The Furnace Part 17

Prudence said nothing. That she knew it hardly needed affirmation; she knew it with such a sad, hopeless certainty. For the eternal roads run straitly, and their running is between gateless walls. The grey, artist's eyes were suddenly wet and blind, with a swift surging of many feelings. Seeing them, Betty said again:

'It wouldn't work--for any of us,' with a new gentle cadence in her tone. Then she went on: 'Tommy and I have got each other. We can help each other, and no one else in the world can help us. Don't you see?

Because we know each other so awfully well; we mean a good deal to each other, you know. There's always been just us two. There always will be, and that's the one thing that really matters--the one thing that always will matter. In the end no one else c-counts.'

In that was the ring of certainty; it had not needed to be thought out; it was as if it had always been there, waiting to be defined.

After a moment Betty went on, with this time a little tremor in the tired monotony of her voice.

'I think I should like you to understand--how it's been, you know, always. We've had each other, but we've had no one else much, ever. We rather brought ourselves up; we weren't taught anything about--well, all the things that I suppose you were taught. We came to England when we were about thirteen and fourteen; we hated it, the awful w-weather and all our relations. Directly Tommy left school we came back to Italy, and--well, Tommy got work here. And we knew n.o.body but--but--well, you probably know the sort our friends are; I expect the others have told you,' she added in parenthesis, with a pa.s.sing glint of laughter, remembering how Prudence had not sought the close acquaintance which should enable her to know. 'We're very fond of them,' she added, and affection submerged the laughter; 'we've had g-good times together.

Well, we hadn't much to live on, and the people round us gambled and ran up debts, and never paid them till they had to; and we did, too. We didn't think--or care--whether the things we did were decent, or honest, or anything of that sort. We just went on from day to day, playing round with each other and our friends, and we were very happy.... I don't think, somehow, that we've ever had a proper chance.... And when you j-judge us, you might, perhaps, remember that.'

Prudence, who had listened gravely in silence, as always, said now:

'How should I judge you, or you me? I have not done that, ever.'

Betty said, smiling a little sadly:

'No; you only--you only kept away. I know.... But all the same, I should like you to understand a little.'

'I do understand,' said Prudence.

'Well, when we met all of you last winter, we didn't know the difference--or didn't care, anyhow. We thought it was funny; and it was, rather--Mrs. Venables, you know, and being s-studied, and--and all that----' Laughter flickered again to the sad eyes, but died swiftly.

'And then, after some time, we got to understand.' The stammering monotone was expressionless and hard. 'And ... well, that's all....

We've both of us rather minded.... I have been angry, I suppose, about some things; but that's all done now.... And now we've kind of come to see that the old things are no good any more--all spoilt, anyhow for now--and we've got to go and look for new things, and perhaps we shan't find them; but anyhow no one else can help.'

'I am sorry,' said Prudence Varley, after a moment, being able to offer, it seemed, no help but that. Her eyes asked forgiveness, because, having helped to break, she could have no share in the mending. She knew it was true that 'we can help each other, and no one else in the world can help us.'

To her sorrow, Betty returned, 'We've got each other, you know,' and even smiled a little. They had so nearly lost that possession.

Prudence got up, and stood close to the small figure on the chair-arm, her hands clasped behind her. She was not demonstrative; where some people might kiss, she merely stood and spoke.

'You've thought, I dare say,' she said gently, 'that I've been standing on a pedestal and looking down--a horrid prig. Well, I suppose I have been a prig; I am made so, and I am sorry. But--please believe this--I haven't been on a pedestal; I've only been shut in between walls. Oh, you know as well as I do that we each have walls all round us, and it's not easy to knock them down; they shut us in.... But sometimes gaps come in them, so that we can see through--see the landscape outside, and all the other roads running. I suppose, perhaps, there have come lately gaps in all our walls. Anyhow, I should like to thank you for the gaps in mine. I hope very much they will not get bricked up again.... Being shut into dark, narrow paths prevents one from seeing anything outside--the daylight and all the other roads. But of course when a gap is made, one looks out through it. And looking out means looking up.' She paused a moment, and added softly, looking over the dark head out of the window: 'I think, you know, we're all trying to make what amends we can by looking up now, if we ever looked at all down. I hope you entirely believe that; and I hope you'll remember it, and not too much hate us, when you think about us at all.'

The silence that followed was broken by a sudden sob. The dark head was bowed; Betty broke down utterly into crying for the second time that day. Her tears shook her; she could say no word.

A hand was on the bowed shoulder.

'Don't--oh, don't'

The sobs died at last chokingly away to long, shaken breaths.

'Please go now,' said Betty. 'Thank you for--for everything, and for saying that just now. And I don't know why I cried--only I'm so t-tired.

And you can't do anything more. And please go now, if you don't mind.'

'I suppose,' said Prudence, 'it's good-bye. We're leaving Naples next week.... But sometime later we may meet again, all of us.... And meanwhile, if there's anything we can do--ever----'

'Only leave us your address, please. We'll send what we borrowed; we've not got it just now. And will you please say good-bye for us to--to Mrs.

Venables and your cousins?'

'Keep them away,' the sad eyes entreated; and Prudence promised, 'Yes; I will.'

She stood for a moment longer by the small crouched figure with its bent, dark head; her eyes were full of her powerless, ineffectual desires to heal, to help. Having the gift of comprehension, she wholly knew their ineffectualness. She could only go, for all had been said between them, and there remained the doing, wherein she had no part nor lot.

She turned and went down into the city, and saw with wet eyes how it was full of the sunshine, with the sea-wind blowing through it like hope.

CHAPTER XII

THE ROADS DIVIDE

'So much fate, so much irresistible dictation from temperament and unknown inspiration, enters into life, that we doubt we can say anything out of our own experience whereby to help each other.'--R. W. EMERSON.

Prudence, according to her promise, exerted herself to keep her family from going to say good-bye to the Crevequers. It was not a very easy task. She represented to her aunt that looking after Tommy took most of Betty's time.

'I doubt if they allow her at the hospital much,' said Mrs. Venables; 'and the child must be terribly anxious and lonely. I should like to do what I can for her.'

Mrs. Venables was very kind; late failures of intimacy had slipped from her memory since Tommy's disaster. She had been to see him at the hospital, and had met Betty there. Tommy, during her visit, had apparently been asleep. Betty had hardly spoken, for fear, she said, of waking him.

'It is a long time,' said Mrs. Venables, 'since I had a satisfactory talk with either of those interesting children. Yes, Prudence, they _are_ interesting, owing to their very peculiar circ.u.mstances and ways of life, whatever may be their personal limitations. I grant that one does not come across great depths in them--or, anyhow, that the depths are as yet quite unstirred; but those childlike, seemingly almost soulless natures are a most interesting study to me. One wonders how far their climate and their faith contribute towards the result as we see it. There is certainly something in the beauty and gay paganism of this city, mingled as it is with the simple devoutness of a symbolic faith, that seems to develop such characters freely. I should like to watch those children's career--to see what they grow into. Who knows but that they may sometime find their souls? That would be a strange consummation, deeply impressive; I should much like to try to bring it about, but I am afraid the time is very far from ripe as yet. However, I should at all events wish to see them once again before we part. We have, after all, attained to some intimacy, they and I; we have shared so many vivid experiences, and had so much striking talk together.'

But Mrs. Venables was at last induced to put her parting words into a letter--four sheets, closely written. Betty took it to read to Tommy, and they composed an answer together, with immense pains, resisting manfully the temptations to 'strike' which a.s.sailed them.

'And so that's the end of Mrs. Venables,' said Betty, sighing as she signed her name. 'And I suppose no one will ever think us so interesting again.... I wonder, Tommy, if we made the most of our opportunities....'

They mournfully pondered over the unreturning past. Yet they had certainly made, if not the most, at any rate a good deal, of those regretted opportunities. They had, both purposely and accidentally, succeeded in being a real and profound impression. When they arrived at the age that in their opinion justified them in reading Mrs. Venables'

works, they would probably get much pleasure out of their own portraits.

Miranda Venables came to see Betty the day before her family left Naples. She came in with a dejected air.

'I've come to say good-bye. We're going to-morrow. It'll be rather ripping getting home and getting some cricket and tennis, only I'm simply too awfully slack for anything after all this fooling round doing nothing. Feel.' She held out a plump arm for Betty to pinch. 'Horrid flabby, isn't it? And I say, I'm awfully sick at having to say good-bye, you know.'

The round face was tragically despondent. Miranda had scarcely realized till now how much she liked the Crevequers. She said so.

'You are rotters, you two, but you do make things go, you know,' she explained, a little embarra.s.sed at her own frankness. 'And, I say, I hope we all meet again sometime--not in this beastly place, but at home.

You might come and stay with us; you'd get some hockey. Oh, I forgot; you don't care about doing things. But it's beastly saying good-bye. I hate it.'

'So do I,' Betty said. 'So I never do it. Let's not. Let's come and have ices instead.'

They went and had ices at Caflisch's, and the pathos of the occasion was salient. Miranda, after the second ice, worked up at length to:

'It's all very well, but I like your sort of people, if it _is_ different (like Warren said once, and mother says), a jolly sight better than ours--so there!'

'It's all a q-question of taste, of course,' Betty said. 'And now I must go; and as we aren't going to say good-bye, there's no more to be said.

I hope we shall all of us have a j-jolly summer.'

'Please say good-bye for me,' said Miranda tearfully, referring to Tommy, who had a pedestal of his own. 'And I hope he'll soon be better, and ... oh dear!'