Saint's Progress

A silence had fallen in the room-very queer and complete. The little girl nursed her doll, the soldier gazed at the floor, the woman’s mouth moved stealthily, and in Noel the thought rushed continually to the verge of action: ‘Couldn’t I get up and run downstairs?’ But she sat on, hypnotised by that silence, till Lavendie reappeared with a bottle and four glasses.

“To drink our health, and wish us luck, mademoiselle,” he said.

Noel raised the glass he had given her. “I wish you all happiness.”

“And you, mademoiselle,” the two men murmured.

She drank a little, and rose.

“And now, mademoiselle,” said Lavendie, “if you must go, I will see you home.”

Noel took Madame Lavendie’s hand; it was cold, and returned no pressure; her eyes had the glazed look that she remembered. The soldier had put his empty glass down on the floor, and was regarding it unconscious of her. Noel turned quickly to the door; the last thing she saw was the little girl nursing her doll.

In the street the painter began at once in his rapid French:

“I ought not to have asked you to come, mademoiselle; I did not know our friend Barra was there. Besides, my wife is not fit to receive a lady; vous voyez qu’il y a de la manie dans cette pauvre tote. I should not have asked you; but I was so miserable.”

“Oh!” murmured Noel, “I know.”

“In our home over there she had interests. In this great town she can only nurse her grief against me. Ah! this war! It seems to me we are all in the stomach of a great coiling serpent. We lie there, being digested. In a way it is better out there in the trenches; they are beyond hate, they have attained a height that we have not. It is wonderful how they still can be for going on till they have beaten the Boche; that is curious and it is very great. Did Barra tell you how, when they come back – all these fighters – they are going to rule, and manage the future of the world? But it will not be so. They will mix in with life, separate – be scattered, and they will be ruled as they were before. The tongue and the pen will rule them: those who have not seen the war will rule them.”

“Oh!”’ cried Noel, “surely they will be the bravest and strongest in the future.”

The painter smiled.

“War makes men simple,” he said, “elemental; life in peace is neither simple nor elemental, it is subtle, full of changing environments, to which man must adapt himself; the cunning, the astute, the adaptable, will ever rule in times of peace. It is pathetic, the belief of those brave soldiers that the-future is theirs.”

“He said, a strange thing,” murmured Noel; “that they were all a little mad.”

“He is a man of queer genius – Barra; you should see some of his earlier pictures. Mad is not quite the word, but something is loosened, is rattling round in them, they have lost proportion, they are being forced in one direction. I tell you, mademoiselle, this war is one great forcing-house; every living plant is being made to grow too fast, each quality, each passion; hate and love, intolerance and lust and avarice, courage and energy; yes, and self-sacrifice – all are being forced and forced beyond their strength, beyond the natural flow of the sap, forced till there has come a great wild luxuriant crop, and then – Psum! Presto! The change comes, and these plants will wither and rot and stink. But we who see Life in forms of Art are the only ones who feel that; and we are so few. The natural shape of things is lost. There is a mist of blood before all eyes. Men are afraid of being fair. See how we all hate not only our enemies, but those who differ from us. Look at the streets too – see how men and women rush together, how Venus reigns in this forcing-house. Is it not natural that Youth about to die should yearn for pleasure, for love, for union, before death?”

Noel stared up at him. ‘Now!’ she thought: I will.’

“Yes,” she said, “I know that’s true, because I rushed, myself. I’d like you to know. We couldn’t be married – there wasn’t time. And – he was killed. But his son is alive. That’s why I’ve been away so long. I want every one to know.” She spoke very calmly, but her cheeks felt burning hot.

The painter had made an upward movement of his hands, as if they had been jerked by an electric current, then he said quite quietly:

“My profound respect, mademoiselle, and my great sympathy. And your father?”

“It’s awful for him.”

The painter said gently: “Ah! mademoiselle, I am not so sure. Perhaps he does not suffer so greatly. Perhaps not even your trouble can hurt him very much. He lives in a world apart. That, I think, is his true tragedy to be alive, and yet not living enough to feel reality. Do you know Anatole France’s description of an old woman: ‘Elle vivait, mais si peu.’ Would that not be well said of the Church in these days: ‘Elle vivait, mais si peu.’ I see him always like a rather beautiful dark spire in the night-time when you cannot see how it is attached to the earth. He does not know, he never will know, Life.”

Noel looked round at him. “What do you mean by Life, monsieur? I’m always reading about Life, and people talk of seeing Life! What is it – where is it? I never see anything that you could call Life.”

The painter smiled.

“To ‘see life’.” he said. “Ah! that is different. To enjoy yourself! Well, it is my experience that when people are ‘seeing life’ as they call it, they are not enjoying themselves. You know when one is very thirsty one drinks and drinks, but the thirst remains all the same. There are places where one can see life as it is called, but the only persons you will see enjoying themselves at such places are a few humdrums like myself, who go there for a talk over a cup of coffee. Perhaps at your age, though, it is different.”

Noel clasped her hands, and her eyes seemed to shine in the gloom. “I want music and dancing and light, and beautiful things and faces; but I never get them.”

“No, there does not exist in this town, or in any other, a place which will give you that. Fox-trots and ragtime and paint and powder and glare and half-drunken young men, and women with red lips you can get them in plenty. But rhythm and beauty and charm never. In Brussels when I was younger I saw much ‘life’ as they call it, but not one lovely thing unspoiled; it was all as ashes in the mouth. Ah! you may smile, but I know what I am talking of. Happiness never comes when you are looking for it, mademoiselle; beauty is in Nature and in real art, never in these false silly make believes. There is a place just here where we Belgians go; would you like to see how true my words are?

“Oh, yes!”

“Tres-bien! Let us go in?”

They passed into a revolving doorway with little glass compartments which shot them out into a shining corridor. At the end of this the painter looked at Noel and seemed to hesitate, then he turned off from the room they were about to enter into a room on the right. It was large, full of gilt and plush and marble tables, where couples were seated; young men in khaki and older men in plain clothes, together or with young women. At these last Noel looked, face after face, while they were passing down a long way to an empty table. She saw that some were pretty, and some only trying to be, that nearly all were powdered and had their eyes darkened and their lips reddened, till she felt her own face to be dreadfully ungarnished: Up in a gallery a small band was playing an attractive jingling hollow little tune; and the buzz of talk and laughter was almost deafening.

“What will you have, mademoiselle?” said the painter. “It is just nine o’clock; we must order quickly.”

“May I have one of those green things?”

“Deux cremes de menthe,” said Lavendie to the waiter.

Noel was too absorbed to see the queer, bitter little smile hovering about his face. She was busy looking at the faces of women whose eyes, furtively cold and enquiring, were fixed on her; and at the faces of men with eyes that were furtively warm and wondering.

“I wonder if Daddy was ever in a place like this?” she said, putting the glass of green stuff to her lips. “Is it nice? It smells of peppermint.”

“A beautiful colour. Good luck, mademoiselle!” and he chinked his glass with hers.

Noel sipped, held it away, and sipped again.

“It’s nice; but awfully sticky. May I have a cigarette?”

“Des cigarettes,” said Lavendie to the waiter, “Et deux cafes noirs. Now, mademoiselle,” he murmured when they were brought, “if we imagine that we have drunk a bottle of wine each, we shall have exhausted all the preliminaries of what is called Vice. Amusing, isn’t it?” He shrugged his shoulders.

His face struck Noel suddenly as tarnished and almost sullen.

“Don’t be angry, monsieur, it’s all new to me, you see.”

The painter smiled, his bright, skin-deep smile.

“Pardon! I forget myself. Only, it hurts me to see beauty in a place like this. It does not go well with that tune, and these voices, and these faces. Enjoy yourself, mademoiselle; drink it all in! See the way these people look at each other; what love shines in their eyes! A pity, too, we cannot hear what they are saying. Believe me, their talk is most subtle, tres-spirituel. These young women are ‘doing their bit,’ as you call it; bringing le plaisir to all these who are serving their country. Eat, drink, love, for tomorrow we die. Who cares for the world simple or the world beautiful, in days like these? The house of the spirit is empty.”

He was looking at her sidelong as if he would enter her very soul.

Noel got up. “I’m ready to go, monsieur.”

He put her cloak on her shoulders, paid the bill, and they went out, threading again through the little tables, through the buzz of talk and laughter and the fumes of tobacco, while another hollow little tune jingled away behind them.

“Through there,” said the painter, pointing to another door, “they dance. So it goes. London in war-time! Well, after all, it is never very different; no great town is. Did you enjoy your sight of ‘life,’ mademoiselle?”

“I think one must dance, to be happy. Is that where your friends go?”

“Oh, no! To a room much rougher, and play dominoes, and drink coffee and beer, and talk. They have no money to throw away.”

“Why didn’t you show me?”

“Mademoiselle, in that room you might see someone perhaps whom one day you would meet again; in the place we visited you were safe enough at least I hope so.”

Noel shrugged. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now, what I do.”

And a rush of emotion caught at her throat – a wave from the past – the moonlit night, the dark old Abbey, the woods and the river. Two tears rolled down her cheeks.

“I was thinking of – something,” she said in a muffled voice. “It’s all right.”

“Chere mademoiselle!” Lavendie murmured; and all the way home he was timid and distressed. Shaking his hand at the door, she murmured:

“I’m sorry I was such a fool; and thank you awfully, monsieur. Good night.”

“Good night; and better dreams. There is a good time coming – Peace and Happiness once more in the world. It will not always be this Forcing-House. Good night, chere mademoiselle!”

Noel went up to the nursery, and stole in. A night-light was burning, Nurse and baby were fast asleep. She tiptoed through into her own room. Once there, she felt suddenly so tired that she could hardly undress; and yet curiously rested, as if with that rush of emotion, Cyril and the past had slipped from her for ever.

III

Noel’s first encounter with Opinion took place the following day. The baby had just come in from its airing; she had seen it comfortably snoozing, and was on her way downstairs, when a voice from the hall said:

“How do you do?” and she saw the khaki-clad figure of Adrian Lauder, her father’s curate! Hesitating just a moment, she finished her descent, and put her fingers in his. He was a rather heavy, dough-coloured young man of nearly thirty, unsuited by khaki, with a round white collar buttoned behind; but his aspiring eyes redeemed him, proclaiming the best intentions in the world, and an inclination towards sentiment in the presence of beauty.

“I haven’t seen you for ages,” he said rather fatuously, following her into her father’s study.

“No,” said Noel. “How – do you like being at the Front?”

“Ah!” he said, “they’re wonderful!” And his eyes shone. “It’s so nice to see you again.”

“Is it?”

He seemed puzzled by that answer; stammered, and said:

“I didn’t know your sister had a baby. A jolly baby.”

“She hasn’t.”

Lauder’s mouth opened. ‘A silly mouth,’ she thought.

“Oh!” he said. “Is it a protegee – Belgian or something?”

“No, it’s mine; my own.” And, turning round, she slipped the little ring off her finger. When she turned back to him, his face had not recovered from her words. It had a hapless look, as of one to whom such a thing ought not to have happened.

“Don’t look like that,” said Noel. “Didn’t you understand? It’s mine-mine.” She put out her left hand. “Look! There’s no ring.”

He stammered: “I say, you oughtn’t to – you oughtn’t to – !”

“What?”

“Joke about – about such things; ought you?”

“One doesn’t joke if one’s had a baby without being married, you know.”

Lauder went suddenly slack. A shell might have burst a few paces from him. And then, just as one would in such a case, he made an effort, braced himself, and said in a curious voice, both stiff and heavy: “I can’t – one doesn’t – it’s not – ”

“It is,” said Noel. “If you don’t believe me, ask Daddy.”

He put his hand up to his round collar; and with the wild thought that he was going to tear it off, she cried: “Don’t!”

“You!” he said. “You! But – ”

Noel turned away from him to the window: She stood looking out, but saw nothing whatever.

“I don’t want it hidden,” she said without turning round, “I want every one to know. It’s stupid as it is – stupid!” and she stamped her foot. “Can’t you see how stupid it is – everybody’s mouth falling open!”

He uttered a little sound which had pain in it, and she felt a real pang of compunction. He had gripped the back of a chair; his face had lost its heaviness. A dull flush coloured his cheeks. Noel had a feeling, as if she had been convicted of treachery. It was his silence, the curious look of an impersonal pain beyond power of words; she felt in him something much deeper than mere disapproval – something which echoed within herself. She walked quickly past him and escaped. She ran upstairs and threw herself on her bed. He was nothing: it was not that! It was in herself, the awful feeling, for the first time developed and poignant, that she had betrayed her caste, forfeited the right to be thought a lady, betrayed her secret reserve and refinement, repaid with black ingratitude the love lavished on her up bringing, by behaving like any uncared-for common girl. She had never felt this before – not even when Gratian first heard of it, and they had stood one at each end of the hearth, unable to speak. Then she still had her passion, and her grief for the dead. That was gone now as if it had never been; and she had no defence, nothing between her and this crushing humiliation and chagrin. She had been mad! She must have been mad! The Belgian Barra was right: “All a little mad” in this “forcing-house” of a war! She buried her face deep in the pillow, till it almost stopped her power of breathing; her head and cheeks and ears seemed to be on fire. If only he had shown disgust, done something which roused her temper, her sense of justice, her feeling that Fate had been too cruel to her; but he had just stood there, bewilderment incarnate, like a creature with some very deep illusion shattered. It was horrible! Then, feeling that she could not stay still, must walk, run, get away somehow from this feeling of treachery and betrayal, she sprang up. All was quiet below, and she slipped downstairs and out, speeding along with no knowledge of direction, taking the way she had taken day after day to her hospital. It was the last of April, trees and shrubs were luscious with blossom and leaf; the dogs ran gaily; people had almost happy faces in the sunshine. ‘If I could get away from myself, I wouldn’t care,’ she thought. Easy to get away from people, from London, even from England perhaps; but from oneself – impossible! She passed her hospital; and looked at it dully, at the Red Cross flag against its stucco wall, and a soldier in his blue slops and red tie, coming out. She had spent many miserable hours there, but none quite so miserable as this. She passed the church opposite to the flats where Leila lived, and running suddenly into a tall man coming round the corner, saw Fort. She bent her head, and tried to hurry past. But his hand was held out, she could not help putting hers into it; and looking up hardily, she said:

“You know about me, don’t you?”

His face, naturally so frank, seemed to clench up, as if he were riding at a fence. ‘He’ll tell a lie,’ she thought bitterly. But he did not.

“Yes, Leila told me.”

And she thought: ‘I suppose he’ll try and pretend that I’ve not been a beast!’

“I admire your pluck,” he said.

“I haven’t any.”

“We never know ourselves, do we? I suppose you wouldn’t walk my pace a minute or two, would you? I’m going the same way.”

“I don’t know which way I’m going.”

“That is my case, too.”

They walked on in silence.

“I wish to God I were back in France,” said Fort abruptly. “One doesn’t feel clean here.”

Noel’s heart applauded.

Ah! to get away – away from oneself! But at the thought of her baby, her heart fell again. “Is your leg quite hopeless?” she said.

“Quite.”

“That must be horrid.”

“Hundreds of thousands would look on it as splendid luck; and so it is if you count it better to be alive than dead, which I do, in spite of the blues.”

“How is Cousin Leila?”

“Very well. She goes on pegging away at the hospital; she’s a brick.” But he did not look at her, and again there was silence, till he stopped by Lord’s Cricket-ground.

“I mustn’t keep you crawling along at this pace.”

“Oh, I don’t mind!”

“I only wanted to say that if I can be of any service to you at any time in any way whatever, please command me.”

He gave her hand a squeeze, took his hat off; and Noel walked slowly on. The little interview, with its suppressions, and its implications, had but exasperated her restlessness, and yet, in a way, it had soothed the soreness of her heart. Captain Fort at all events did not despise her; and he was in trouble like herself. She felt that somehow by the look of his face, and the tone of his voice when he spoke of Leila. She quickened her pace. George’s words came back to her: “If you’re not ashamed of yourself, no one will be of you!” How easy to say! The old days, her school, the little half grown-up dances she used to go to, when everything was happy. Gone! All gone!

But her meetings with Opinion were not over for the day, for turning again at last into the home Square, tired out by her three hours’ ramble, she met an old lady whom she and Gratian had known from babyhood – a handsome dame, the widow of an official, who spent her days, which showed no symptom of declining, in admirable works. Her daughter, the widow of an officer killed at the Marne, was with her, and the two greeted Noel with a shower of cordial questions: So she was back from the country, and was she quite well again? And working at her hospital? And how was her dear father? They had thought him looking very thin and worn. But now Gratian was at home – How dreadfully the war kept husbands and wives apart! And whose was the dear little baby they had in the house?

“Mine,” said Noel, walking straight past them with her head up. In every fibre of her being she could feel the hurt, startled, utterly bewildered looks of those firm friendly persons left there on the pavement behind her; could feel the way they would gather themselves together, and walk on, perhaps without a word, and then round the corner begin: “What has come to Noel? What did she mean?” And taking the little gold hoop out of her pocket, she flung it with all her might into the Square Garden. The action saved her from a breakdown; and she went in calmly. Lunch was long over, but her father had not gone out, for he met her in the hall and drew her into the dining-room.

“You must eat, my child,” he said. And while she was swallowing down what he had caused to be kept back for her, he stood by the hearth in that favourite attitude of his, one foot on the fender, and one hand gripping the mantel-shelf.

“You’ve got your wish, Daddy,” she said dully: “Everybody knows now. I’ve told Mr. Lauder, and Monsieur, and the Dinnafords.”

She saw his fingers uncrisp, then grip the shelf again. “I’m glad,” he said.

“Aunt Thirza gave me a ring to wear, but I’ve thrown it away.”

“My dearest child,” he began, but could not go on, for the quivering of his lips.

“I wanted to say once more, Daddy, that I’m fearfully sorry about you. And I am ashamed of myself; I thought I wasn’t, but I am – only, I think it was cruel, and I’m not penitent to God; and it’s no good trying to make me.”

Pierson turned and looked at her. For a long time after, she could not get that look out of her memory.

Jimmy Fort had turned away from Noel feeling particularly wretched. Ever since the day when Leila had told him of the girl’s misfortune he had been aware that his liaison had no decent foundation, save a sort of pity. One day, in a queer access of compunction, he had made Leila an offer of marriage. She had refused; and he had respected her the more, realising by the quiver in her voice and the look in her eyes that she refused him, not because she did not love him well enough, but because she was afraid of losing any of his affection. She was a woman of great experience.

To-day he had taken advantage of the luncheon interval to bring her some flowers, with a note to say that he could not come that evening. Letting himself in with his latchkey, he had carefully put those Japanese azaleas in the bowl “Famille Rose,” taking water from her bedroom. Then he had sat down on the divan with his head in his hands.

Though he had rolled so much about the world, he had never had much to do with women. And there was nothing in him of the Frenchman, who takes what life puts in his way as so much enjoyment on the credit side, and accepts the ends of such affairs as they naturally and rather rapidly arrive. It had been a pleasure, and was no longer a pleasure; but this apparently did not dissolve it, or absolve him. He felt himself bound by an obscure but deep instinct to go on pretending that he was not tired of her, so long as she was not tired of him. And he sat there trying to remember any sign, however small, of such a consummation, quite without success. On the contrary, he had even the wretched feeling that if only he had loved her, she would have been much more likely to have tired of him by now. For her he was still the unconquered, in spite of his loyal endeavour to seem conquered. He had made a fatal mistake, that evening after the concert at Queen’s Hall, to let himself go, on a mixed tide of desire and pity!

His folly came to him with increased poignancy after he had parted from Noel. How could he have been such a base fool, as to have committed himself to Leila on an evening when he had actually been in the company of that child? Was it the vague, unseizable likeness between them which had pushed him over the edge? ‘I’ve been an ass,’ he thought; ‘a horrible ass.’ I would always have given every hour I’ve ever spent with Leila, for one real smile from that girl.’

This sudden sight of Noel after months during which he had tried loyally to forget her existence, and not succeeded at all, made him realise as he never had yet that he was in love with her; so very much in love with her that the thought of Leila was become nauseating. And yet the instincts of a gentleman seemed to forbid him to betray that secret to either of them. It was an accursed coil! He hailed a cab, for he was late; and all the way back to the War Office he continued to see the girl’s figure and her face with its short hair. And a fearful temptation rose within him. Was it not she who was now the real object for chivalry and pity? Had he not the right to consecrate himself to championship of one in such a deplorable position? Leila had lived her life; but this child’s life – pretty well wrecked – was all before her. And then he grinned from sheer disgust. For he knew that this was Jesuitry. Not chivalry was moving him, but love! Love! Love of the unattainable! And with a heavy heart, indeed, he entered the great building, where, in a small room, companioned by the telephone, and surrounded by sheets of paper covered with figures, he passed his days. The war made everything seem dreary, hopeless. No wonder he had caught at any distraction which came along – caught at it, till it had caught him!