Poppy Part 51

"You won't be able to see to darn holes," said Poppy.

"Ah! you don't know Billy's holes," Clem answered sadly. "And Cinthie inherits the gentle trait. It is _too_ bad, for I hate darning."

She settled as near the window as she dared, and sat peering her glimmering head over her work, while they talked in desultory fashion: but the storm got worse, the thunder groaned more terribly.

"G.o.d sounds as though He is tearing His heart out to throw it under the feet of dancing women and men," said Poppy, in a voice that rang with some unusual emotion.

Clem Portal looked at her in astonishment.

"Darling, I ought to rebuke you for blasphemy."

To her astonishment the girl burst into wild weeping.

"No ... it isn't blasphemy ... I am in pain, Clem ... these storms ... a storm like this reminds me of when I was a child ... I was once out in a storm like this."

"You?"

"Yes ... once ... on the veldt ... for three days."

"On the veldt!" repeated Clem; a streak of lightning tore through the room, showing her for an instant a tortured face. She reached out and took the girl's hands in hers, gripping them tight. Dimly, through the rumble of the thunder, she heard Poppy's voice.

"Yes ... out on the veldt ... I, whom you think have only been in Africa for a few months at a time ... I, the gently-nurtured English girl! ...

educated at Cheltenham College! ... I did not actually tell you these things, Clem, but I let you believe them ... they are all lies ... I was born in Africa ... I have roamed the veldt lean and hungry ... been a little beaten vagabond in the streets."

"Dear," said Clem, with the utmost tenderness and gentleness; "what do these things matter--except that they have made you suffer? ... they have made you the woman you are, and that is all I care to know.... I have always known that there was a wound ... don't make it bleed afresh ... I love you too well to want to hear anything that it hurts to tell ... always believe this, Poppy ... I love and trust you above any woman I have ever known."

"Clem, you are too kind and good to me.... I am not worthy even to speak to you, to touch you.... It is nothing when I say I love you ... I bless you ... I think there is nothing in the world I would not do for you....

I did not know one woman could be so sweet to another as you have been to me ... you are like the priceless box of sweet-smelling nard that the harlot broke over the feet of Christ ... and I ... Ah! Christ! What am I?"

Dense blackness filled the room. In it nothing was heard but the sound of deep weeping. Outside the storm raged on. But when next a gleam of light flashed through the windows, the figure of a kneeling woman was revealed clasped in another woman's arms.

"I am weary of falseness, Clem ... weary of my lips' false tales ...

since I have been near you and seen your true unafraid eyes ... the frank clear turn of your mouth that has never lied to anyone ... I have died many deaths ... you can never know how I have suffered ... pure women don't know what suffering there is in the world, it is no use pretending they do ... they are wonderful, they shine.... O! what wouldn't _we_ give to shine with that lovely cold, pure glow ... but they can't take from us what our misery has bought."

"Poppy, don't tell me anything," the older woman said steadily. "I don't want to know ... whatever Life has made you do, or think, or say ... I don't care! I love you. I am your friend. I know that the root of you is sound. Who am I that I should sit in judgment? It is all a matter of luck ... G.o.d was good to me ... I had a good mother and a fleet foot ...

when I smelt danger I ran ... I had been trained to run ... you had not, perhaps, and you stayed ... that's the only difference----"

Poppy laughed bitterly at the lame ending.

"The difference lies deeper than that ... you are generous, Clem, but truth is truth, and I should like to speak it to you now and always ...

confession has no attractions for me, and I once told a man I should never confess to a woman----"

"Silence is always best, dear," Clem said. "When a woman learns to be silent about herself, she gains power that nothing else can give her.

And words can forge themselves into such terrible weapons to be used against one--sometimes by hands we love."

"It would be a relief to clean my heart and lips to you, dear, once and for all. Let me tell you--even the name I use is not my own!"

"I don't care. What does a name matter?"

"Well, my name is not Rosalind Chard, nor Lucy Grey, nor Eve Destiny, nor Anne Latimer, nor Helen Chester, though I have called myself by all of these at some time in my life. My real name is Poppy Destin ... 'an Irish vagabond born in Africa.'"

"What do these things matter?"

"My life, for the last three years, has been a struggle in deep waters to keep myself from I know not what deeper deeps----"

"I have always maintained that a woman has a right to use whatever weapons come to hand in the fight with life, Poppy."

"So have I," Poppy laughed discordantly, "and my weapons have been--lies. Oh, how I have lied, Clem! All the tears of all the years cannot wash me clean of the lies I've told ... I feel you shivering ...

you hate me!"

"No, Poppy--only I can't understand why! What could have been worth it?"

"Ah! you think nothing is worth blackening your soul for, Clem! That is where you will not understand."

"I will try to understand, dear one ... tell me. One thing I am sure of, it was never wanton. You had some miserable reason."

"_Miserable!_ I am misery's own!" she cried pa.s.sionately. "She marked me with a red cross before I was born.... Well! let me tell you ... have you ever noticed the look of candour and innocence about my face, Clem?

More especially my eyes?... all lies! I am not candid; I am not innocent ... I never was ... even when I was twelve I could understand the untold tale of pa.s.sion in an old black woman's eyes ... she had only one breast, and she showed me that as a reason for having no home and children of her own.... I understood without being told, that in the sweet hour of her life the cup was dashed from her lips ... her lover left her when he found her malformed.... Immediately I began to sing a paean of praise to the G.o.ds that _my_ lover would never go lacking the gift of my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I made a song--all Africa knows it now:

"'I thank thee, Love, for two round b.r.e.a.s.t.s----'"

"And what harm in that?" cried Clem, staunchly. "When Cinthie is twelve, will you want her to be thinking of lover's caresses?"

"You would not have been, either, if you'd had a mother's caresses. Your nature was starving for love, poor child!"

"You have a tender heart for sinners."

"I don't consider you a very bad sinner, darling."

"You don't know all the lies yet.... I am going to tell you _something_ of what the last three years have been ... three years of lying to get a living ... lying to get money: the stage, governessing, serving in shops, nursing invalids, reading to old women ... there was a great variety about my _roles_ in life, Clem, except for one faithful detail.... Everywhere I went and in everything I undertook, a man cropped up and stood in the path. There was something special about me, it seemed, that brought them unerringly my way--nothing less than my _wonderful innocence_. That drew them as the magnet draws steel ...

lured them like a new gold-diggings.... And they all wanted to open the portals of knowledge for me ... to show me the golden way into the wondrous city of Love. And I?... I had the mouth and eyes of a saint!

Sin was not for me.... I was pure as the untrodden snow! I looked into their eyes and asked them to spare me ... I told them I was good and adjured them by their mothers to leave me so. At first they were always deeply impressed, but later they became slightly bored.... The affair nearly always ended in weariness and a promise on my part never to forget that I had a _real_ friend if I should ever want one, and I understood very well what _that_ meant, but invariably I pretended that I did not, and went my way innocent-eyed.... But there were variations on this ... sometimes they insisted on showing me devoted friendship in the meantime ... and their purses were to hand. In such cases I always helped myself liberally ... I had an unerring instinct that I should shortly be seeking a new home--a new friend ... and that instinct never played me false ... soon I was on the 'out trail' once more, looking for a way to earn a living and stay _pure_ and _innocent_. Once I was almost content with an old woman. I washed her and dressed her, and, incidentally, was sworn at by her ... but the salary was high.... Alas!

like the widow of Nain she had an only son ... a decent boy, too ... but when he had looked into my eyes and found me good, there was the old tale to tell.... _He_ used to give me lovely presents ... I was never too good to take presents, Clem--under protest.... He wanted to marry me, but marriage was not in my plan ... then the old mother found out, and I had to go. Another man in Birmingham, whose children I taught, gave me _hundreds_--just for being good! would have given me thousands only that his wife read memoranda of some sum once and flew to the worst conclusions ... she believed I had stolen her husband and was as bad as I could be ... no one could be surprised at what she called me ... but it was quite untrue in its literal meaning. I had to go back to London, and there was nothing at first to go back to but the stage.... I did not stay _there_ long ... innocence is not very valuable on the stage--except in the play!... and though I have a special talent for acting _off_ the stage, I am too nervous _on_ it to open my lips ... so there was no hope for advancement that way ... I had to begin again on the old round."

"But, Poppy, dear, forgive me, I can't understand--why? _why?_... what was it all for?"

"For money, Clem. I wanted money."

"I can't believe it!--Oh! _not_ for money!"

"Yes; for money. Some women are bad for money; there is nothing they will not do to get gold in their hands. I was _good_ for money ... a saint, an angel, a virgin--most especially a virgin."

"Don't hurt me like this," Clem said. "Whatever you say can make no difference to me. I _will_ love you. I _will_ be your friend. But--is there anything in the world that money can get that was worth it all? I ask out of sheer curiosity--_is_ there?"

Poppy answered her "Yes!" And after a long time a few words dropped into the silence of the room.

"I wanted the money for my child."