Notwithstanding Part 6

"Yes, it lessens. And then one can attend to other things a little."

And Annette told Mrs. Stoddart the long story of her life. For at twenty-two we have all long, long histories to unfold of our past, if we can find a sympathetic listener. It is only in middle age that we seem to have nothing of interest to communicate. Or is it only that we realize that when once the talisman of youth has slipped out of our hand, our part is to listen?

Mrs. Stoddart certainly listened. She had been ready to do so for a long time.

And Annette told her of her childhood spent in London under the charge of her three spinster aunts. Her mother, an Englishwoman, had been the only good-looking one of four sisters. In the thirties, after some disappointment, she had made a calamitous run-away marriage with a French courier.

"I always thought I could understand mother running away from that home," said Annette. "I would have run away too, if I could. I did once as a small child, but I only got as far as Bethnal Green."

"Then your mother died when you were quite small?"

"Yes; I can just remember being with her in lodgings after she left father--for she had to leave him. But he got all her money from her first--at least, all she had it in her power to give up. I can remember how she used to sob at night when she thought I was asleep. And then, my next remembrance is the aunts and the house in London. They meant to be kind. They were kind. I was their niece, after all. But they were Nevills. It seems it is a very n.o.ble, mysterious thing to be a Nevill.

Now, I was only half a Nevill, and only half English, and dark like father. I take after father. And of course I am not quite a lady. They felt that."

"You look like one," said Mrs. Stoddart.

"Do I? I think that is only because I hold myself well and know how to put on my clothes."

"My dear Annette! As if those two facts could deceive me for a moment!"

"But I am not one, all the same," said Annette. "Gentle-people, I don't mean only the aunts but--_others_, don't regard me as their equal, or--or treat me so."

She was silent for a moment, and her lip quivered. Then she went on quietly--

"The minute I was twenty-one and independent I came into a hundred a year, and I left the aunts. I made them a sort of little speech on my birthday. I can see them now, all three staring at me. And I thanked them for their kindness, especially Aunt Cathie, and told them my mind was quite made up to go and live with father and become a professional singer. I had meant to do it since I was twelve."

"Did they mind much?"

"I did not think so at the time. But I see now they were so astonished that, for the moment, it overcame all other feelings. They were so amazed at my wish to make any movement, go anywhere, do anything. Aunt Harriet the invalid wrung her hands, and said that if only she had not been tied to a sofa my upbringing would have been so different, that I should not have wished to leave them. And Aunt Maria said that she, of all people, would be the last to interfere with a vocation, but she did not consider the stage was a suitable profession for a young girl. Aunt Cathie did not say anything. She only cried. I felt leaving Aunt Cathie.

She had been kind. She had taken me to plays and concerts. She hated music, but she sat through long concerts for my sake. Aunt Maria never had time, and Aunt Harriet never was well enough to do anything she did not like. Aunt Cathie used to slave for them both, and when she had time--for me. I used to think that if the other two died I could have lived with Aunt Cathie. But existing in that house was like just not suffocating under a kind of moral bindweed. When you were vexed with me the other day for tiring myself by tearing the convolvulus off that little orange tree, it was because I could not bear to see it choked. I had been choked myself. But I broke away at last. And I found father. He had married again, a woman in his own rank of life, and was keeping a cabaret in the Rue du Bac. I lived with them for nearly six months, till--last September. I liked the life at first. It was so new and so unaccustomed, and even the slipshodness of it was pleasant after the dry primness of my upbringing. And after all I am my father's daughter. I never could bear her, but he was kind to me in a way, while I had money.

He had been the same to mother. And like mother, I did not find him out at first. I was easily taken in. And he thought it was a capital idea that I should become a singer. He was quite enthusiastic about it. I had a pretty voice. I don't know whether I have it still. But the difficulty was the training, and the money for it. And he found a man, a well-known musician, who was willing to train me for nothing when he had heard me sing. And I was to pay him back later on. And father was very keen about it, and so was I, and so was the musician. He was rather a dreadful man somehow, but I did not mind that. He was a real artist. But after a little bit I found he expected me to pay him another way, and I had to give up going to him. I told father, and he laughed at me for a fool, and told me to go back to him. And when I wouldn't he became very angry, and asked me what I had expected, and said all English were hypocrites.

I ought to have known from that that I could not trust father. And then, when I was very miserable about losing my training, an English gentleman began to be very kind to me."

Annette's voice faltered and stopped. Mrs. Stoddart's thin cheek flushed a little.

Across the shadow of the orange trees a large yellow b.u.t.terfly came floating. Annette's eyes followed it. It settled on a crimson hibiscus, hanging like a flame against the pale stem of a coral tree. The two ardent colours quivered together in the vivid sunshine.

Annette's grave eyes watched the yellow wings close and expand, close and expand, and then rise and float away again.

"He seemed to fall in love with me," she said. "Of course now I know he didn't really; but he seemed to. And he was a real gentleman--not like father, nor that other one, the man who offered to teach me. He seemed honourable. He looked upright and honest and refined. And he was young--not much older than myself, and very charming-looking. He was unlike any of the people in the Quartier Latin. I fell in love with him after a little bit. At first I hung back, because I thought it was too good to be true, too like a fairy story. I had never been in love before. I fell in--very deep. And I was grateful to him for loving me, for he was much above me, the heir to something large and a t.i.tle--I forget exactly what--when his old uncle died. I thought it was so kind of him not to mind the difference of rank.... I am sure you know what is coming. I suppose I ought to have known. But I didn't. I never thought of it. The day came when he asked me very gravely if I loved him, and I said I did, and he told me he loved me. I remember when I was in my room again alone, thinking that whatever life took from me, it could never take that wonderful hour. I should have that as a possession always, when I was old and white-headed. I am afraid now I _shall_ have it always."

Annette pa.s.sed her blue-veined hand over her eyes in a manner that would have outraged the other residents, and then went on:--

"We sat a long time together that evening, with his arm round me, and he talked and I listened, but I was not listening to him. I was listening to love. I knew then that I had never lived before, never known anything before. I seemed to have waked up suddenly in Paradise, and I was dazed.

Perhaps he did not realize that. It was like walking in a long, long field of lilies under a new moon. I told him it was like that, and he said it was the same to him. Perhaps he thought he had said things to show me his meaning. Perhaps he thought father had told me. But I did not understand. And then--a few hours later--I had to understand suddenly, without any warning. I thought he had gone mad, but it was I who went mad. And I locked myself into my room, and crept out of the house at dawn, when all was quiet. I realized father had sold me. That was why I told you I had no home to go to.... And I walked and walked in the early morning in the river mist, not knowing what I was doing. At last, when I was worn out, I went and sat where there was a lot of wood stacked on a great wharf. No one saw me because of the mist. And I sat still and tried to think. But I could not think. It was as if I had fallen from the top of the house. Part of me was quite inert, like a stupid wounded animal, staring at the open wound. And the other part of me was angry with a cold anger that seemed to mount and mount: that jeered at everything, and told me I had made a fuss about nothing, and I might just as well go back and be his mistress--anybody's mistress: that there was nothing true or beautiful or pure or clean in the world.

Everything was a seething ma.s.s of immorality and putrefaction, and he was only the same as all the rest.... And all the time I could hear the river speaking through the mist, hinting at something it would not quite say. At last, when the sun was up, the mist cleared, and workmen came, and I had to go. And I wandered away again near the water. I clung to the river, it seemed to know something. And I went and stood on the Pont Neuf and made up my mind. I would go down to Melun and drown myself there.... And then Mr. Le Geyt came past, whom I knew a little--a very little. And he asked me why I was looking at the water. And I said I was going to drown myself. And he saw I meant it, and made light of it, and advised me to go down to Fontainebleau with him instead, for a week. And I did not care what I did. I went with him. I was glad in a way. I thought--_he_--would hear of it. I wanted to hurt him."

"You did not know what you were doing."

"Oh yes, I did. I didn't misunderstand again--I was not so silly as _that_. It was only the accident of d.i.c.k's illness which prevented my going wrong with him."

Mrs. Stoddart started.

"Then you never----" she said diffidently, but with controlled agitation.

"No," said Annette, "but it's the same as if I had. I meant to."

There was a moment's silence.

"No one," thought Mrs. Stoddart, "but Annette would have left me all these months believing the worst had happened--not because she was concealing the truth purposely, but because it did not strike her that I could regard her as innocent when she did not consider herself so."

"It is not the same as if you had," said Mrs. Stoddart sternly. "If you mean to do a good and merciful action, and something prevents you, is it the same as if you had done it? Is anyone the better for it?"

"No."

"Well, then, remember, Annette, that it is the same with evil actions.

You were not actually guilty of it. Be thankful you were not."

"I am."

"When I saw you that first night at Fontainebleau, I thought you were on the verge of brain fever. I never slept for thinking of you."

"Well, you were right," said Annette tranquilly. "I suppose that is what you nursed me through. But that night I had no idea I was ill."

"You were absolutely desperate."

"Was I? I was angry. I must never be angry like that again. d.i.c.k said that, and he was right. Do you know what I was thinking of when you came out to me with the milk? Once, long ago, when I was a child, I was sent to a country farm after an illness, and I saw one of the farm hands moving some f.a.ggots. And behind it on the ground was a nest with a hen, a common hen, sitting on it, and a little baby-chicken looking out from under her wing. She was just hatching them out. I was quite delighted. I had never seen anything so pretty before. And the stupid men frightened her, and she thought they were coming for her young ones. And first she spread out her wings over them, and then she became angry. A kind of dreadful rage took her. And she trod down the eggs with her great feet, the eggs she had sat patiently on so long; and then she killed the little chickens with her strong beak. I can see her now, standing at bay in her broken nest with her bill streaming, making a horrible low sound.

Don't laugh at me when I say that I felt just like that old hen. I was ready to rend everything to pieces, myself included, that night. When I was a child I thought it so strange of the hen to behave like that. I laughed at her at the time--just as d.i.c.k laughed at me. But I understand her now--poor thing."

CHAPTER VII

"The larger the nature the less susceptible to personal injury."

It was a few days later. Annette, leaning on Mrs. Stoddart's arm, had made a pilgrimage as far as the low garden wall to look at the little golden-brown calf on the other side tethered to a twisted shrub of plumbago, the blue flowers of which spread themselves into a miniature canopy over him. Now she was lying back, exhausted but triumphant, in her long chair, with Mrs. Stoddart knitting beside her.

"I shall be walking up there to-morrow," she said audaciously, pointing to the fantastic cactus-sprinkled volcanic hills rising steeply behind the house on the northern side.

Mrs. Stoddart vouchsafed no reply. Annette, more tired than she would allow, leaned back. Her eyes fell on the same view, which might have been painted on a drop scene so fixed was it, so identical in colour and light day after day. But to-day it proved itself genuine by the fact that a large German steamer, not there yesterday, was moored in the bay, so placed that it seemed to be impaled on the spike of the tallest tower, and keeping up the illusion by making from time to time a rumbling and unseemly noise as if in pain.

"You must own now that I am well," said Annette.

"Very nearly. You shall come up to the tomato-gardens to-morrow, and see the Spanish women working in their white trousers."

"My head never aches now."