Inside the room he saw that she had laid the candle upon the piano, and was bending over a drawer, trying again to fit a key. He stood in the doorway, a tiny figure, very, very cold, all his soul in his silent appeal for some help. His Friend must come. He was somewhere there in the house. "Come! Help me!" The candle suddenly flared into a finger of light that flung the room into vision. Mrs. Carter, startled, raised herself, and at that same moment Henry gave a cry, a weak little trembling sound.
She turned and saw the boy; as their eyes met he felt the Terror rushing upon him. He flung a last desperate appeal for help, staring at her as though his eyes would never let her go, and she, finding him so unexpectedly, could only gape. In their silent gaze at one another, in the glassy stare of Mrs. Carter and the trembling, flickering one of Henry there was more than any ordinary challenge could have conveyed. Mrs. Carter must have felt at the first immediate confrontation of the strange little figure that her feet were on the very edge of some most desperate precipice. The long room and the passages beyond must have quivered. At that very first moment, with some stir, some hinted approach, Henry called, with the desperate summoning of all his ghostly world, upon his gods. They came....
In her eyes he saw suddenly something else than vague terror. He saw recognition. He felt himself a rushing, heartening comfort; he knew that his Friend had somehow come, that he was no longer alone.
But Mrs. Carter's eyes were staring beyond him, over him, into the black passage. Her eyes seemed to grow as though the terror in them was pushing them out beyond their lids; her breath, came in sharp, tearing gasps. The keys with a clang dropped from her hand.
"Oh, God! Oh, God!" she whispered. He did not turn his head to grasp what it was that she saw in the passage. The terror had been transferred from himself to her.
The colour in her cheeks went out, leaving her as though her face were suddenly shadowed by some overhanging shape.
Her eyes never moved nor faltered from the dark into whose heart she gazed. Then, there was a strangled, gasping cry, and she sank down, first onto her knees, then in a white faint, her eyes still staring, lay huddled on the floor.
Henry felt his Friend's hand on his shoulder.
Meanwhile, down in the kitchen, the fire had sunk into grey ashes, and Mrs. Slater was lying back in her chair, her head back, snoring thickly; an empty glass had tumbled across the table, and a few drops from it had dribbled over on to the tablecloth.
CHAPTER VII
Barbara Flint
I
Barbara Flint was a little girl, aged seven, who lived with her parents at No. 36 March Square. Her brother and sister, Master Anthony and Miss Misabel Flint, were years and years older, so you must understand that she led rather a solitary life. She was a child with very pale flaxen hair, very pale blue eyes, very pale cheeks—she looked like a china doll who had been left by a careless mistress out in the rain. She was a very sensitive child, cried at the least provocation, very affectionate, too, and ready to imagine that people didn't like her.
Mr. Flint was a stout, elderly gentleman, whose favourite pursuit was to read the newspapers in his club, and to inveigh against the Liberals. He was pale and pasty, and suffered from indigestion. Mrs. Flint was tall, thin and severe, and a great helper at St. Matthew's, the church round the corner. She gave up all her time to church work and the care of the poor, and it wasn't her fault that the poor hated her. Between the Scylla of politics and the Charybdis of religion there was very little left for poor Barbara; she faded away under the care of an elderly governess who suffered from a perfect cascade of ill-fated love affairs; it seemed that gentlemen were always "playing with her feelings." But in all probability a too vivid imagination led her astray in this matter; at any rate, she cried so often during Barbara's lessons that the title of the lesson-book, "Reading without Tears," was sadly belied. It might be expected that, under these unfavourable circumstances, Barbara was growing into a depressed and melancholy childhood.
Barbara, happily, was saved by her imagination. Surely nothing quite like Barbara's imagination had ever been seen before, because it came to her, outside inheritance, outside environment, outside observation. She had it altogether, in spite of Flints past and present. But, perhaps, not altogether in spite of March Square. It would be difficult to say how deeply the fountain, the almond tree, the green, flat shining grass had stung her intuition; but stung it only, not created it—the thing was there from the beginning of all time. She talked, at first to nurses, servants, her mother, about the things that she knew; about her Friend who often came to see her, who was there so many times—there in the room with her when they couldn't catch a glimpse of him; about the days and nights when she was away anywhere, up in the sky, out on the air, deep in the sea, about all the other experiences that she remembered but was now rapidly losing consciousness of. She talked, at first easily, naturally, and inviting, as it were, return confidences. Then, quite suddenly, she realised that she simply wasn't believed, that she was considered a wicked little girl "for making things up so," that there was no hope at all for her unless she abandoned her "lying ways."
The shock of this discovery flung her straight back upon herself; if they refused to believe these things, then there was nothing to be done. But for herself their incredulity should not stop her. She became a very quiet little girl—what her nurse called "brooding." This incredulity of theirs drove them all instantly into a hostile camp, and the affection that she had been longing to lavish upon them must now be reserved for other, and, she could not help feeling, wiser persons. This division of herself from the immediate world hurt her very much. From a very early age, indeed, we need reassurance as to the necessity for our existence. Barbara simply did not seem to be wanted.
But still worse: now that her belief in certain things had been challenged, she herself began to question them. Was it true, possibly, when a flaming sunset struck a sword across the Square and caught the fountain, slashing it into a million glittering fragments, that that was all that occurred? Such a thing had been for Barbara simply a door into her earlier world. See the fountain—well, you have been tested; you are still simple enough to go back into the real world. But was Barbara simple enough? She was seven; it is just about then that we begin, under the guard of nurses carefully chosen for us by our parents, to drop our simplicity. It must, of course, be so, or the world would be all dreamers, and then there would be no commerce.
Barbara knew nothing of commerce, but she did know that she was unhappy, that her dolls gave her no happiness, and that her Friend did not come now so often to see her. She was, I am afraid, in character a "Hopper." She must be affectionate, she must demand affection of others, and will they not give it her, then must they simulate it. The tragedy of it all was perhaps, that Barbara had not herself that coloured vitality in her that would prepare other people to be fond of her. The world is divided between those who place affection about, now here, now there, and those whose souls lie, like drawers, unawares, but ready for the affection to be laid there.
Barbara could not "place" it about; she had neither optimism nor a sense of humour sufficient. But she wanted it—wanted it terribly. If she were not to be allowed to indulge her imagination, then must she, all the more, love some one with fervour: the two things were interdependent. She surveyed her world with an eye to this possible loving. There was her governess, who had been with her for a year now, tearful, bony, using Barbara as a means and never as an end. Barbara did not love her—how could she? Moreover, there were other physical things: the lean, shining marble of Miss Letts's long fingers, the dry thinness of her hair, the way that the tip of her nose would be suddenly red, and then, like a blown-out candle, dull white again. Fingers and noses are not the only agents in the human affections, but they have most certainly something to do with them. Moreover, Miss Letts was too busily engaged with the survey of her relations, with now this gentleman, now that, to pay much attention to Barbara. She dismissed her as "a queer little thing." There were in Miss Letts's world "queer things" and "things not queer." The division was patent to anybody.
Barbara's father and mother were also surveyed. Here Barbara was baffled by the determination on the part of both of them that she should talk, should think, should dream about all the things concerning which she could not talk, think nor dream. "How to grow up into a nice little girl," "How to pray to God," "How never to tell lies," "How to keep one's clothes clean,"—these things did not interest Barbara in the least; but had she been given love with them she might have paid some attention. But a too rigidly defined politics, a too rigidly defined religion find love a poor, loose, sentimental thing—very rightly so, perhaps. Mrs. Flint was afraid that Barbara was a "silly little girl."
"I hope, Miss Letts, that she no longer talks about her silly fancies."
"She has said nothing to me in that respect for a considerable period, Mrs. Flint."
"All very young children have fancies, but such things are dangerous when they grow older."
"I agree with you."
Nevertheless the fountain continued to flash in the sun, and births, deaths, weddings, love and hate continued to play their part in March Square.
II
Barbara, groping about in the desolation of having no one to grope with her, discovered that her Friend came now less frequently to see her. She was even beginning to wonder whether he had ever really come at all. She had perhaps imagined him just as on occasion she would imagine her doll, Jane, the Queen of England, or her afternoon tea the most wonderful meal, with sausages, blackberry jam and chocolates. Young though, she was, she was able to realise that this imagination of hers was capable de tout, and that every one older than herself said that it was wicked; therefore was her Friend, perhaps, wicked also.
And yet, if the dark curtains that veiled the nursery windows at night, if the glimmering shape of the picture-frames, if the square black sides of the dolls' house were real, real also was the figure of her Friend, real his arousal in her of all the memories of the old days before she was Barbara Flint at all—real, too, his love, his care, his protection; as real, yes, as Miss Letts's bony figure. It was all very puzzling. But he did not come now as in the old days.
Barbara played very often in the gardens in the middle of the Square, but because she was a timid little girl she did not make many friends. She knew many of the other children who played there, and sometimes she shared in their games; but her sensitive feelings were so easily hurt, she frequently retired in tears. Every day on going into the garden she looked about her, hoping that she would find before she left it again some one whom it would be possible to worship. She tried on several occasions to erect altars, but our English temperament is against public display, and she was misunderstood.
Then, quite suddenly, as though she had sprung out of the fountain, Mary Adams was there. Mary Adams was aged nine, and her difference from Barbara Flint was that, whereas Barbara craved for affection, she craved for attention: the two demands can be easily confused. Mary Adams was the only child of an aged philosopher, Mr. Adams, who, contrary to all that philosophy teaches, had married a young wife. The young wife, pleased that Mary was so unlike her father, made much of her, and Mary was delighted to be made much of. She was a little girl with flaxen hair, blue eyes, and a fine pink-and-white colouring. In a few years' time she will be so sure of the attention that her appearance is winning for her that she will make no effort to secure adherents, but just now she is not sufficiently confident—she must take trouble. She took trouble with Barbara.
Sitting neatly upon a seat, Mary watched rude little boys throw sidelong glances in her direction. Her long black legs were quivering with the perception of their interest, even though her eyes were haughtily indifferent. It was then that Barbara, with Miss Letts, an absent-minded companion, came and sat by her side. Barbara and Mary had met at a party—not quite on equal terms, because nine to seven is as sixty to thirty—but they had played hide-and-seek together, and had, by chance, hidden in the same cupboard.
The little boys had moved away, and Mary Adams's legs dropped, suddenly, their tension.
"I'm going to a party to-night," Mary said, with a studied indifference.
Miss Letts knew of Mary's parents, and that, socially, they were "all right"—a little more "all right," were we to be honest, than Mr. and Mrs. Flint. She said, therefore:
"Are you, dear? That will be nice for you."
Instantly Barbara was trembling with excitement. She knew that the remark had been made to her and not at all to Miss Letts. Barbara entered once again, and instantly, upon the field of the passions. Here she was fated by her temperament to be in all cases a miserable victim, because panic, whether she were accepted or rejected by the object of her devotion, reduced her to incoherent foolishness; she could only be foolish now, and, although her heart beat like a leaping animal inside her, allowed Miss Letts to carry on the conversation.
But Miss Letts's wandering eye hurt Mary's pride. She was not really interested in her, and once Mary had come to that conclusion about any one, complete, utter oblivion enveloped them. She perceived, however, Barbara's agitation, and at that, flattered and appeased, she was amiable again. There followed between the two a strangled and disconnected conversation.
Mary began:
"I've got four dolls at home."
"Have you?" breathlessly from Barbara. By such slow accuracies as these are we conveyed, all our poor mortal days, from realism to romance, and with a shocking precipitance are we afterwards flung back, out of romance into realism, our natural home, again.
"Yes—four dolls I have. My mother will give me another if I ask her. Would your mother?"
"Yes," said Barbara, untruthfully.
"That's my governess, Miss Marsh, there, with the green hat, that is. I've had her two months."
"Yes," said Barbara, gazing with adoring eyes.
"She's going away next week. There's another coming. I can do sums, can you?"
"Yes," again from Barbara.
"I can do up to twice-sixty-three. I'm nine. Miss Marsh says I'm clever."
"I'm seven," said Barbara.
"I could read when I was seven—long, long words. Can you read?"
At this moment there arrived the green-hatted Miss Marsh, a plump, optimistic person, to whom Miss Letts was gloomily patronising. Miss Letts always distrusted stoutness in another; it looked like deliberate insult. Mary Adams was conveyed away; Barbara was bereft of her glory.
But, rather, on that instant that Mary Adams vanished did she become glorified. Barbara had been too absurdly agitated to transform on to the mirror of her brain Mary's appearance. In all the dim-coloured splendour of flame and mist was Mary now enwrapped, with every step that Barbara took towards her home did the splendour grow.
III
Then followed an invitation to tea from Mary's mother. Barbara, preparing for the event, suffered her hair to be brushed, choked with strange half-sweet, half-terrible suffocation that comes from anticipated glories: half-sweet because things will, at their worst, be wonderful; half-terrible because we know that they will not be so good as we hope.
Barbara, washed paler than ever, in a white frock with pink bows, was conducted by Miss Letts. She choked with terror in the strange hall, where she was received with great splendour by Mary. The schoolroom was large and fine and bright, finer far than Barbara's room, swamped by the waters of religion and politics. Barbara could only gulp and gulp, and feel still at her throat that half-sweet, half-terrible suffocation. Within her little body her heart, so huge and violent, was pounding.
"A very nice room indeed," said Miss Letts, more friendly now to the optimist because she was leaving in a day or two, and could not, therefore, at the moment be considered a success. Her failure balanced her plumpness.
Here, at any rate, was the beginning of a great friendship between Barbara Flint and Mary Adams. The character of Mary Adams was admittedly a difficult one to explore; her mother, a cloud of nurses and a company of governesses had been baffled completely by its dark caverns and recesses. One clue, beyond question, was selfishness; but this quality, by the very obviousness of it, may tempt us to believe that that is all. It may account, when we are displeased, for so much. It accounted for a great deal with Mary—but not all. She had, I believe, a quite genuine affection for Barbara, nothing very disturbing, that could rival the question as to whether she would receive a second helping of pudding or no, or whether she looked better in blue or pink. Nevertheless, the affection was there. During several months she considered Barbara more than she had ever considered any one in her life before. At that first tea party she was aware, perhaps, that Barbara's proffered devotion was for complete and absolute self-sacrifice, something that her vanity would not often find to feed it. There was, too, no question of comparison between them.
Even when Barbara grew to be nine she would be a poor thing beside the lusty self-confidence of Mary Adams—and this was quite as it should be. All that Barbara wanted was some one upon whom she might pour her devotion, and one of the things that Mary wanted was some one who would spend it upon her. But there stirred, nevertheless, some breath of emotion across that stagnant little pool, Mary's heart. She was moved, perhaps, by pity for Barbara's amazing simplicities, moved also by curiosity as to how far Barbara's devotion to her would go, moved even by some sense of distrust of her own self-satisfaction. She did, indeed, admire any one who could realise, as completely as did Barbara, the greatness of Mary Adams.
It may seem strange to us, and almost terrible, that a small child of seven can feel anything as devastating as this passion of Barbara. But Barbara was made to be swept by storms stronger than she could control, and Mary Adams was the first storm of her life. They spent now a great deal of their time together. Mrs. Adams, who was beginning to find Mary more than she could control, hailed the gentle Barbara with joy; she welcomed also perhaps a certain note of rather haughty protection which Mary seemed to be developing.
During the hours when Barbara was alone she thought of the many things that she would say to her friend when they met, and then at the meeting could say nothing. Mary talked or she did not talk according to her mood, but she soon made it very plain that there was only one way of looking at everything inside and outside the earth, and that was Mary's way. Barbara had no affection, but a certain blind terror for God. It was precisely as though some one were standing with a hammer behind a tree, and were waiting to hit you on the back of your head at the first opportunity. But God was not, on the whole, of much importance; her Friend was the great problem, and before many days were passed Mary was told all about him.
"He used to come often and often. He'd be there just where you wanted him—when the light was out or anything. And he was nice." Barbara sighed.
Mary stared at her, seeming in the first full sweep of confidence, to be almost alarmed.
"You don't mean——?" She stopped, then cried, "Why, you silly, you believe in ghosts!"
"No, I don't," said Barbara, not far from tears.
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't."
"Of course you do, you silly."
"No, I don't. He—he's real."
"Well," Mary said, with a final toss of the head, "if you go seeing ghosts like that you can't have me for your friend, Barbara Flint—you can choose, that's all."
Barbara was aghast. Such a catastrophe had never been contemplated. Lose Mary? Sooner life itself. She resolved, sorrowfully, to say no more about her Friend. But here occurred a strange thing. It was as though Mary felt that over this one matter Barbara had eluded her; she returned to it again and again, always with contemptuous but inquisitive allusion.
"Did he come last night, Barbara?"
"No."
"P'r'aps he did, only you were asleep."
"No, he didn't."
"You don't believe he'll come ever any more, do you? Now that I've said he isn't there really?"
"Yes, I do."
"Very well, then, I won't see you to-morrow—not at all—not all day—I won't."
These crises tore Barbara's spirit. Seven is not an age that can reason with life's difficulties, and Barbara had, in this business, no reasoning powers at all. She would die for Mary; she could not deny her Friend. What was she to do? And yet—just at this moment when, of all others, it was important that he should come to her and confirm his reality—he made no sign. Not only did he make no sign, but he seemed to withdraw, silently and surely, all his supports. Barbara discovered that the company of Mary Adams did in very truth make everything that was not sure and certain absurd and impossible. There was visible no longer, as there had been before, that country wherein anything was possible, where wonderful things had occurred and where wonderful things would surely occur again.
"You're pretending," said Mary Adams sharply when Barbara ventured some possibly extravagant version of some ordinary occurrence, or suggested that events, rich and wonderful, had occurred during the night. "Nonsense," said Mary sharply.
She said "nonsense" as though it were the very foundation of her creed of life—as, indeed, to the end of her days, it was. What, then, was Barbara to do? Her friend would not come, although passionately she begged and begged and begged that he would. Mary Adams was there every day, sharp, and shining, and resolved, demanding the whole of Barbara Flint, body and soul—nothing was to be kept from her, nothing. What was Barbara Flint to do?
She denied her Friend, denied that earlier world, denied her dreams and her hopes. She cried a good deal, was very lonely in the dark. Mary Adams, as was her way, having won her victory, passed on to win another.
IV
Mary began, now, to find Barbara rather tiresome. Having forced her to renounce her gods, she now despised her for so easy a renunciation. Every day did she force Barbara through her act of denial, and the Inquisition of Spain held, in all its records, nothing more cruel.
"Did he come last night?"
"No."
"He'll never come again, will he?"
"Wasn't it silly of you to make up stories like that?"
"Oh, Mary—yes."
"There aren't ghosts, nor fairies, nor giants, nor wizards, nor Santa Claus?"
"No; but, Mary, p'r'aps——"
"No; there aren't. Say there aren't."
"There isn't."
Poor Barbara, even as she concluded this ceremony, clutching her doll close to her to give her comfort, could not refrain from a hurried glance over her shoulder. He might be—— But upon Mary this all began soon enough to pall. She liked some opposition. She liked to defeat people and trample on them and then be gracious. Barbara was a poor little thing. Moreover, Barbara's standard of morality and righteousness annoyed her. Barbara seemed to have no idea that there was anything in this confused world of ours except wrong and right. No dialectician, argue he ever so stoutly, could have persuaded Barbara that there was such a colour in the world's paint-box as grey. "It's bad to tell lies. It's bad to steal. It's bad to put your tongue out. It's good to be kind to poor people. It's good to say 'No' when you want more pudding but mustn't have it." Barbara was no prig. She did not care the least little thing about these things, nor did she ever mention them, but let a question of conduct arise, then was Barbara's way plain and clear. She did not always take it, but there it was. With Mary, how very different! She had, I am afraid, no sense of right and wrong at all, but only a coolly ironical perception of the things that her elders disliked and permitted. Very foolish and absurd, these elders. We have always before our eyes some generation that provokes our irony, the one before us, the one behind us, our own perhaps; for Mary Adams it would always be any generation that was not her own. Her business in life was to avoid unpleasantness, to extract the honey from every flower, but above all to be admired, praised, preferred.
At first with her pleasure at Barbara's adoration she had found, within herself, a truly alarming desire to be "good." It might, after all, be rather amusing to be, in strict reality, all the fine things that Barbara considered her. She endeavoured for a week or two to adjust herself to this point of view, to consider, however slightly, whether it were right or wrong to do something that she particularly wished to do.
But she found it very tiresome. The effort spoilt her temper, and no one seemed to notice any change. She might as well be bad as good were there no one present to perceive the difference. She gave it up, and, from that moment found that she suffered Barbara less gladly than before. Meanwhile, in Barbara also strange forces had been at work. She found that her imagination (making up stories) simply, in spite of all the Mary Adamses in the world, refused to stop. Still would the almond tree and the fountain, the gold dust on the roofs of the houses when the sun was setting, the racing hurry of rain drops down the window-pane, the funny old woman with the red shawl who brought plants round in a wheelbarrow, start her story telling.
Still could she not hold herself from fancying, at times, that her doll Jane was a queen, and that Miss Letts could make "spells" by the mere crook of her bony fingers. Worst of all, still she must think of her Friend, tell herself with an ache that he would never come back again, feel, sometimes, that she would give up Mary and all the rest of the world if he would only be beside her bed, as he used to be, talking to her, holding her hand. During these days, had there been any one to observe her, she was a pathetic little figure, with her thin legs like black sticks, her saucer eyes that so readily filled with tears, her eager, half-apprehensive expression, the passionate clutch of the doll to her heart, and it is, after all, a painful business, this adoration—no human soul can live up to the heights of it, and, what is more, no human soul ought to.
As Mary grew tired of Barbara she allowed to slip from her many of the virtuous graces that had hitherto, for Barbara's benefit, adorned her. She lost her temper, was cruel simply for the pleasure that Barbara's ill-restrained agitation yielded her, but, even beyond this, squandered recklessly her reputation for virtue. Twice, before Barbara's very eyes, she told lies, and told them, too, with a real mastery of the craft—long practice and a natural disposition had brought her very near perfection. Barbara, her heart beating wildly, refused to understand; Mary could not be so. She held Jane to her breast more tightly than before. And the denials continued; twice a day now they were extorted from her—with every denial the ghost of her Friend stole more deeply into the mist. He was gone; he was gone; and what was left?
Very soon, and with unexpected suddenness, the crisis came.
V
Upon a day Barbara accompanied her mother to tea with Mrs. Adams. The ladies remained downstairs in the dull splendour of the drawing-room; Mary and Barbara were delivered to Miss Fortescue, the most recent guardian of Mary's life and prospects.
"She's simply awful. You needn't mind a word she says," Mary instructed her friend, and prepared then to behave accordingly. They had tea, and Mary did as she pleased. Miss Fortescue protested, scolded, was weak when she should have been strong, and said often, "Now, Mary, there's a dear."
Barbara, the faint colour coming and going in her cheeks, watched. She watched Mary now with quite a fresh intention. She had begun her voyage of discovery: what was in Mary's head, what would she do next? What Mary did next was to propose, after tea, that they should travel through other parts of the house.
"We'll be back in a moment," Mary flung over her head to Miss Fortescue. They proceeded then through passages, peering into dark rooms, looking behind curtains, Barbara following behind her friend, who seemed to be moved by a rather aimless intention of finding something to do that she shouldn't. They finally arrived at Mrs. Adams's private and particular sitting-room, a place that may be said, in the main, to stand as a protest against the rule of the ancient philosopher, being all pink and flimsy and fragile with precious vases and two post-impressionist pictures (a green apple tree one, the other a brown woman), and lace cushions and blue bowls with rose leaves in them. Barbara had never been into this room before, nor had she ever in all her seven years seen anything so lovely.
"Mother says I'm never to come in here," announced Mary. "But I do—lots. Isn't it pretty?"
"P'r'aps we oughtn't——" began Barbara.
"Oh, yes, we ought," answered Mary scornfully. "Always you and your 'oughtn't.'"
She turned, and her shoulders brushed a low bracket that was close to the door. A large Nankin vase was at her feet, scattered into a thousand pieces. Even Mary's proud indifference was stirred by this catastrophe, and she was down on her knees in an instant, trying to pick up the pieces. Barbara stared, her eyes wide with horror.
"Oh, Mary," she gasped.
"You might help instead of just standing there!"
Then the door opened and, like the avenging gods from Olympus, in came the two ladies, eagerly, with smiles.
"Now I must just show you," began Mrs. Adams. Then the catastrophe was discovered—a moment's silence, then a cry from the poor lady: "Oh, my vase! It was priceless!" (It was not, but no matter.)
About Barbara the air clung so thick with catastrophe that it was from a very long way indeed that she heard Mary's voice:
"Barbara didn't mean——-"
"Did you do this, Barbara?" her mother turned round upon her.
"You know, Mary, I've told you a thousand times that you're not to come in here!" this from Mrs. Adams, who was obviously very angry indeed.
Mary was on her feet now and, as she looked across at Barbara, there was in her glance a strange look, ironical, amused, inquisitive, even affectionate. "Well, mother, I knew we mustn't. But Barbara wanted to look so I said we'd just peep, but that we weren't to touch anything, and then Barbara couldn't help it, really; her shoulder just brushed the shelf——" and still as she looked there was in her eyes that strange irony: "Well, now you see me as I am—I'm bored by all this pretending. It's gone on long enough. Are you going to give me away?"
But Barbara could do nothing. Her whole world was there, like the Nankin vase, smashed about her feet, as it never, never would be again.
"So you did this, Barbara?" Mrs. Flint said.
"Yes," said Barbara. Then she began to cry.
VI
At home she was sent to bed. Her mother read her a chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, and then left her; she lay there, sick with crying, her eyes stiff and red, wondering how she would ever get through the weeks and weeks of life that remained to her. She thought: "I'll never love any one again. Mary took my Friend away—and then she wasn't there herself. There isn't anybody."
Then it suddenly occurred to her that she need never be put through the agony of her denials again, that she could believe what she liked, make up stories.
Her Friend would, of course, never come to see her any more, but at least now she would be able to think about him. She would be allowed to remember. Her brain was drowsy, her eyes half closed. Through the humming air something was coming; the dark curtains were parted, the light of the late afternoon sun was faint yellow upon the opposite wall—there was a little breeze. Drowsily, drowsily, her drooping eyes felt the light, the stir of the air, the sense that some one was in the room.
She looked up; she gave a cry! He had come back! He had come back after all!
CHAPTER VIII
Sarah Trefusis
I
Sarah Trefusis lived, with her mother, in the smallest house in March Square, a really tiny house, like a box, squeezed breathlessly between two fat buildings, but looking, with its white paint and green doors, smarter than either of them. Lady Charlotte Trefusis, Sarah's mother, was elegant, penniless and a widow; Captain B. Trefusis, her husband, had led the merriest of lives until a game of polo carried him reluctantly from a delightful world and forced Lady Charlotte to consider the problem of having a good time alone on nothing at all. But it may be said that, on the whole, she succeeded. She was the best-dressed widow in London, and went everywhere, but the little house in March Square was the scene of a most strenuous campaign, every day presenting its defeat or victory, and every minute of the day threatening overwhelming disaster if something were not done immediately. Lady Charlotte had the smallest feet and hands outside China, a pile of golden hair above the face of a pink-and-white doll. Staring from this face, however, were two of the loveliest, most unscrupulous of eyes, and those eyes did more for Lady Charlotte's precarious income than any other of her resources. She wore her expensive clothes quite beautifully, and gave lovely little lunches and dinners; no really merry house-party was complete without her.
Sarah was her only child, and, although at the time of which I am writing she was not yet nine years of age, there was no one in London better suited to the adventurous and perilous existence that Fate had selected for her. Sarah was black as ink—that is, she had coal black hair, coal black eyes, and wonderful black eyelashes. Her eyelashes were her only beautiful feature, but she was, nevertheless, a most remarkable looking child. "If ever a child's possessed of the devil, my dear Charlotte," said Captain James Trent to her mother, "it's your precious daughter—she is the devil, I believe."
"Well, she needs to be," said her mother, "considering the life that's in store for her. We're very good friends, she and I, thank you."
They were. They understood one another to perfection. Lady Charlotte was as hard as nails, and Sarah was harder. Sarah had never been known to cry. She had bitten the fingers of one of her nurses through to the bone, and had stuck a needle into the cheek of another whilst she slept, and had watched, with a curious abstracted gaze, the punishment dealt out to her, as though it had nothing to do with her at all. She never lost her temper, and one of the most terrible things about her was her absolute calm. She was utterly fearless, went to the dentist without a tremor, and, at the age of six, fell downstairs, broke her leg, and so lay until help arrived without a cry. She bullied and hurt anything or anybody that came her way, but carried out her plans always with the same deliberate abstraction as though she were obeying somebody's orders. She never nourished revenge or resentment, and it seemed to be her sense of humour (rather than any fierce or hostile feeling) that was tickled when she hurt any one.
She was a child, apparently without imagination, but displayed, at a very early period, a strangely sharpened perception of what her nurse called "the uncanny." She frightened even her mother by the expression that her face often wore of attention to something or somebody outside her companion's perception.
"A broomstick is what she'll be flying away on one of these nights, you mark my word," a nurse declared. "Little devil, she is, neither more nor less. It isn't decent the way she sits on the floor looking right through the wall into the next room, as you might say. Yes, and knows who's coming up the stairs long before she's seen 'em. No place for a decent Christian woman, and so I told her mother this very morning." It was, of course, quite impossible to find a nurse to stay with Sarah, and, when she arrived at the age of seven, nurses were dismissed, and she either looked after herself or was tended by an abandoned French maid of her mother's, who stayed with Lady Charlotte, like a wicked, familiar spirit, for a great number of years on a strange basis of confidante, fellow-plunderer, and sympathetic adventurer. This French maid, whose name was, appropriately enough, Hortense, had a real affection for Sarah "because she was the weeckedest child of 'er age she ever see." There was nothing of which Sarah, from the very earliest age, did not seem aware. Her mother's gentlemen friends she valued according to their status in the house, and, as they "fell off" or "came on," so was her manner indifferent or pleasant. For Hortense, she had a real respect, but even that improper and brazen spirit quailed at times before her cynical and elfish regard. To say of a child that there is something "unearthly" about it is, as a rule, to pay a compliment to ethereal blue and gold. There was nothing ethereal about Sarah, and yet she was unearthly enough. Squatting on the floor, her legs tucked under her, her head thrust forward, her large black eyes staring at the wall, her black hair almost alive in the shining intensity of its colours, she had in her attitude the lithe poise of some animal ready to spring, waiting for its exact opportunity.
When her mother, in a temper, struck her, she would push her hair back from her face with a sharp movement of her hand and then would watch broodingly and cynically for the next move. "You hit me again," she seemed to say, "and you will make a fool of yourself."
She was aware, of course, of a thousand influences in the house of which her mother and Hortense had never the slightest conception. From the cosy security of her cradle she had watched the friendly spirit who had accompanied (with hostile irritation) her entrance into this world. His shadow had, for a long period, darkened her nursery, but she repelled, with absolute assurance, His kindly advances.
"I'm not frightened. I don't, in the least, want things made comfortable for me. I can get along very nicely, indeed, without you. You're full of sentiment and gush—things that I detest—and it won't be the least use in the world for you to ask me to be good, and tender, and all the rest of it. I'm not like your other babies."
He must have known, of course, that she was not, but, nevertheless, He stayed. "I understand perfectly," He assured her. "But, nevertheless, I don't give you up. You may be, for all you know, more interesting to me than all the others put together. And remember this—every time you do anything at all kind or thoughtful, every time you think of any one or care for them, every time you use your influence for good in any way, my power over you is a little stronger, I shall be a little closer to you, your escape will be a little harder."
"Oh, you needn't flatter yourself," she answered Him. "There's precious little danger of my self-sacrifice or love for others. That's not going to be my attitude to life at all. You'd better not waste your time over me."
She had not, she might triumphantly reflect, during these eight years, given Him many chances, and yet He was still there. She hated the thought of His patience, and somewhere deep within herself she dreaded the faint, dim beat of some response that, like a warning bell across a misty sea, cautioned her. "You may think you're safe from Him, but He'll catch you yet."
"He shan't," she replied. "I'm stronger than He is."
II
This must sound, in so prosaic a summary of it, fantastic, but nothing could be said to be fantastic about Sarah. She was, for one thing, quite the least troublesome of children. She could be relied upon, at any time, to find amusement for herself. She was full of resources, but what these resources exactly were it would be difficult to say. She would sit for hours alone, staring in front of her. She never played with toys—she did not draw or read—but she was never dull, and always had the most perfect of appetites. She had never, from the day of her birth, known an hour's illness.
It was, however, in the company of other children that she was most characteristic. The nurses in the Square quite frankly hated her, but most of the mothers had a very real regard for Lady Charlotte's smart little lunches; moreover, it was impossible to detect Sarah's guilt in any positive fashion. It was not enough for the nurses to assure their mistresses that from the instant that the child entered the gardens all the other children were out of temper, rebellious, and finally unmanageable.
"Nonsense, Janet, you imagine things. She seems a very nice little girl."
"Well, ma'am, all I can say is, I won't care to be answerable for Master Ronald's behaviour when she does come along, that's all. It's beyond belief the effect she 'as upon 'im."
The strangest thing of all was that Sarah herself liked the company of other children. She went every morning into the gardens (with Hortense) and watched them at their play. She would sit, with her hands folded quietly on her lap, her large black eyes watching, watching, watching. It was odd, indeed, how, instantly, all the children in the garden were aware of her entrance. She, on her part, would appear to regard none of them, and yet would see them all. Perched on her seat she surveyed the gardens always with the same gaze of abstracted interest, watching the clear, decent paths across whose grey background at the period of this episode, the October leaves, golden, flaming, dun, gorgeous and shrivelled, fell through the still air, whirled, and with a little sigh of regret, one might fancy, sank and lay dead. The October colours, a faint haze of smoky mist, the pale blue of the distant sky, the brown moist earth, were gentle, mild, washed with the fading year's regretful tears; the cries of the children, the rhythmic splash of the fountain throbbed behind the colours like some hidden orchestra behind the curtain at the play; the statues in the garden, like fragments of the white bolster clouds that swung so lazily from tree to tree; had no meaning in that misty air beyond the background that they helped to fill. The year, thus idly, with so pleasant a melancholy, was slipping into decay.
Sarah would watch. Then, without a word, she would slip from her seat, and, walking solemnly, rather haughtily, would join some group of children. Day after day the same children came to the gardens, and they all of them knew Sarah by now. Hortense, in her turn also, sitting, stiff and superior, would watch. She would see Sarah's pleasant approach, her smile, her amiability. Very soon, however, there would be trouble—some child would cry out; there would be blows; nurses would run forward, scoldings, protests, captives led away weeping ... and then Sarah would return slowly to her seat, her gaze aloof, cynical, remote. She would carefully explain to Hortense the reason of the uproar. She had done nothing—her conscience was clear. These silly little idiots. She would break into French, culled elaborately from Hortense, would end disdainfully—"mais, voilà,"—very old for her age.
Hortense was vicious, selfish, crude in her pursuit of pleasure, entirely unscrupulous, but, as the days passed, she was, in spite of herself, conscious of some half-acknowledged, half-decided terror of Sarah's possibilities.
The child was eight years old. She was capable of anything; in her remote avoidance of any passion, any regret, any anticipated pleasure, any spontaneity, she was inhuman. Hortense thought that she detected in the chit's mother something of her own fear.
III
There used to come to the gardens a little fat red-faced girl called Mary Kitson, the child of simple and ingenuous parents (her father was a writer of stories of adventure for boys' papers); she was herself simple-minded, lethargic, unadventurous, and happily stupid. Walking one day slowly with Hortense down one of the garden paths, Sarah saw Mary Kitson engaged in talking to two dolls, seated on a bench with them, patting their clothes, very happy, her nurse busy over a novelette.
Sarah stopped.
"I'll sit here," she said, walked across to the bench and sat down. Mary looked up from her dolls, and then, nervously and self-consciously, went back to her play. Sarah stared straight before her.
Hortense amiably endeavoured to draw the nurse into conversation.
"You 'ave 'ere ze fine gardens," she said. "It calls to mind my own Paris. Ah, the gardens in Paris!"
But the nurse had been taught to distrust all foreigners, and her views of Paris were coloured by her reading. She admired Hortense's clothes, but distrusted her advances.
She buried herself even more deeply in the paper. Poor Mary Kitson, alas! found that, in some undefinable manner, the glory had departed from her dolls. Adrian and Emily were, of a sudden, glassy and lumpy abstractions of sawdust and china. Very timidly she raised her large, stupid eyes and regarded Sarah. Sarah returned the glance and smiled. Then she came close to Mary.
"It's better under there," she said, pointing to the shade of a friendly tree.
"May I?" Mary said to her nurse with a frightened gasp.
"Well, now, don't you go far," said the nurse, with a fierce look at Hortense.
"You like where you are?" asked Hortense, smiling more than ever. "You 'ave a good place?" Slowly the nurse yielded. The novelette was laid aside.
Impossible to say what occurred under the tree. Now and again a rustle of wind would send the colours from the trees to short branches loaded with leaves of red gold, shivering through the air; a chequered, blazing canopy covered the ground.
Mary Kitson had, it appeared, very little to say. She sat some way from Sarah, clutching Adrian and Emily tightly to her breast, and always her large, startled eyes were on Sarah's face. She did not move to drive the leaves from her dress; her heart beat very fast, her cheeks were very red.
Sarah talked a little, but not very much. She asked questions about Mary's home and her parents, and Mary answered these interrogations in monosyllabic gasps. It appeared that Mary had a kitten, and that this kitten was a central fact of Mary's existence. The kitten was called Alice.
"Alice is a silly name for a kitten. I shouldn't call a kitten Alice," said Sarah, and Mary started as though in some strange, sinister fashion she were instantly aware that Alice's life and safety were threatened.
From that morning began a strange acquaintance that certainly could not be called a friendship. There could be no question at all that Mary was terrified of Sarah; there could also be no question that Mary was Sarah's obedient slave. The cynical Hortense, prepared as she was for anything strange and unexpected in Sarah's actions, was, nevertheless, puzzled now.
One afternoon, wet and dismal, the two of them sitting in a little box of a room in the little box of a house, Sarah huddled in a chair, her eyes staring in front of her, Hortense sewing, her white, bony fingers moving sharply like knives, the maid asked a question:
"What do you see—Sar-ah—in that infant?"
"What infant?" asked Sarah, without moving her eyes.
"That Mary with whom now you always are."
"We play games together," said Sarah.
"You do not. You may be playing a game—she does nothing. She is terrified—out of her life."
"She is very silly. It's funny how silly she is. I like her to be frightened."
Mary's nurse told Mary's mother that, in her opinion, Sarah was not a nice child. But Sarah had been invited to tea at the confused, simple abode of the Kitson family, and had behaved perfectly.
"I think you must be wrong, nurse," said Mrs. Kitson. "She seems a very nice little girl. Mary needs companions. It's good for her to be taken out of herself."
Had Mrs. Kitson been of a less confused mind, however, had she had more time for the proper observation of her daughter, she would have noticed her daughter's pale cheeks, her daughter's fits of crying, her daughter's silences. Even as the bird is fascinated by the snake, so was Mary Kitson fascinated by Sarah Trefusis.
"You are torturing that infant," said Hortense, and Sarah smiled.
IV
Mary was by no means the first of Sarah's victim's. There had been many others. Utterly aloof, herself, from all emotions of panic or terror, it had, from the very earliest age, interested her to see those passions at work in others. Cruelty for cruelty's sake had no interest for her at all; to pull the wings from flies, to tie kettles to the tails of agitated puppies, to throw stones at cats, did not, in the least, amuse her. She had once put a cat in the fire, but only because she had seen it play with a terrified mouse. That had affronted her sense of justice. But she was gravely and quite dispassionately interested in the terror of Mary Kitson. In later life a bull fight was to appear to her a tiresome affair, but the domination of one human being over another, absorbing. She had, too, at the very earliest age, that conviction that it was pleasant to combat all sentiment, all appeals to be "good," all soft emotions of pity, anything that could suggest that Right was of more power than Might.
It was as though she said, "You may think that even now you will get me. I tell you I'm a rebel from the beginning; you'll never catch me showing affection or sympathy. If you do you may do your worst."
Beyond all things, her anxiety was that, suddenly, in spite of herself, she would do something "soft," some weak kindness. Her power over Mary Kitson reassured her.
The fascination of this power very soon became to her an overwhelming interest. Playing with Mary Kitson's mind was as absorbing to Sarah, as chess to an older enthusiast; her discoveries promised her a life full of entertainment, if, with her fellow-mortals, she was able, so easily, "to do things," what a time she would always have. She discovered, very soon, that Mary Kitson was, by nature, truthful and obedient, that she had a great fear of God, and that she loved her parents. Here was fine material to work upon. She began by insisting on little lies.
"Say our clocks were all wrong, and you couldn't know what the time was."
"Oh, but——"
"Yes, say it."
"Please, Sarah."
"Say it. Otherwise I'll be punished too. Mind, if you don't say it, I shall know."
There was the horrible threat that effected so much. Mary began soon to believe that Sarah was never absent from her, that she attended her, invisibly, her little dark face peering over Mary's shoulder, and when Mary was in bed at night, the lights out, and only shadows on the walls, Sarah was certainly there, her mocking eyes on Mary's face, her voice whispering things in Mary's ears.
Sarah, Mary very soon discovered, believed in nothing, and knew everything. This horrible combination, naturally, affected Mary, who believed in everything and knew nothing.
"Why should we obey our mothers?" said Sarah. "We're as good as they are."
"Oh, no," said Mary, in a voice shocked to a strangled whisper. Nevertheless, she began, a little, to despise her confused parents. There came a day when Mary told a very large lie indeed; she said that she had brushed her teeth when she had not, and she told this lie quite unprompted by Sarah. She was more and more miserable as the days passed.
No one knew exactly the things that the two little girls did when they were alone on an afternoon in Sarah's room. Sarah sent Hortense about her business, and then set herself to the subdual of Mary's mind and character. There would be moments like this, Sarah would turn off the electric light, and the room would be lit only by the dim shining of the evening sky.
"Now, Mary, you go over to that corner—that dark one—and wait there till I tell you to come out. I'll go outside the room, and then you'll see what will happen."
"Oh, no, Sarah, I don't want to."
"Why not, you silly baby?"
"I—I don't want to."
"Well, it will be much worse for you if you don't."
"I want to go home."
"You can after you have done that."
"I want to go home now."
"Go into the corner first."
Sarah would leave the room and Mary would stand with her face to the wall, a trembling prey to a thousand terrors. The light would quiver and shake, steps would tread the floor and cease, there would be a breath in her ears, a wind above her head. She would try to pray, but could remember no words. Sarah would lead her forth, shaking from head to foot.
"You little silly. I was only playing."
Once, and this hurried the climax of the episode, Mary attempted rebellion.
"I want to go home, Sarah."
"Well, you can't. You've got to hear the end of the story first."
"I don't like the story. It's a horrid story. I'm going home."
"You'd better not."
"Yes, I will, and I won't come again, and I won't see you again. I hate you. I won't. I won't."
Mary, as she very often did, began to cry. Sarah's lips curled with scorn.
"All right, you can. You'll never see Alice again if you do."
"Alice?"
"Yes, she'll be drowned, and you'll have the toothache, and I'll come in the middle of the night and wake you."
"I—I don't care. I'm go-going home. I'll t-t-ell m-other."
"Tell her. But look out afterwards, that's all."
Mary remained, but Sarah regarded the rebellion as ominous. She thought that the time had come to put Mary's submission really to the test.
V
The climax of the affair was in this manner. Upon an afternoon when the rain was beating furiously upon the window-panes and the wind struggling up and down the chimney, Sarah and Mary played together in Sarah's room; the play consisted of Mary shutting her eyes and pretending she was in a dark wood, whilst Sarah was the tiger who might at any moment spring upon her and devour her, who would, in any case, pinch her legs with a sudden thrust which would drive all the blood out of Mary's face and make her "as white as the moon."
This game ended, Sarah's black eyes moved about for a fresh diversion; her gaze rested upon Mary, and Mary whispered that she would like to go home.
"Yes. You can," said Sarah, staring at her, "if you will do something when you get there."
"What?" said Mary, her heart beating like a heavy and jumping hammer.
"There's something I want. You've got to bring it me."
Mary said nothing, only her wide eyes filled with tears.
"There's something in your mother's drawing-room. You know in that little table with the glass top where there are the little gold boxes with the silver crosses and things. There's a ring there—a gold one with a red stone—very pretty. I want it."
Mary drew a long, deep breath. Her fat legs in the tight, black stockings were shaking.
"You can go in when no one sees. The table isn't locked, I know, because I opened it once. You can get and bring it to me to-morrow in the garden."
"Oh," Mary whispered, "that would be stealing."
"Of course it wouldn't. Nobody wants the old ring. No one ever looks at it. It's just for fun."
"No," said Mary, "I mustn't."
"Oh, yes, you must. You'll be very sorry if you don't. Dreadful things will happen. Alice——"
Mary cried softly, choking and spluttering and rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Well, you'd better go now. I'll be in the garden with Hortense to-morrow. You know, the same place. You'd better have it, that's all. And don't go on crying, or your mother will think I made you. What's there to cry about? No one will eat you."
"It's stealing."
"I dare say it belongs to you, and, anyway, it will when your mother dies, so what does it matter? You are a baby!"
After Mary's departure Sarah sat for a long while alone in her nursery. She thought to herself: "Mary will be going home now and she'll be snuffling to herself all the way back, and she won't tell the nurse anything, I know that. Now she's in the hall. She's upstairs now, having her things taken off. She's stopped crying, but her eyes and nose are red. She looks very ugly. She's gone to find Alice. She thinks something has happened to her. She begins to cry again when she sees her, and she begins to talk to her about it. Fancy talking to a cat...."
The room was swallowed in darkness, and when Hortense came in and found Sarah sitting alone there, she thought to herself that, in spite of the profits that she secured from her mistress she would find another situation. She did not speak to Sarah, and Sarah did not speak to her.
Once, during the night, Sarah woke up; she sat up in bed and stared into the darkness. Then she smiled to herself. As she lay down again she thought:
"Now I know that she will bring it."
The next day was very fine, and in the glittering garden by the fountain, Sarah sat with Hortense, and waited. Soon Mary and her nurse appeared. Sarah took Mary by the hand and they went away down the leaf-strewn path.
"Well!" said Sarah.
Mary quite silently felt in her pocket at the back of her short, green frock, produced the ring, gave it to Sarah, and, still without a word, turned back down the path and walked to her nurse. She stood there, clutching a doll in her hand, stared in front of her, and said nothing. Sarah looked at the ring, smiled, and put it into her pocket.
At that instant the climax of the whole affair struck, like a blow from some one unseen, upon Sarah's consciousness. She should have been triumphant. She was not. Her one thought as she looked at the ring was that she wished Mary had not taken it. She had a strange feeling as though Mary, soft and heavy and fat, were hanging round her neck. She had "got" Mary for ever. She was suddenly conscious that she despised Mary, and had lost all interest in her. She didn't want the ring, nor did she ever wish to see Mary again.
She gazed about the garden, shrugged her thin, little, bony shoulders as though she were fifty at least, and felt tired and dull, as on the day after a party. She stood and looked at Mary and her nurse; when she saw them walk away she did not move, but stayed there, staring after them. She was greatly disappointed; she did not feel any pleasure at having forced Mary to obey her, but would have liked to have smacked and bitten her, could these violent actions have driven her into speech. In some undetermined way Mary's silence had beaten Sarah. Mary was a stupid, silly little girl, and Sarah despised and scorned her, but, somehow, that was not enough; from all of this, it simply remained that Sarah would like now to forget her, and could not. What did the silly little thing mean by looking like that? "She'll go and hug her Alice and cry over it." If only she had cried in front of Sarah that would have been something.
Two days later Lady Charlotte was explaining to Sarah that so acute a financial crisis had arrived "as likely as not we shan't have a roof over our heads in a day or two."
"We'll take an organ and a monkey," said Sarah.
"At any rate," Lady Charlotte said, "when you grow up you'll be used to anything."
Mrs. Kitson, untidy, in dishevelled clothing, and great distress, was shown in.
"Dear Lady Charlotte, I must apologise—this absurd hour—but I—we—very unhappy about poor Mary. We can't think what's the matter with her. She's not slept for two nights—in a high fever, and cries and cries. The Doctor—Dr. Williamson—really clever—says she's unhappy about something. We thought—scarlet fever—no spots—can't think—perhaps your little girl."
"Poor Mrs. Kitson. How tiresome for you. Do sit down. Perhaps Sarah——"
Sarah shook her head.
"She didn't say she'd a headache in the garden the other day."
Mrs. Kitson gazed appealingly at the little black figure in front of her.
"Do try and remember, dear. Perhaps she told you something."
"Nothing" said Sarah.
"She cries and cries," said Mrs. Kitson, about whose person little white strings and tapes seemed to be continually appearing and disappearing.
"Perhaps she's eaten something?" suggested Lady Charlotte.
When Mrs. Kitson had departed, Lady Charlotte turned to Sarah.
"What have you done to the poor child?" she said.
"Nothing," said Sarah. "I never want to see her again."
"Then you have done something?" said Lady Charlotte.
"She's always crying," said Sarah, "and she calls her kitten Alice," as though that were explanation sufficient.
The strange truth remains, however, that the night that followed this conversation was the first unpleasant one that Sarah had ever spent; she remained awake during a great part of it. It was as though the hours that she had spent on that other afternoon, compelling, from her own dark room, Mary's will, had attached Mary to her. Mary was there with her now, in her bedroom. Mary, red-nosed, sniffing, her eyes wide and staring.
"I want to go home."
"Silly little thing," thought Sarah. "I wish I'd never played with her."
In the morning Sarah was tired and white-faced. She would speak to no one. After luncheon she found her hat and coat for herself, let herself out of the house, and walked to Mrs. Kitson's, and was shown into the wide, untidy drawing-room, where books and flowers and papers had a lost and strayed air as though a violent wind had blown through the place and disturbed everything.
Mrs. Kitson came in.
"You, dear?" she said.
Sarah looked at the room and then at Mrs. Kitson. Her eyes said: "What a place! What a woman! What a fool!"
"Yes, I've come to explain about Mary."
"About Mary?"
"Yes. It's my fault that she's ill. I took a ring out of that little table there—the gold ring with the red stone—and I made her promise not to tell. It's because she thinks she ought to tell that she's ill."
"You took it? You stole it?" Before Mrs. Kitson's simple mind an awful picture was now revealed. Here, in this little girl, whom she had preferred as a companion for her beloved Mary, was a thief, a liar, and one, as she could instantly perceive, without shame.
"You stole it!"
"Yes; here it is." Sarah laid the ring on the table.
Mrs. Kitson gazed at her with horror, dismay, and even fear.
"Why? Why? Don't you know how wrong it is to take things that don't belong to you?"
"Oh, all that!" said Sarah, waving her hand scornfully. '"I don't want the silly thing, and I don't suppose I'd have kept it, anyhow. I don't know why I've told you," she added. "But I just don't want to be bothered with Mary any more."
"Indeed, you won't be, you wicked girl," said Mrs. Kitson. "To think that I—my grand-father's—I'd never missed it. And you haven't even said you're sorry."
"I'm not," said Sarah quietly. "If Mary wasn't so tiresome and silly those sort of things wouldn't happen. She makes me——"
Mrs. Kitson's horror deprived her of all speech, so Sarah, after one more glance of amused cynicism about the room, retired.
As she crossed the Square she knew, with happy relief, that she was free of Mary, that she need never bother about her again. Would all the people whom she compelled to obey her hang round her with all their stupidities afterwards? If so, life was not going to be so entertaining as she had hoped. In her dark little brain already was the perception of the trouble that good and stupid souls can cause to bold and reckless ones. She would never bother with any one so feeble as Mary again, but, unless she did, how was she ever to have any fun again?
Then as she climbed the stairs to her room, she was aware of something else.
"I've caught you, after all. You have been soft. You've yielded to your better nature. Try as you may you can't get right away from it. Now you'll have to reckon with me more than ever. You see you're not stronger than I am."
Before she opened the door of her room she knew that she would find Him there, triumphant.
With a gesture of impatient irritation she pushed the door open.