Beyond

She fell silent, casting her eyes down. Her profile at that moment, against the light, was very pure and soft in line. And he said:

“I suppose you hate me, little Daphne? You ought to hate me.”

Daphne Wing looked up; her round, blue-grey eyes passed over him much as they had been passing over the marzipan.

“No; I don’t hate you – now. Of course, if I had any love left for you, I should. Oh, isn’t that Irish? But one can think anybody a rotter without hating them, can’t one?”

Fiorsen bit his lips.

“So you think me a ‘rotter’?”

Daphne Wing’s eyes grew rounder.

“But aren’t you? You couldn’t be anything else – could you? – with the sort of things you did.”

“And yet you don’t mind having tea with me?”

Daphne Wing, who had begun to eat and drink, said with her mouth full:

“You see, I’m independent now, and I know life. That makes you harmless.”

Fiorsen stretched out his hand and seized hers just where her little warm pulse was beating very steadily. She looked at it, changed her fork over, and went on eating with the other hand. Fiorsen drew his hand away as if he had been stung.

“Ah, you HAVE changed – that is certain!”

“Yes; you wouldn’t expect anything else, would you? You see, one doesn’t go through that for nothing. I think I was a dreadful little fool – ” She stopped, with her spoon on its way to her mouth – “and yet – ”

“I love you still, little Daphne.”

She slowly turned her head toward him, and a faint sigh escaped her.

“Once I would have given a lot to hear that.”

And turning her head away again, she picked a large walnut out of her cake and put it in her mouth.

“Are you coming to see my studio? I’ve got it rather nice and new. I’m making twenty-five a week; my next engagement, I’m going to get thirty. I should like Mrs. Fiorsen to know – Oh, I forgot; you don’t like me to speak of her! Why not? I wish you’d tell me!” Gazing, as the attendant had, at his furious face, she went on: “I don’t know how it is, but I’m not a bit afraid of you now. I used to be. Oh, how is Count Rosek? Is he as pale as ever? Aren’t you going to have anything more? You’ve had hardly anything. D’you know what I should like – a chocolate eclair and a raspberry ice-cream soda with a slice of tangerine in it.”

When she had slowly sucked up that beverage, prodding the slice of tangerine with her straws, they went out and took a cab. On that journey to her studio, Fiorsen tried to possess himself of her hand, but, folding her arms across her chest, she said quietly:

“It’s very bad manners to take advantage of cabs.” And, withdrawing sullenly into his corner, he watched her askance. Was she playing with him? Or had she really ceased to care the snap of a finger? It seemed incredible. The cab, which had been threading the maze of the Soho streets, stopped. Daphne Wing alighted, proceeded down a narrow passage to a green door on the right, and, opening it with a latch-key, paused to say:

“I like it’s being in a little sordid street – it takes away all amateurishness. It wasn’t a studio, of course; it was the back part of a paper-maker’s. Any space conquered for art is something, isn’t it?” She led the way up a few green-carpeted stairs, into a large room with a skylight, whose walls were covered in Japanese silk the colour of yellow azaleas. Here she stood for a minute without speaking, as though lost in the beauty of her home: then, pointing to the walls, she said:

“It took me ages, I did it all myself. And look at my little Japanese trees; aren’t they dickies?” Six little dark abortions of trees were arranged scrupulously on a lofty window-sill, whence the skylight sloped. She added suddenly: “I think Count Rosek would like this room. There’s something bizarre about it, isn’t there? I wanted to surround myself with that, you know – to get the bizarre note into my work. It’s so important nowadays. But through there I’ve got a bedroom and a bathroom and a little kitchen with everything to hand, all quite domestic; and hot water always on. My people are SO funny about this room. They come sometimes, and stand about. But they can’t get used to the neighbourhood; of course it IS sordid, but I think an artist ought to be superior to that.”

Suddenly touched, Fiorsen answered gently:

“Yes, little Daphne.”

She looked at him, and another tiny sigh escaped her.

“Why did you treat me like you did?” she said. “It’s such a pity, because now I can’t feel anything at all.” And turning, she suddenly passed the back of her hand across her eyes. Really moved by that, Fiorsen went towards her, but she had turned round again, and putting out her hand to keep him off, stood shaking her head, with half a tear glistening on her eyelashes.

“Please sit down on the divan,” she said. “Will you smoke? These are Russians.” And she took a white box of pink-coloured cigarettes from a little golden birchwood table. “I have everything Russian and Japanese so far as I can; I think they help more than anything with atmosphere. I’ve got a balalaika; you can’t play on it, can you? What a pity! If only I had a violin! I SHOULD have liked to hear you play again.” She clasped her hands: “Do you remember when I danced to you before the fire?”

Fiorsen remembered only too well. The pink cigarette trembled in his fingers, and he said rather hoarsely:

“Dance to me now, Daphne!”

She shook her head.

“I don’t trust you a yard. Nobody would – would they?”

Fiorsen started up.

“Then why did you ask me here? What are you playing at, you little – ” At sight of her round, unmoving eyes, he stopped. She said calmly:

“I thought you’d like to see that I’d mastered my fate – that’s all. But, of course, if you don’t, you needn’t stop.”

Fiorsen sank back on the divan. A conviction that everything she said was literal had begun slowly to sink into him. And taking a long pull at that pink cigarette he puffed the smoke out with a laugh.

“What are you laughing at?”

“I was thinking, little Daphne, that you are as great an egoist as I.”

“I want to be. It’s the only thing, isn’t it?”

Fiorsen laughed again.

“You needn’t worry. You always were.”

She had seated herself on an Indian stool covered with a bit of Turkish embroidery, and, joining her hands on her lap, answered gravely:

“No; I think I wasn’t, while I loved you. But it didn’t pay, did it?”

Fiorsen stared at her.

“It has made a woman of you, Daphne. Your face is different. Your mouth is prettier for my kisses – or the want of them. All over, you are prettier.” Pink came up in Daphne Wing’s cheeks. And, encouraged by that flush, he went on warmly: “If you loved me now, I should not tire of you. Oh, you can believe me! I – ”

She shook her head.

“We won’t talk about love, will we? Did you have a big triumph in Moscow and St. Petersburg? It must be wonderful to have really great triumphs!”

Fiorsen answered gloomily:

“Triumphs? I made a lot of money.”

Daphne Wing purred:

“Oh, I expect you’re very happy.”

Did she mean to be ironic?

“I’m miserable.”

He got up and went towards her. She looked up in his face.

“I’m sorry if you’re miserable. I know what it feels like.”

“You can help me not to be. Little Daphne, you can help me to forget.” He had stopped, and put his hands on her shoulders. Without moving Daphne Wing answered:

“I suppose it’s Mrs. Fiorsen you want to forget, isn’t it?”

“As if she were dead. Ah, let it all be as it was, Daphne! You have grown up; you are a woman, an artist, and you – ”

Daphne Wing had turned her head toward the stairs.

“That was the bell,” she said. “Suppose it’s my people? It’s just their time! Oh, isn’t that awkward?”

Fiorsen dropped his grasp of her and recoiled against the wall. There with his head touching one of the little Japanese trees, he stood biting his fingers. She was already moving toward the door.

“My mother’s got a key, and it’s no good putting you anywhere, because she always has a good look round. But perhaps it isn’t them. Besides, I’m not afraid now; it makes a wonderful difference being on one’s own.”

She disappeared. Fiorsen could hear a woman’s acid voice, a man’s, rather hoarse and greasy, the sound of a smacking kiss. And, with a vicious shrug, he stood at bay. Trapped! The little devil! The little dovelike devil! He saw a lady in a silk dress, green shot with beetroot colour, a short, thick gentleman with a round, greyish beard, in a grey suit, having a small dahlia in his buttonhole, and, behind them, Daphne Wing, flushed, and very round-eyed. He took a step, intending to escape without more ado. The gentleman said:

“Introduce us, Daisy. I didn’t quite catch – Mr. Dawson? How do you do, sir? One of my daughter’s impresarios, I think. ‘Appy to meet you, I’m sure.”

Fiorsen took a long breath, and bowed. Mr. Wagge’s small piggy eyes had fixed themselves on the little trees.

“She’s got a nice little place here for her work – quiet and unconventional. I hope you think well of her talent, sir? You might go further and fare worse, I believe.”

Again Fiorsen bowed.

“You may be proud of her,” he said; “she is the rising star.”

Mr. Wagge cleared his throat.

“Ow,” he said; “ye’es! From a little thing, we thought she had stuff in her. I’ve come to take a great interest in her work. It’s not in my line, but I think she’s a sticker; I like to see perseverance. Where you’ve got that, you’ve got half the battle of success. So many of these young people seem to think life’s all play. You must see a lot of that in your profession, sir.”

“Robert!”

A shiver ran down Fiorsen’s spine.

“Ye-es?”

“The name was not DAWson!”

There followed a long moment. On the one side was that vinegary woman poking her head forward like an angry hen, on the other, Daphne Wing, her eyes rounder and rounder, her cheeks redder and redder, her lips opening, her hands clasped to her perfect breast, and, in the centre, that broad, grey-bearded figure, with reddening face and angry eyes and hoarsening voice:

“You scoundrel! You infernal scoundrel!” It lurched forward, raising a pudgy fist. Fiorsen sprang down the stairs and wrenched open the door. He walked away in a whirl of mortification. Should he go back and take that pug-faced vulgarian by the throat? As for that minx! But his feelings about HER were too complicated for expression. And then – so dark and random are the ways of the mind – his thoughts darted back to Gyp, sitting on the oaken chest, making her confession; and the whips and stings of it scored him worse than ever.

X

That same evening, standing at the corner of Bury Street, Summerhay watched Gyp going swiftly to her father’s house. He could not bring himself to move while there was still a chance to catch a glimpse of her face, a sign from her hand. Gone! He walked away with his head down. The more blissful the hours just spent, the greater the desolation when they are over. Of such is the nature of love, as he was now discerning. The longing to have her always with him was growing fast. Since her husband knew – why wait? There would be no rest for either of them in an existence of meetings and partings like this, with the menace of that fellow. She must come away with him at once – abroad – until things had declared themselves; and then he must find a place where they could live and she feel safe and happy. He must show he was in dead earnest, set his affairs in order. And he thought: ‘No good doing things by halves. Mother must know. The sooner the better. Get it over – at once!’ And, with a grimace of discomfort, he set out for his aunt’s house in Cadogan Gardens, where his mother always stayed when she was in town.

Lady Summerhay was in the boudoir, waiting for dinner and reading a book on dreams. A red-shaded lamp cast a mellow tinge over the grey frock, over one reddish cheek and one white shoulder. She was a striking person, tall and well built, her very blonde hair only just turning grey, for she had married young and been a widow fifteen years – one of those women whose naturally free spirits have been netted by association with people of public position. Bubbles were still rising from her submerged soul, but it was obvious that it would not again set eyes on the horizon. With views neither narrow nor illiberal, as views in society go, she judged everything now as people of public position must – discussion, of course, but no alteration in one’s way of living. Speculation and ideas did not affect social usage. The countless movements in which she and her friends were interested for the emancipation and benefit of others were, in fact, only channels for letting off her superfluous goodwill, conduit-pipes, for the directing spirit bred in her. She thought and acted in terms of the public good, regulated by what people of position said at luncheon and dinner. And it was surely not her fault that such people must lunch and dine. When her son had bent and kissed her, she held up the book to him and said:

“Well, Bryan, I think this man’s book disgraceful; he simply runs his sex-idea to death. Really, we aren’t all quite so obsessed as that. I do think he ought to be put in his own lunatic asylum.”

Summerhay, looking down at her gloomily, answered:

“I’ve got bad news for you, Mother.”

Lady Summerhay closed the book and searched his face with apprehension. She knew that expression. She knew that poise of his head, as if butting at something. He looked like that when he came to her in gambling scrapes. Was this another? Bryan had always been a pickle. His next words took her breath away.

“The people at Mildenham, Major Winton and his daughter – you know. Well, I’m in love with her – I’m – I’m her lover.”

Lady Summerhay uttered a gasp.

“But – but – Bryan – ”

“That fellow she married drinks. He’s impossible. She had to leave him a year ago, with her baby – other reasons, too. Look here, Mother: This is hateful, but you’d got to know. I can’t talk of her. There’s no chance of a divorce.” His voice grew higher. “Don’t try to persuade me out of it. It’s no good.”

Lady Summerhay, from whose comely face a frock, as it were, had slipped, clasped her hands together on the book.

Such a swift descent of “life” on one to whom it had for so long been a series of “cases” was cruel, and her son felt this without quite realizing why. In the grip of his new emotions, he still retained enough balance to appreciate what an abominably desolate piece of news this must be to her, what a disturbance and disappointment. And, taking her hand, he put it to his lips.

“Cheer up, Mother! It’s all right. She’s happy, and so am I.”

Lady Summerhay could only press her hand against his kiss, and murmur:

“Yes; that’s not everything, Bryan. Is there – is there going to be a scandal?”

“I don’t know. I hope not; but, anyway, HE knows about it.”

“Society doesn’t forgive.”

Summerhay shrugged his shoulders.

“Awfully sorry for YOU, Mother.”

“Oh, Bryan!”

This repetition of her plaint jarred his nerves.

“Don’t run ahead of things. You needn’t tell Edith or Flo. You needn’t tell anybody. We don’t know what’ll happen yet.”

But in Lady Summerhay all was too sore and blank. This woman she had never seen, whose origin was doubtful, whose marriage must have soiled her, who was some kind of a siren, no doubt. It really was too hard! She believed in her son, had dreamed of public position for him, or, rather, felt he would attain it as a matter of course. And she said feebly:

“This Major Winton is a man of breeding, isn’t he?”

“Rather!” And, stopping before her, as if he read her thoughts, he added: “You think she’s not good enough for me? She’s good enough for anyone on earth. And she’s the proudest woman I’ve ever met. If you’re bothering as to what to do about her – don’t! She won’t want anything of anybody – I can tell you that. She won’t accept any crumbs.”

“That’s lucky!” hovered on Lady Summerhay’s lips; but, gazing at her son, she became aware that she stood on the brink of a downfall in his heart. Then the bitterness of her disappointment rising up again, she said coldly:

“Are you going to live together openly?”

“Yes; if she will.”

“You don’t know yet?”

“I shall – soon.”

Lady Summerhay got up, and the book on dreams slipped off her lap with a thump. She went to the fireplace, and stood there looking at her son. He had altered. His merry look was gone; his face was strange to her. She remembered it like that, once in the park at Widrington, when he lost his temper with a pony and came galloping past her, sitting back, his curly hair stivered up like a little demon’s. And she said sadly:

“You can hardly expect me to like it for you, Bryan, even if she is what you say. And isn’t there some story about – ”

“My dear mother, the more there is against her, the more I shall love her – that’s obvious.”

Lady Summerhay sighed again.

“What is this man going to do? I heard him play once.”

“I don’t know. Nothing, I dare say. Morally and legally, he’s out of court. I only wish to God he WOULD bring a case, and I could marry her; but Gyp says he won’t.”

Lady Summerhay murmured:

“Gyp? Is that her name?” And a sudden wish, almost a longing, not a friendly one, to see this woman seized her. “Will you bring her to see me? I’m alone here till Wednesday.”

“I’ll ask her, but I don’t think she’ll come.” He turned his head away. “Mother, she’s wonderful!”

An unhappy smile twisted Lady Summerhay’s lips. No doubt! Aphrodite herself had visited her boy. Aphrodite! And – afterward? She asked desolately:

“Does Major Winton know?”

“Yes.”

“What does he say to it?”

“Say? What can anyone say? From your point of view, or his, it’s rotten, of course. But in her position, anything’s rotten.”

At that encouraging word, the flood-gates gave way in Lady Summerhay, and she poured forth a stream of words.

“Oh, my dear, can’t you pull up? I’ve seen so many of these affairs go wrong. It really is not for nothing that law and conventions are what they are – believe me! Really, Bryan, experience does show that the pressure’s too great. It’s only once in a way – very exceptional people, very exceptional circumstances. You mayn’t think now it’ll hamper you, but you’ll find it will – most fearfully. It’s not as if you were a writer or an artist, who can take his work where he likes and live in a desert if he wants. You’ve got to do yours in London, your whole career is bound up with society. Do think, before you go butting up against it! It’s all very well to say it’s no affair of anyone’s, but you’ll find it is, Bryan. And then, can you – can you possibly make her happy in the long-run?”

She stopped at the expression on his face. It was as if he were saying: “I have left your world. Talk to your fellows; all this is nothing to me.”

“Look here, Mother: you don’t seem to understand. I’m devoted – devoted so that there’s nothing else for me.”

“How long will that last, Bryan? You mean bewitched.”

Summerhay said, with passion:

“I don’t. I mean what I said. Good-night!” And he went to the door.

“Won’t you stay to dinner, dear?”

But he was gone, and the full of vexation, anxiety, and wretchedness came on Lady Summerhay. It was too hard! She went down to her lonely dinner, desolate and sore. And to the book on dreams, opened beside her plate, she turned eyes that took in nothing.

Summerhay went straight home. The lamps were brightening in the early-autumn dusk, and a draughty, ruffling wind flicked a yellow leaf here and there from off the plane trees. It was just the moment when evening blue comes into the colouring of the town – that hour of fusion when day’s hard and staring shapes are softening, growing dark, mysterious, and all that broods behind the lives of men and trees and houses comes down on the wings of illusion to repossess the world – the hour when any poetry in a man wells up. But Summerhay still heard his mother’s, “Oh, Bryan!” and, for the first time, knew the feeling that his hand was against everyone’s. There was a difference already, or so it seemed to him, in the expression of each passer-by. Nothing any more would be a matter of course; and he was of a class to whom everything has always been a matter of course. Perhaps he did not realize this clearly yet; but he had begun to take what the nurses call “notice,” as do those only who are forced on to the defensive against society.

Putting his latch-key into the lock, he recalled the sensation with which, that afternoon, he had opened to Gyp for the first time – half furtive, half defiant. It would be all defiance now. This was the end of the old order! And, lighting a fire in his sitting-room, he began pulling out drawers, sorting and destroying. He worked for hours, burning, making lists, packing papers and photographs. Finishing at last, he drank a stiff whisky and soda, and sat down to smoke. Now that the room was quiet, Gyp seemed to fill it again with her presence. Closing his eyes, he could see her there by the hearth, just as she stood before they left, turning her face up to him, murmuring: “You won’t stop loving me, now you’re so sure I love you?” Stop loving her! The more she loved him, the more he would love her. And he said aloud: “By God! I won’t!” At that remark, so vehement for the time of night, the old Scotch terrier, Ossian, came from his corner and shoved his long black nose into his master’s hand.

“Come along up, Ossy! Good dog, Oss!” And, comforted by the warmth of that black body beside him in the chair, Summerhay fell asleep in front of the fire smouldering with blackened fragments of his past.

XI

Though Gyp had never seemed to look round she had been quite conscious of Summerhay still standing where they had parted, watching her into the house in Bury Street. The strength of her own feeling surprised her, as a bather in the sea is surprised, finding her feet will not touch bottom, that she is carried away helpless – only, these were the waters of ecstasy.

For the second night running, she hardly slept, hearing the clocks of St. James’s strike, and Big Ben boom, hour after hour. At breakfast, she told her father of Fiorsen’s reappearance. He received the news with a frown and a shrewd glance.

“Well, Gyp?”

“I told him.”

His feelings, at that moment, were perhaps as mixed as they had ever been – curiosity, parental disapproval, to which he knew he was not entitled, admiration of her pluck in letting that fellow know, fears for the consequences of this confession, and, more than all, his profound disturbance at knowing her at last launched into the deep waters of love. It was the least of these feelings that found expression.

“How did he take it?”

“Rushed away. The only thing I feel sure of is that he won’t divorce me.”

“No, by George; I don’t suppose even he would have that impudence!” And Winton was silent, trying to penetrate the future. “Well,” he said suddenly, “it’s on the knees of the gods then. But be careful, Gyp.”

About noon, Betty returned from the sea, with a solemn, dark-eyed, cooing little Gyp, brown as a roasted coffee-berry. When she had been given all that she could wisely eat after the journey, Gyp carried her off to her own room, undressed her for sheer delight of kissing her from head to foot, and admiring her plump brown legs, then cuddled her up in a shawl and lay down with her on the bed. A few sleepy coos and strokings, and little Gyp had left for the land of Nod, while her mother lay gazing at her black lashes with a kind of passion. She was not a child-lover by nature; but this child of her own, with her dark softness, plump delicacy, giving disposition, her cooing voice, and constant adjurations to “dear mum,” was adorable. There was something about her insidiously seductive. She had developed so quickly, with the graceful roundness of a little animal, the perfection of a flower. The Italian blood of her great-great-grandmother was evidently prepotent in her as yet; and, though she was not yet two years old, her hair, which had lost its baby darkness, was already curving round her neck and waving on her forehead. One of her tiny brown hands had escaped the shawl and grasped its edge with determined softness. And while Gyp gazed at the pinkish nails and their absurdly wee half-moons, at the sleeping tranquillity stirred by breathing no more than a rose-leaf on a windless day, her lips grew fuller, trembled, reached toward the dark lashes, till she had to rein her neck back with a jerk to stop such self-indulgence. Soothed, hypnotized, almost in a dream, she lay there beside her baby.