Ellida, and I, and all of us?”

“Perhaps that was all it was,” she dropped her voice to say. He pressed with his arm her hand against his heart.

“Oh,” he said, “it isn’t only the old place we want you to go into. There’s a new one. You’ve heard that I’ve been taking up your character?”

“Ah,” she said; and again she was on the alert in an instant. “I’m to have a situation with you? Who’s the invalid? Peter?” The little dog with the flapping ears was running wide on the turf, scenting the unaccustomed grasses.

“Oh, Peter’s as near speaking as he can ever get,” Grimshaw said.

Katya laughed.

“That would be a solution,” she said, “if you took me on as Peter’s nurse. But who’s your dumb child now? I suppose it’s your friend... ah!... Dudley Leicester.”

“You remember,” Grimshaw said, “you used always to say he
was
like Peter.”

“No; it was you I used to say were like Peter. Well, what’s the matter with Dudley Leicester?... at least. No. Don’t tell me. I’ve heard a good deal from Ellida. She’s gone clean mad about his wife.”

“Yes; she’s mad enough about Pauline,” Grimshaw said, “and so would you be.”

“I dare say,” she answered. “She seems brave. That’s always a good deal.”

“Oh, if you want braveness!” Grimshaw said. “But how can you consider his case if you won’t hear about him?”

“I’ve had
one
version,” she said. “I don’t want two. It would obscure my view. What we know is that he sits about speechless, and that he asks strangers in the street a question about a telephone. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“What an admirable professional manner you’ve got!” Grimshaw said; and he disengaged her hand from his arm to look better at her. “It’s quite right about poor Dudley.”

“Well,” she said, “don’t be silly for a moment. This is my work in life — you know you don’t look over-well yourself — but answer me one question. I’m content to take Ellida’s version about him, because she can’t influence my views.
You
might. And one wants to look only from personal observation. But...”

She stretched out her hand and felt his pulse for a light minute.

“You aren’t well,” she said. “No, I don’t want to look at your tongue. Here, take off your cap;” and suddenly she ran her fingers smoothly and firmly over his temples, so that they seemed to explore deep places, cool and restful. “That soothes you, doesn’t it?” she said. “
That’s
how I make my bread. But take care, dear thing, or it’ll be you that I shall be nursing next.”

“It lies with you to cure it,” he answered.

She uttered a painful “
Oh!
” and looked down the valley between her gloved fingers. When she took her hands down from her face, she said:

“Look here! That’s not fair. You promised not to.”

He answered: “But how can I help it? How can I help it?”

She seemed to make her head grow rigid.

“One thing at a time, then,” she said. “You know everything. What happened to him at the telephone?” And when he said that someone — when he was in a place where he ought not to have been — had recognized his voice, she said: “Oh!” and then again, “
Oh!
that explains.”

Grimshaw looked at her, his dark eyes imploring.

“It can be cured?” he said.

“It ought to be,” she answered. “It depends. I’ll look at him.”

“Oh, you
must”
he answered.

“Well, I will,” she retorted. “But, you understand, I must be paid my fee.”

“Oh,” he said, “don’t rub it in just now.”

“Well, you rubbed it in just now,” she mocked him. “You tried to get round my sympathies. I’ve got to harden myself to get back to where I was. You know you shook me. But I’m a lonely woman. My work’s all I’ve got.”

“Katya!” he said. “You know your half of your father’s money is waiting for you. I’ve not spent a penny of it.”

“I know you’re a dear,” she said, “but it doesn’t alter matters. I won’t take money from a man who won’t make a sacrifice for me.

“Ellida took her share,” he said.

“Ellida’s Ellida,” she answered. “She’s a darling, but she’s not me. If you’d take the steps you might, you could have me, and I’d have father’s money. But that’s all there is to it. I’ll do all I can for Dudley Leicester. Don’t let’s talk about the other thing.”

They came down to the hard road over the bank.

“Now we shall see what’s under the weathercock,” she said.