Across the Stream

So here again was this inexplicable mention of a warning, and Archie's conscious mind was blank with regard to any such warning. But the repetition of it did not long occupy him, for immediately he found that the inhibition between his brain and his hand was gone, and sentence after sentence of his sea-sketch flowed through his fingers. By degrees, but not till a couple of his pages were full, did the inspiration exhaust itself, and then he lay back on the sand again full of the ecstasy that always accompanies the completion of a piece of work that has been done as the creator meant to do it. Bad or good, it has fulfilled his intention.

His brain brooded over that for a little, and then slipped back to the incident that had preceded it. He could make nothing at all of it, and, determining to dismiss it from his mind, and speak of it to nobody, he tore up the sheet that contained the message, buried the fragments in the sand, and lay back again roasting himself in the sun. Soon that delectable warmth would increase on his bare limbs, till they cried out for the cool embraces of the sea again, and he would fling himself into it. But just for a little longer he would stew and stupefy himself in the sun and with half-closed eyes watch the vibration of the hot air over the beach and listen to the hiss of the ripples. Except for them the morning was extremely quiet, the sun poured down over his outspread limbs, the sea waited for him. And, as he lay there and dozed, the memory of his evil dream went across his brain like a flash, and vanished again.

* * * * *

Already the Italian days were beginning to draw to their sunny end; they were numbered and could be easily counted. Both Archie and Jessie counted them when they woke in the morning, and in the evening both said to themselves, "Another day gone." But their reflections on this diminishing tale and the colour of their emotions were absolutely opposed, for while they both intensely enjoyed these Italian hours, Jessie counted them with the grudging sense of a school-boy who enumerates the remaining days of his holiday; but to Archie they were the days of term-time which still (though enjoyable) must be got through before the holidays began. Never before had he contemplated a stay in town with eagerness; but now, as he thought of her who would be living with them, he had never been so expectantly enamoured of London.

At the close of their last day the divine serenity of June weather was troubled, and, as evening drew on, the clouds, which for a few hours past had been weaving wisps and streamers over the sky, grew to a thick curtain that stretched from horizon to horizon. It was of opaque grey, but here and there in it were lines and patches of much darker texture, as if it had been rent, and had been darned again with a blacker thread. Instead of the coolness which succeeded sunset, the heat, clear no longer, but impure like the air of a closed room, got ever sultrier, and, for the refreshment of the evening breeze from the sea, there was exchanged a stifling stagnation. All life had gone out of the atmosphere: it was as if some immense Othello was smothering the world. The air was heavy and charged with electricity, but as yet no remote winking of lightning nor rumble of thunder showed that there was relief coming.

They had dined out in the garden, where the candles burned unwaveringly in the stillness, and afterwards had strolled to the far angle of the supporting wall of the fortress, where, if anywhere, they might find some hint of movement in this intolerable calm. But no breath visited them even there, and the very bamboos that grew at the corner of the garden-bed were as motionless as if they had been made of lead.

Archie mopped his streaming forehead.

"If it interests anybody," he remarked, "I may say that I am going to die. I can't bear it any longer. I think I shall die in about half an hour."

Jessie fanned herself. That did not do a particle of good, it only seemed to make her hotter, as when you stir the water in a hot bath. But she tried to interest herself in Archie's approaching decease.

"And are we to take your corpse back to England to-morrow?" she asked.

"Just as you like. I shall have no more use for it. Lord, and I haven't finished packing yet. Fancy having to pack in this heat."

"You needn't, surely, if you're going to die."

"I must. My immortal manuscript would be lost in the general confusion caused by my death. Or shall I go to bed? It can't be hotter in my hammock than here. Yes, I shall get into my pyjamas, go to bed, and do my packing in the morning."

He trailed off into the house, and presently appeared again attired for bed and strolled across to them.

"Well, I'll wish you a good-night," he said, "but I very much doubt whether you'll get it. You needn't do the same to me, for I know I shan't, and your wishes would be hollow."

He moved away again towards the stone-pine where his hammock was hung, a pale tall ghost of a figure against the blackness.

Then, quite suddenly, some panic impulse seized Jessie, the result perhaps of her overstrung nerves and the overcharged atmosphere, and she sprang up, not knowing why.

"Wait a moment, Archie," she cried. "Don't go – something is going to happen."

Even as she spoke the whole world seemed enveloped in fire, and the core of the fire, a white-hot line, plunged downwards into the stone-pine, which was rent from top to bottom. Absolute blackness filled with the deafening roar of the thunder and deluging rain succeeded, and they rushed towards the shelter of the house.

For a moment they all three stood there recovering their balance from that tremendous crash and convulsion. Then Archie, with his soaked silk clinging close to his shoulders and legs, turned to Jessie.

"I wonder why you called out to me," he said. "What made you do it? You saved my life, I expect."

Jessie laughed; little as she was given to hysteria that laugh was half-way towards uncontrollable tears.

"Why, I didn't want you to die in half an hour," she said lightly.

* * * * *

But she remembered that moment when it came for her to save Archie's life indeed. Some inexplicable signal from love had flashed upon her that night, and should flash upon her again.

CHAPTER VII

Helena was having breakfast by the open window of her bedroom in her cousin's house. It was not yet nine in the morning, and, though she had been dancing till three o'clock, she had already had her bath, and was feeling as fresh as if she had had eight instead of hardly more than four hours in bed. Outside the square was still empty of passengers, and the pale primrose-coloured sunshine of a London June shone on a wet roadway and rain-refreshed trees, for a shower had fallen not long ago, and through the open window there came in the delicious smell of damp earth. But she gave little heed to that or to the breakfast she was eating with so admirable an appetite, for her brain, cool and alert in this early hour, was very busy over her own concerns. Soon she would have to go down to Cousin Marion and see if she could be of any use to her, for it was quite worth while doing jobs for Cousin Marion, as she always paid kindnesses back with a royal generosity. And she must get some flowers to give a welcoming air to Archie's room, who with Jessie was expected back to-day. That also would not be a waste of the time she might have spent more directly on herself. She would get some for Jessie, too, for she had the character of unselfish thoughtfulness to keep up. It would be unnecessary to pay for them, for she could get them at the shop where Cousin Marion dealed.

Helena had enjoyed the most entrancing fortnight, during which time she had occasionally thought of Silorno, and had oftener talked of it to Cousin Marion, for she had that valuable social gift of appearing to talk with keen attention of one thing while she was thinking about something quite different. She could easily interject "Dear Archie, it will be nice to have him back," or "Darling Jessie wrote me such a delicious letter: she is enjoying herself!" and if Cousin Marion expressed a wish to see the letter, it was equally easy to say that she had torn it up. Meantime her brain would be busy with recollections of the day before, as they bore on her plans for the day to come. They might go off on to tangents for brief spaces, but her well-ordered and singly-purposed mind was never long in recalling them to their main topic.

Helena had made something of a sensation during these last weeks. She was not beautiful, but she was quite enchantingly pretty, and her mind had the qualities which might rightly be supposed to underlie that delicious face and inform those slim, graceful limbs. Nothing seemed to mar her good-nature and her superb gift of enjoying herself. It was worth while being agreeable to everybody, and if her lot happened for an hour or two a day to be cast with elderly bores, she was indefatigable in her attention to them at the time, and in telling their friends afterwards how immensely she had enjoyed talking to them. It paid to do that sort of thing, provided that it was done with a gaiety that made it appear genuine and spontaneous: if your appreciation came bubbling out of you, no one suspected you of design, and she seemed the most designless, delicious girl in London, for it is next to impossible to see through an object that dazzles you. To crown all these gifts, she had the intensest power of enjoying herself, and there is not another key that unlocks so many doors. In this whirl and mill-race of entertainment which characterized the last gay summer that London would see for long, there was no time to make friends, but only to take the scalps of enthusiastic acquaintances. That perhaps was lucky for her.

But Helena, as she finished her breakfast, recalled her mind from these shining experiences, except in so far as they bore on the theme that insistently occupied her. There was no doubt, especially after that quiet talk in the paved garden outside the ball-room last night, that Bertie Harlow was dazzled, according to plan. Heaven only knew when he had last been to a ball, for he was close on forty (Helena had naturally looked him up in a Peerage, since she liked to know about her friends), and she felt pretty certain that he had danced with no one but her. You could perhaps hardly call his share of the performance dancing; he had "stepped a measure," and twice trodden on her toe; but, after all, it did not matter whether your husband danced or not, since naturally, when those relations had been arrived at, he would not dance with you. Many women no doubt, when they were married, would think it an advantage that their husbands did not dance, since then they would not dance with anybody else. But it was not in Helena's nature prospectively to grudge him such amusements, should he desire them, when once she had got him. But she had to get him first, and to do that she had to keep him dazzled. He must not get accustomed to her.

Helena had a very strong belief in the desirability of simplifying life. This did not in the least imply that she thought there was anything attractive in the simple life: her simplification amounted to this, that she formulated exactly what she wanted, and then without deflection of aim did the very best with her efficient armoury of weapons to get it; while the second clause in the simplification of life was to find out what irritated or bored you, and with all your power eliminate it from your existence. If you could not get what you wanted without getting something that bored you, it was merely necessary to ascertain how the balance between these conflicting interests lay. As practically applied to the case in hand, she was aware that Lord Harlow bored her, though not badly, and that his nose irritated her. That she would almost certainly get used to, while on the other side of the scale were quantities of things she liked. She liked immense wealth, position, and the liberty she would undoubtedly enjoy if she married this amiable man, whom so many had tried to capture. That in itself was an incentive to her pride, and, without being a snob, she saw no objection to being a Marchioness.

But here the simplification ended, and a complication intruded itself. It was not so long ago that she had sat under the stone-pine with Archie, and seen his face glow in the darkness as he drew on his cigarette. In point of attractiveness there was naturally no comparison between her cousin and this amiable middle-aged man; but, owing to the impossibility of even the most limited polyandry, it was clearly no use to think of marrying them both, and all that was left was to choose between them, supposing, as she most sincerely did, that it was, or soon would be, for her to choose. Certainly she was not in love with Archie, if she took as an example of that the ridiculous symptoms exhibited by Daisy Hollinger, who by some strange freak was in love with Lord Harlow. Helena had behaved very wisely over that, for she had instantly seen the advantage of becoming great friends, in her sense of the word, with poor Daisy, who poured out to her a farrago of amorous imbecility, and Helena was sure that she was not in love with Archie like that. Anything so insane seemed incomprehensible to her (and was).

But Archie was a dear – she had quite wished he would kiss her that night, of course in a cousinly fashion, which she would have scorned to be offended with, whereas she did not in the least look forward to the moment when Lord Harlow would kiss her. Apart from that, the simplification of life came in again, and against Archie there were certain items which it would be imprudent to disregard. His father was a drunkard, and Archie himself had been consumptive as a child. Consumption ran in families, for Archie's brother had died of it; and so perhaps did drunkenness, though she did Archie the justice of trying and failing to remember that she had ever seen him drink wine at all. These were serious objections in a husband.

There was another, perhaps not less serious. She knew from Cousin Marion that Uncle Jack had lately lost a great deal of money; there was even the question of shutting up or letting the London house next winter. Of course, if she married Archie, they could not spend the winter down at Lacebury, or live with poor Uncle Jack; but London, as wife of an impoverished son, would be very different from London as the wife of a very wealthy man who, so to speak, was nobody's son. Finally, there were certain stories that Cousin Marion had told her about queer messages and communications that had come to Archie, while he was still a child, from his dead brother. That seemed to Helena's practical mind pure nonsense, and yet she had been pleased to hear that, since he was but young in his teens, these rather uncomfortable phenomena had ceased. She felt that she did not believe in them; but, though they had no real existence, she disliked the thought of them. And, though it was so long since there had been any repetition of them, they might (though they were all nonsense) crop up again. She had no belief in ghosts, but she would not willingly have slept in a haunted room. The dead were dead, whereas she was very much alive.

Well, it was time to dress and go down to Cousin Marion. This long, frank meditation (for she was always frank with herself, which perhaps was the reason that she had so little of that commodity to spare for other people) had helped considerably to clear her mind and provoke simplification. And, like a good housewife who will permit no waste of what can possibly be used, she thought she would have a very useful function for Archie to perform when he arrived that evening.

She found Lady Tintagel busy with her morning's post. There was a quantity of invitations, most of which, owing to press of others, had to be declined, and Helena having marked each of those with an "Accept" or "Refuse," laid them aside to answer. There was one, where the Russian dancers were to perform, which she very much regretted having to say "no" to, since that evening was already filled, and wondered if by any contrivance it would be possible to manage it. A glance at Lady Tintagel's engagement book showed her that the prohibiting acceptance was for a dinner and concert at Lady Awcock's, where all that was stately and Victorian spent evenings of unparalleled dreariness. Helena had already produced the most favourable impression on Lady Awcock by listening to her practically endless dissertations on political society forty years ago, and she thought she could manage it.

"And shall I enter all the invitation you accept in your engagement-book, Cousin Marion?" she asked.

"Yes, my dear, will you? That's really all I have for you this morning.

What will you do with yourself?"

Helena gathered up cards and engagement-book.

"I think I shall stop at home," she said. "You often do want something more, you know, and I hate not being here to do it for you."

"Nothing of the sort. There's the motor for you if you want to go and see anybody."

Helena considered.

"Oh, I should like to do one thing," she said. "It won't take long. May I get some flowers for Archie's room and Jessie's? Flowers do look so cool and refreshing when you've been a day and a night in the train."

"Of course you may. It was nice of you to think of that. But then you do think of rather nice things for other people."

"Oh, shut up, Cousin Marion," laughed the girl.

* * * * *

Helena retired to the table in the window with her materials and proceeded to execute a very neat and simple piece of work. The entries in Lady Tintagel's engagement-book were only made in pencil, and she erased the inconvenient Lady Awcock's name from the evening some fortnight ahead and wrote in its place that of the giver of the Russian party, to whom instead of a refusal she sent a line, in her cousin's name, of grateful acceptance. Then she wrote a charming little letter of penitence to Lady Awcock, abasing herself and at the same time pitying herself. She had done the stupidest thing; for she had accepted Lady Awcock's invitation on an evening when they were already engaged. The letter proceeded: "I can't tell you how disappointed I am, dear Lady Awcock, for I was so looking forward to another talk with you, and to hear more of those interesting things you told me; but perhaps, if I have not disgusted you beyond forgiveness, you would ask me again some day. And would you be wonderfully kind and not tell Lady Tintagel what a stupid thing I have done, for she lets me keep her engagement-book for her, and if she knew, I am afraid she would never trust me again."

This last touch thoroughly pleased Helena; it was confiding and childlike. For the rest she relied on Cousin Marion not happening to remember that they had once accepted an invitation to Lady Awcock's, and, even if she did have some impression of it, her engagement-book, with no such entry appearing in it, would show her that her memory had played her false. But probably Cousin Marion would remember nothing whatever about it; indeed, in the multiplicity of engagement, it seemed to Helena that the risk she ran was negligible.

Helena found time to go to Victoria to meet the travellers that afternoon, and to reflect, as she waited for the boat-train to come in, that she in her cool pink blouse and her skirt of Poiret stuff would certainly present a very refreshing contrast to poor Jessie in dishevelled and dusty travelling-clothes. She did not in the least want Jessie to look bedraggled except in so far as she herself would gain by the contrast, for she was good-natured enough not to want any one to be at a disadvantage as long as that did not add to her own advantage. Jessie was a dreadfully bad sailor, too; but it was quite enough that she should have travelled for a night and a day, without hoping that she had had a bad crossing. Helena merely wanted to appear fresh and brilliant herself. At length the train came in, and, though she quite distinctly saw Archie step out, she continued searching for him with her eyes in the crowd, until he made his way up to her.