Maurice Guest Part 15

"Don't be afraid," she said, and the smile lingered on her lips. "I shall never do it. I'm too fond of life, and too afraid of death. But at least," she caught herself up again, "you will see how ridiculous it is for you to talk to me of your peace of mind. Peace of mind! I have never even been pa.s.sably content. Something is always wanting.

To-night, for instance, I feel so much energy in me, and I can make nothing of it--nothing! If I were a man, I should walk for hours, bareheaded, through the woods. But to be a woman ... to be cooped up inside four walls ... when the night itself is not large enough to hold it all!----"

She threw out her hands to emphasise her helplessness, then let them drop to her sides again. There was a silence, for Maurice could not think of anything to say; her fluency made him tongue-tied. He struggled with his embarra.s.sment until they were all but within earshot of the rest, at the bottom of the street.

"If I ... if you would let me ... There is nothing in the world I wouldn't do to help you," he ended fervently.

She did not reply; they had reached the corner where the others waited.

There was a general leave-taking. Through a kind of mist, Maurice saw that Ephie's face still wore a hostile look; and she hardly moved her lips when she bade him good-night.

Madeleine drew her own conclusions as she walked the rest of the way home between two pale and silent people. She had seen, on coming out of the theatre, that Louise was in one of her bad moods--a fact easily to be accounted for by Schilsky's absence. Maurice had evidently been made to suffer under it, too, for not a syllable was to be drawn from him, and, after several unavailing attempts she let him alone.

As they crossed the ROSSPLATZ, which lay wide and deserted in the starlight, Louise said abruptly: "Suppose, instead of going home, we walk to Connewitz?"

At this proposal, and at Maurice's seconding of it, Madeleine laughed with healthy derision.

"That is just like one of your crazy notions," she said "What a creature you are! For my part, I decline with thanks. I have to get a Moscheles ETUDE ready by to-morrow afternoon, and need all my wits. But don't let me hinder you. Walk to Grimma if you want to."

"What do you say? Shall you and I go on?" Louise turned to Maurice; and the young man did not know whether she spoke in jest or in earnest.

Madeleine knew her better. "Louise!" she said warningly. "Maurice has work to do to-morrow, too."

"You thought I meant it," said the girl, and laughed so ungovernably that Madeleine was again driven to remonstrance.

"For goodness' sake, be quiet! We shall have a policeman after us, if you laugh like that."

Nothing more was said until they stood before the housedoor in the BRUDERSTRa.s.sE. There Louise, who had lapsed once more into her former indifference, asked Madeleine to come upstairs with her.

"I will look for the purse again; and then I can give you what I owe you. Or else I am sure to forget. Oh, it's still early; and the night is so long. No one can think of sleep yet."

Madeleine was not a night-bird, but she was also not averse to having a debt paid. Louise looked from her to Maurice. "Will you come, too, Mr.

Guest? It will only take a few minutes," she said, and, seeing his unhappy face, and remembering what had pa.s.sed between them, she spoke more gently than she had yet done.

Maurice felt that he ought to refuse; it was late. But Madeleine answered for him. "Of course. Come along, Maurice," and he crossed the threshold behind them.

After lighting a taper, they entered a paved vestibule, and mounted a flight of broad and very shallow stairs; half-way up, there was a deep recess for pot-plants, and a wooden seat was attached to the wall. The house had been a fine one in its day; it was solidly built, had ma.s.sive doors with heavy bra.s.s fittings, and thick mahogany banisters. On the first floor were two doors, a large and a small one, side by side.

Louise unlocked the larger, and they stepped into a commodious lobby, off which several rooms opened. She led the way to the furthest of these, and entered in front of her companions.

Maurice, hesitating just inside the door, found himself close to a grand piano, which stood free on all sides, was open, and disorderly with music. It was a large room, with three windows; and one end of it was shut off by a high screen, which stretched almost from wall to wall. A deep sofa stood in an oriel-window; a writing-table was covered with bric-a-brac, and three tall flower-vases were filled with purple lilac. But there was a general air of untidiness about the room; for strewn over the chairs and tables were numerous small articles of dress and the toilet-hairpins, a veil, a hat and a skirt--all traces of her intimate presence.

As she lifted the lamp from the writing-table to place it on the square table before the sofa, Madeleine called her attention to a folded paper that had lain beneath it.

"It seems to be a letter for you."

She caught at it with a kind of avidity, tore it open, and heedless of their presence, devoured it, not only with her eyes: but with her parted lips and eager hands. When she looked up again, her cheeks had a tinge of colour in them; her eyes shone like faceted jewels; her smile was radiant and infectious. With no regard for appearances, she b.u.t.toned the note in the bosom of her dress.

"Now we will look for the purse," she said. "But come in, Mr.

Guest--you are still standing at the door. I shall think you are offended with me. Oh, how hot the room is!--and the lilac is stifling.

First the windows open! And then this scarf off, and some more light.

You will help me to look, will you not?"

It was to Maurice she spoke, with a childlike upturning of her face to his--an irresistibly confiding gesture. She disappeared behind the screen, and came out bareheaded, nestling with both hands at the coil of hair on her neck. Then she lit two candles that stood on the piano in bra.s.s candlesticks, and Maurice lighted her round the room, while she searched in likely and unlikely places--inside the piano, in empty vases, in the folds of the curtains--laughing at herself as she did so, until Madeleine said that this was only nonsense, and came after them herself. When Maurice held the candle above the writing-table, he lighted three large photographs of Schilsky, one more dandified than the other; and he was obliged to raise his other hand to steady the candlestick.

At last, following a hint from Madeleine, they discovered the purse between the back of the sofa and the seat; and now Louise remembered that it had been in the pocket of her dressing-gown that afternoon.

"How stupid of me! I might have known," she said contritely. "So many things have gone down there in their day. Once a silver hair-brush that I was fond of; and I sometimes look there when bangles or hat-pins are missing," and letting her eyes dance at Maurice, she threw back her head and laughed.

Here, however, another difficulty arose; except for a few nickel coins, the purse was found to contain only gold, and the required change could not be made up.

"Never mind; take one of the twenty-mark pieces," she urged. "Yes, Madeleine, I would rather you did;" and when Madeleine hinted that Maurice might not find it too troublesome to come back with the change the following day, she turned to the young man, and saying: "Yes, if Mr. Guest would be so kind," smiled at him with such a gracious warmth that it was all he could do to reply with a decent unconcern.

But the hands of the clock on the writing-table were nearing half-past eleven, and now it was she who referred to the lateness of the hour.

"Thank you very much," she said to Maurice on parting. "And you must forget the nonsense I talked this evening. I didn't mean it--not a word of it." She laughed and held out her hand. "I wouldn't shake hands with you this afternoon, but now--if you will? For to-night I am not superst.i.tious. Nothing bad will happen; I'm sure of that. And I am very much obliged to you--for everything. Good night."

Only a few minutes back, he had been steeped in pity for her; now it seemed as if no one had less need of pity or sympathy than she. He was bewildered, and went home to pa.s.s alternately from a mood of rapture to one of jealous despair. And the latter was torturous, for, as they walked, Madeleine had let fall such a vile suspicion that he had parted from her in anger, calling as he went that if he believed what she said to be true, he would never put faith in a human being again.

In the light of the morning, of course, he knew that it was incredible, a mere phantasm born of the dark; and towards four o'clock that afternoon, he called at the BRUDERSTRa.s.sE with the change. But Louise was not at home, and as he did not find her in on three successive days, he did not venture to return. He wrote his name on a card, and left this, together with the money, in an envelope.

X.

After parting from the rest, Dove and the two Cayhills continued their way in silence: they were in the shadow thrown by the steep vaulting of the THOMASKIRCHE, before a word was exchanged between them. Johanna had several times glanced inquiringly at her sister, but Ephie had turned away her head, so that only the outline of her cheek was visible, and as Dove had done exactly the same, Johanna could only conclude that the two had fallen out. It was something novel for her to be obliged to talk when Ephie was present, but it was impossible for them to walk the whole way home as mum as this, especially as Dove had already heaved more than one deep sigh.

So, as they turned into the PROMENADE, Johanna said with a jerk, and with an aggressiveness that she could not subdue: "Well, that is the first and the last time anyone shall persuade me to go to a so-called opera by Wagner."

"Is not that just a little rash?" asked Dove. He smiled, unruffled, with a suggestion of patronage; but there was also a preoccupation in his manner, which showed that he was thinking of other things.

"You call that music," said Johanna, although he had done nothing of the kind. "I call it noise. I am not musical myself, thank goodness, but at least I know a tune when I hear one."

"If my opinion had been asked, I should certainly have suggested something lighter--LOHENGRIN OR TANNHAUSER, for instance," said Dove.

"You would have done us a favour if you had," replied Johanna; and she meant what she said, in more ways than one. She had been at a loss to account for Ephie's sudden longing to hear DIE WALKURE, and had gone to the theatre against her will, simply because she never thwarted Ephie if she could avoid it. Now, after she had heard the opera, she felt aggrieved with Dove as well; as far as she had been able to gather from his vague explanations, from the bawling of the singers, and from subsequent events, the first act treated of relations so infamous that, by common consent, they are considered non-existent; and Johanna was of the opinion that, instead of being so ready to take tickets for them, Dove might have let drop a hint of the nature of the piece Ephie wished to see.

After this last remark of Johanna's there was another lengthy pause.

Then Dove, looking fondly at what he could see of Ephie's cheek, said: "I am afraid Miss Ephie has not enjoyed it either; she is so quiet--so unlike herself."

Ephie, who had been staring into the darkness, bit her lip: he was at it again. After the unfriendly way in which Maurice Guest had deserted her, and forced her into Dove's company, Dove had worried her right down the GRIMMAISCHESTRa.s.sE, to know what the matter was, and how he had offended her. She felt exasperated with every one, and if he began his worryings again, would have to vent her irritation somehow.

"Ephie has only herself to blame if she didn't enjoy it; she was bent on going," said Johanna, in the mildly didactic manner she invariably used towards her sister. "But I think she is only tired--or a little cross."

"Oh, that is not likely," Dove hastened to interpose.

"I am not cross, Joan," said Ephie angrily. "And if it was my fault you had to come--I've enjoyed myself very much, and I shall go again, as often as I like. But I won't be teased--I won't indeed!"

This was the sharpest answer Johanna had ever received from Ephie. She looked at her in dismay, but made no response, for of nothing was Johanna more afraid than of losing the goodwill Ephie bore her.

Mentally she put her sister's pettishness down to the noise and heat of the theatre, and it was an additional reason for bearing Wagner and his music a grudge. Dove also made no further effort to converse connectedly, but his silence was of a conciliatory kind, and, as they advanced along the PROMENADE, he could not deny himself the pleasure of drawing the pretty, perverse child's attention to the crossings, the ruts in the road, the best bits of pavement, with a: "Walk you here, Miss Ephie," "Take care," "Allow me," himself meanwhile dancing from one side of the footpath to the other, until the young girl was almost distracted.