Encounters: stories (5 page)

"Oh,"she said hopelessly. She had guessed that he was putting her off."Shall we walk a little down the terrace? There is a pergola above, too, that I should like you to see."She was taking for granted that he would not come to the villa again.

They rose; she stood for a moment looking irresolutely up and down the terrace, then took a steeper path that mounted through the trees towards the pergola. Stuart followed her in silence, wondering. The world in her brain was a mystery to him, but evidently he had passed across it and cast some shadows. For a moment he almost dared to speak, and trouble the peace of the garden with what had been pent up in

him so long; then he knew that he must leave her to live out her days in the immunity of finished grief. The silence of imperfect sympathy would still lie between them, as it had always lain; his harshness could no longer cast a shadow in her world, that was now as sunless as an evening garden. His lips were sealed still, and for ever, by fear of her and shame for his dead loyalty to Howard. The generosity of love had turned to bitterness within him, and he was silent from no fear to cause her pain.

"Beautiful,"he said, when they reached the pergola and could look down on lake and garden through the clustered roses.

"Will you be long at Varenna?"

"I don't expect so, no. Some friends want me to join them on Lake Maggiore, and I think of going on to-morrow afternoon."

"That will be better,"she said slowly."It is lonely seeing places alone—they hardly seem worth while."

"I'm used to it—I'm going back to India in six months,"he said abruptly.

"Oh, I didn't know."Her voice faltered.

He had not known himself till then. Her face was whiter than ever in the dusk of the pergola, and her hands were plucking, plucking at the creepers, shaking down from the roses above white petals which he kept brushing from his coat.

"I'm sorry you're going back,"she said."Everybody will be sorry."

"I won't go until I have finished everything that I can do for you."

An expression came into her eyes that he had never seen before."You have been a friend,"she said."Men make better things for themselves out of life than we do."

"They don't last,"he said involuntarily.

"I should have said that so far as anything is immortal"He watched a little tightening of her hps.

"It takes less than you think to kill these things; friendship, loyalty"

"Yours was unassailable, yours and his"; she spoke more to herself than to him."In those early days when we three went about together; that time in France, I realised that."

"In France?"he said stupidly.

"Yes. Don't you remember?"

He remembered France; the days they had spent together, and the long evenings in starlight, and the evening he had strolled beside her on a terrace while Majendie tinkered with the car. It was a chilly evening, and she kept drawing her furs together and said very little. The night after, he had lain awake listening to her voice and Majendie's in the next room, and making up his mind to go to India.

"Yes,"he said."Now, will you let me have the papers and we could go through them now? I could take any that are urgent back to town with me; I shall be there in a week."

She twisted her hands irresolutely."Could you come to-morrow, before you go? I would have them ready for you then, if you can spare the time. I'm tired this evening; I don't believe I would be able to understand them. Do you mind?"

"No, of course not. But may I come in the morning? I am going away early in the afternoon."

She nodded slowly, looked away from him and did not speak. She was evidently very much tired.

"I think I ought to go,"he said after a pause.

"If you hurried you could catch that steamer down at Cadenabbia."

"Then I'll hurry. Don't come down."

"I won't come down,"she said, holding out her hand."Good-bye, and thank you."

He hurried to the end of the pergola, hesitated, half turned his head, and stopped irresolutely. Surely she had called him? He listened, but there was no sound. She stood where he had left her, with her back towards him, leaning against a pillar and looking out across the lake.

Turning, he pushed his way between the branches, down the overgrown path. The leaves rustled, he listened again; somebody was trying to detain him. As the slope grew steeper he quickened his steps to a run, and, skirting the terrace, took a short cut on to the avenue. Soon the lake glittered through the iron gates.

She leant back against the pillar, gripping in handfuls the branches of the climbing rose. She heard his descending footsteps hesitate for a long second, gather speed,

grow fainter, die away. The thorns ran deep into her hands and she was dimly conscious of the pain. Far below the gate clanged, down among the trees. The branches of the roses shook a little, and more white petals came fluttering down.

THE Vicar moved about the chancel in his cassock, thoughtfully extinguishing the candles. Evensong was over, and the ladies who had composed the congregation pattered down the aisle and melted away into the November dusk. At the back of the church somebody was still kneeling; the Vicar knew that it was the emotional-looking lady in black waiting to speak to him as he came down to the vestry; he feared this might be a matter for the confessional and that she might weep. The church was growing very dark; her black draperies uncertainly detached themselves from the shadows under the gallery. As he came down towards her, her white face looked up at him, she made a rustling movement and half rose. A curious perfume diffused itself around her, through the chilly musti-ness of the pew.

She murmured a request; the Vicar bowed his head."I will wait for you in the church porch,"she said in a clear voice 80

with a suggestion of a tremolo."Perhaps we could walk across the churchyard?"

He hurried to the vestry with the sense of a reprieve.

She was waiting in the porch with her hands clasped, and smiled anxiously at the Vicar, who turned to lock the door behind him.

"Such a beautiful church!"she said as they walked on together.

"We consider it very beautiful."

"How the people must love it."Her manner was very childlike; she half turned to him, shyly, then turned away.

"Would you like another window?"

"A window?"

"A coloured window for the Lady Chapel. I would love to give you a window."She made the offer so simply that the Vicar felt as though he was being offered a kitten.

"But, my dear lady, windows like that are very expensive."

"I know,"she said eagerly,"but I would be quite well able to afford one."

"A—a memorial window?"

"Memorial?"

"Of some relation or dear friend who has passed over?"

"Oh no,"she said vaguely,"I know so many people who have died, but I think none of them would care about a window."

"Then you have no particular purpose?"

"I think coloured windows are so beautiful. They make one feel so religious and good."

The Vicar was nonplussed; he wished to say a great deal to her but did not know how to begin. Her ingenuousness half touched and half offended him. She was not young, either; he could hardly explain her to himself as young. Yet standing up so straight among the slanting tombstones she had no congruity with the year's decline; the monotone of twilight, the sullen evening with its colourless falling leaves rejected her; she was not elderly, he thought. She was perennial, there was that about her that displeased the Vicar; she was theatrical. Having placed her, he felt more at ease.

He said:"I will place your very kind offer before the Vestry,"and took a few steps in the direction of the lych-gate. She looked

up at him with fine eyes that she had once learnt how to use; she was so httle conscious of the Vicar's mascuHnity that he might have been one of the tombstones, but eyes that have learnt their lesson never forget.

"Must you go at once?"she said pathetically."I want to talk a little more about the window. I would like to go and lo'ok from outside at the place where it is going to be."

They retraced their steps a little and took a path that skirted the north side of the church and passed underneath the two east windows.

"I know you are not a resident,"said the Vicar. Still a diffident man, he disliked these inquiries; however oblique, they savoured too strongly of parsonic officiousness. But still, one ought to know.

"Do you think of paying us a long visit? The country is hardly at its best just now. Do you like the village?"

"I think the village is sweet—it does appeal to me. So quaint and homely. I am staying here in lodgings; they are most

uncomfortable, but I sleep well, and the eggs are fresh. And then I love the country. My real name is Mrs. Barrows."

"Do you intend a long stay?"repeated the Vicar, trying not to feel that her last sentence was peculiar.

"I want to watch them putting up the window. After that, I don't know. I don't think I could bear to be long away from London. Perhaps I might buy a cottage here, if you would help me."

Evidently she was a person of means.

"This is the Lady Chapel window,"said the Vicar suddenly.

"Oh,"she cried in consternation."I did not know it was so small. We must make it larger—I think this would never hold them."

"Hold whom?"

"All Saints—I want it to be an All Saints window. I went to church last Thursday; I heard the bells ringing and went in to see. I thought perhaps it was a wedding. I found a service, so I stayed, and you were preaching an All Saints Day sermon. It was beautiful; it gave me the idea. You said ' called to be saints ' was meant for all of us; I'd

never heard of that idea. I'd thought the saints were over long ago; I'd seen old pictures of them when I was a child. I thought yours was a beautiful idea. It helped me so."

"It is not only an idea, it is quite true."

"I know. But it was beautiful of you to think of it."

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,"said the Vicar, half aloud.

"But then, of course, I supposed there must still be saints. And I thought of two or three people, then of quite a number. Ladies I have met, who have affected me —most strongly — and one dear boy I know"

"We have most of us been privileged-

"Don't you think,"she said, with round eyes,"that saints must often seem quite unconventional?""In so far as conventionality is error—yes.""There,"she cried, "I knew you'd agree with me. Wouldn't you describe a saint as somebody who, going ahead by their own

light"

"By a light that is given them"

"That's what I meant—doesn't care what

anybody says and helps other people; really makes it possible for other people to go on living?"

"Well, yes."The Vicar hesitated over this definition.

"Don't saints seem always very strong?"

"There is a great strength in them, but there is weakness too; they have a great deal in themselves to combat before"

"Before they can fight other people's battles."

"Nobody can fight another's battle! We have got to fight our battles for ourselves— against ourselves."

"Oh,"she said a little flatly, "now that wasn't my idea. When I'm in a difficulty, or even in the blues, I just go to one of these friends of mine and talk it out, and, well, it's quite extraordinary the difference I feel. I see light at once. It's as if they took a burden off my shoulders."

"There is only One who can do that. Can't you try and get straight to the Divine?"

Her voice out of the darkness—it was now very dark—sounded lonely and bewildered.

"No, I don't seem to want to. You see, Fm not at all good."

"All the more reason"

She ignored the interruption."It's power; that's what some people have; they're what I call good people—saints. And you know, these friends I was talking about; they're not at all conventional and they never go to church, except, perhaps, to weddings. And one or two of them are—oh, very unconventional. You'd be surprised."

They walked across the churchyard, just able to see the path by the reflected light on the wet flagstones. The Vicar tried to help her:"And you find that contact with certain personalities brings with it healing and invigoration?"

She grasped eagerly at the phrase."Healing and invigoration, yes, that's what I mean. It isn't anything to do with love or friendship. When I was younger I thought that loving people was meant to help one; it led me— oh, so wrong. Loving is only giving, isn't it, just a sort of luxury, like giving this window. It doesn't do you any good, or the person either. But people like"—she named a

notorious lady—"I can't tell you how she's helped me. She's so brave, nobody seems too bad for her. She never despises you. And I've another friend who is a spiritualist."

"Error!"

"She told me all about myself; she was so wonderful, her eyes went through and through. She said,' You're going the wrong way,' and then it all came to me. She helped me so. And another who was a missionary's wife"

This seemed simpler, but he wondered what he could get at behind it all.

"She didn't live with him. She had met him first at a revivalist meeting; she said he was too wonderful, but he couldn't have been as wonderful as her. She used to come and see me in the mornings, when I was in bed; I was very lonely then, a dear friend and I had just parted. She never talked religion, but there was something wonderful about her face."

"And all this has really helped you? Force of example"

"I don't want to copy them: I only want to know they're there."88

"What holds you in them isn't of themselves."

"Isn't it?"

"It's simply a manifestation."

She failed to understand him.

"They are able to help you—that is their privilege and God's will. But they can't do everything."

"They do, you see; they see I can't do anything to help myself, and I suppose there must be a great many other people like me. They get at something I can't reach and hand it down to me—I could put it like that, couldn't I? That's what saints have always done, it seems to me."

"Nobody was ever meant to be a go-between,"he said with energy."You've simply no conception"

"I get everything I want that way,"she said placidly."I'm a very weak sort of person, I only want to be helped. Saints are the sort of people who've been always helping people like me; I thought I'd like to put up a window as a sort of thank-offering to them. Crowds and crowds of people I wanted to put in, all with those yellow circles round

their heads, dressed in blue and violet—I think violet's such a beautiful colour. And one big figure in the foreground, just to look like helpfulness, holding out both hands with the look I've sometimes seen on people's faces. When can I know for sure about the window? I mean, when will you tell me if they'll let me put it up?"

"I don't know,"said the Vicar, agitatedly, hurrying towards the lych-gate and holding it open for her to pass through."I'll come round and see you about it. Yes, I know the house."

"Oh, would you?"she said, shyly."Well, that would be kind. You know, talking about helpfulness, you're one of that sort of people. You don't know what it's meant to me to hear you preaching. You'd hardly believe"

"Good-night,"said the Vicar abruptly. He raised his hat, turned on his heel, and fled through the darkness....