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MRS. KEITH'S CRIME

 

 

CHAPTER XXII

 

A LONG night’s rest. I open my eyes and look round, wondering if yesterday was true, and if the dream of bygone years that came in my sleep was only a dream. I hold up my hand with the wedding ring on it, and look at it half foolishly, then all things come back to my consciousness.

            A bright, happy morning, with the sunshine filling the room; the sound of footsteps and the rumbling of wheels in the street, as if some were astir early, ready to rejoice in the spring. I get up and look at Molly, but the terror has gone, and it is only of to-day that I can take account; of to-morrow I will think no more. The routine begins once more, as if the days of the past week had never been—and Molly and I sit in the sunshine by the window again.

            I must send for the sardine. I have had no talk with him worth mentioning since he came, and feel as if I had been unkind and ungrateful; but it is not so. It is only that the people here are living in a different world from mine; I dread the sound of their talk and laughter and merriment, am afraid to see their faces again. I cannot tell why, for the thought of their being happy does me good. I do not grudge them their joys, and would not dim one single moment of their happiness with any sorrow of mine.

            Before the morning is over Mr. Walters pays me a visit. He wants to know if he may come to my window and paint the church door opposite, with the group of beggars gathered there.

            ‘ I would not be long about it, for I work pretty quickly, as you will see,’ he remarks, ‘ and I’ll do my best not to be in your way; but your window is about the only spot from which one can get a quiet and unmolested view.’

            I cannot well refuse, so give him leave; his talk will divert me a little, perhaps. He brings his easel at once, and sets to work.

            ‘ Where is Mrs. Walters?’ I ask, knowing that she likes to sit beside her husband while he paints.

            ‘ She’ close at hand, you may be sure; but we did not like to ask for room for two.’

            ‘ Ask her to come,’ I say; nothing loth, he goes, and she returns with him and sits sewing as usual.

            May Vincent brings in some flowers and arranges them; I fancy there is a cloud upon her face, but it must be only fancy. Ralph meets her by the door as she goes out, but he does not try to detain her; with a passing word, he comes in to ask after Molly. He seems amused at finding Mr. Walters installed here, and stands watching him work for a few minutes. It is a great relief that they are here at the same time, for, try as I will, it is impossible to enter into their doing as I did a week ago.

            ‘ It is a difficult thing,’ Mr. Walters says, as he looks across at his unconscious models, ‘ to paint a leg or an arm with a bone in it. I think I must try painting in the bone without the flesh on it, as one does the figure without the clothes sometimes, in order to get the anatomy right, and then I can add on the flesh afterwards.’

            ‘ It sounds as if it would be a good way.’

            ‘ The worst of it is, that people make so much fuss nowadays about the flesh, even when it has a bone inside it.’

            Ralph is silent for a few minutes; and Mrs. Walters looks up and says, as if she is stating an almost impossible fact—

            ‘ Joe is never satisfied with his own work, unless he is a conceited idiot,’ Ralph laughs. I shut my eyes for a moment while he laughs, but I shall bear it soon.

            ‘ That is one use of a wife/ She takes the satisfaction into her own hands, and ladles it out in a way that keeps up your courage when times are bad, and just prevents you from throwing up your brushes and trying a barrel-organ,’ Mr. Walters says.

            ‘ How is the negotiation with Mr. Cohen getting on?’ Ralph asks.

            ‘ Well, it can’t be called exciting as yet. That picture he wants is one that I like myself, and I should be sorry to treat it with any want of respect; so, as I have made up my mind that it it’s worth thirty pounds, it would be hardly fair to it, as a picture, to take twenty.’

            ‘ You should have remembered that he was a Jew, and asked forty.’

            ‘ I might have done that, but while we have several aunts in flourishing circumstances at home, it is a pity to weaken one’s natural truthfulness. I think I mentioned before that we have found relations as a means of support answer exceedingly well, and it would not be fair to them to squander away one’s work for prices that did not fairly represent it.’

            ‘ Still, you know, a Jew will bargain if he can.’

            ‘ He will. I must say there are more Jews in this hotel than I have seen for some time—that is, taking them as a percentage on the number of visitors. They are a very interesting people, and I am glad to have the opportunity of studying them. It is one that perhaps is not so easy to get over in the States as on the continent of Europe.’

            ‘ Have you no Jews there?’ I ask, anxious not to seem too much wrapped up in my own thoughts.

            ‘ Oh yes, we have a great many.— If that gentleman in brown rags opposite would settle himself down to his own satisfaction, I should be obliged.—We have a great many, and the number is every year increasing. Perhaps down in Wall Street they have a good deal to say. It strikes me there might be a proverb about them, for when the Jew pipes the stocks always dance.

            ‘ What do you think of them there politically?’ Ralph asks. Ralph always seems to be studying other people’s views. What his own may be he seldom volunteers to state.

            ‘ Politically, it may be said of them as occasionally of us, perhaps—that their brilliancy is shown chiefly in their prosperity.’

            ‘ It depends upon what you call brilliancy,’ Ralph says.

            ‘ Precisely; it does, and from which side you prospect round, and whether you have any relations in the stockbroking line.’

            ‘ Yes, that makes a difference.’

            ‘ It does; for it is astonishing how, with the key of their strong box, the Jews have contrived to lead most nations by the ear at one time or other. You may burn them, or chop them up, or shut as many doors on them as you please, but they just run over this continent like so many cats over roofs by night, and you may be pretty certain that if there’s a good spot for them to drop down on, they are there ready to drop.’

            ‘ How do you account for their comparative scarcity in the States?’ Ralph asks.

‘ Is it because they hang together so much, or because they find your countrymen are a match for them?’

            ‘ That beggars leg is correct, I think.—It may be either, or it may be that a Jew is like a cat, and objects to wetting his feet. America is not far, of course; still, if you notice you will find that he prefers the countries he can get to without crossing too much water. Any amount of dry land he can skip over, and a desert or two he looks on as mere trifles, but to water the Jew does not take kindly.’

            ‘ Nonsense,’ Ralph says, ‘ the boats are full of Jews.’

            ‘ That’s true,’ Mr. Walters answers calmly, ‘ and they look a good deal like cats with their paws in walnut-shells. Still, they are not afraid of seafaring.’

            ‘ Mr. Josephs half lives in his yacht,’ I remark.

            ‘ I dare say. I wish he would offer me and my wife a passage in her; he’d find us most invaluable people for a voyage. We are always good-tempered, willing to amuse as far as we can, and we are born sailors.’

            ‘ It is rather an oversight on his part not to secure you,’ Ralph laughs.

            ‘ It is, I can assure you, and if you get a chance of letting him see this, I should be greatly obliged.—I think that beggar is pretty good;’ and Mr. Walters gets up and stands a little way from his work and looks at it.

            ‘ Maggie, shall I put Molly on the sofa for you?’

            Ralph asks; and he puts her softly down and covers her over, and leaves her to sleep. ‘ Let us go and have a smoke,’ he says to Mr. Walters; ‘ Mrs. Keith looks very tired.’

            So Mr. Walters leaves his painting and goes off with Ralph, and Mrs. Walters makes an excuse about seeing if there are letters downstairs, and goes too.

            I take a rug from the easy-chair, and a cushion, and carry them to the side of the sofa, and lie down on the floor to be near Molly. The clan, clang of the church bell breaks out, but it does not matter; it seems almost as if the fumes of some narcotic were stealing over me, stupefying my strongest feelings and setting some little ones going. I think of Mr. and Mrs. Walters, and of their baby, wondering if it is pretty; I shut my eyes, and fancy I see the white trumpet-flowers in the doctor’s garden; they make me remember Charles V.’s clocks; I wonder how he managed them, and imagine I hear them all striking and ticking at once. But it is so confusing I cannot listen, and I run away in dismay to the labyrinth at the Alcazar—the labyrinth that was to be a monument to the happy days he had spent there. But it is more confusing still, for all the lines shake and grow misty before my eyes; a soft hand reaches down and touches my face. I open my eyes and look up, and there is Molly—Molly, with the sweetest look in her eyes and a happy smile on her dear face. I sit up beside her, and we look at each other, better and stronger for the sleep, and thankful to be together....just to sit here and to hold Molly in my arms, to stroke her hair, and to hear her voice, oh, the blessedness of it. It cry out in my heart again, as I did at Marseille, if the world might stand still even here, as we wait, ill and worn, but together, I could for ever be content.

           

            Mr. Walters has not come back to his painting, so in the afternoon I send a message to the sardine, asking him to come and see me, for it seems almost as if I had been neglecting him. He comes at once, as pleased as if to sit with me were some great treat.

            ‘ Hardly had you a minute to myself since I came,’ he says. ‘ Can’t you say you are not at home if any one comes? One comfort is, I believe they are all out. I stayed in and read the papers, and thought perhaps we should get a chat.

            ‘ It is quite nice; it is like St. John’s Wood.’

            ‘ Yes, isn’t it? Remember that picture you were so fond of? wonder what your tenant has done with it. Nice little crib, though; I dare say you’ll be glad to get back to it.’ I notice that he says nothing about Nellie, and I fear things are not going very well. He can never sit still long, so after a minute or two he begins to walk about the room. ‘ Rather a nice little set of people here,’ he says. ‘ Sorry Bexley is gone; he was the only man I could ever beat at billiards. However, it can’t be helped, and I shall never forget his taking away the beautiful relation.’ He stops and looks at the flowers. ‘ Did that girl—what is she called? Miss Vincent—give you these flowers?’

            ‘ Yes.’

            ‘ She’s a fine girl—walks well, got a good expression, no doubt about that. She’d be rather too much of a girl for me.’

            ‘ How do you mean?’

            ‘ She’d want too much of a curb on her to keep her in hand at all. I like a girl who has to be coaxed, you know, just as you’d pat a horse’s neck; a little girl to take care of and look after—cry when you go away and cling to you, laugh when you come back and cling to you, able to do anything she liked when she tried, up to nothing, and yet quite ready for anything.’

            ‘ I am quite sure May Vincent isn’t up to anything—anything wrong, that is.’

            ‘ Oh no, I dare say not; but she’s one of your high-spirited ones who’d want a lot of holding in. I don’t want to do that kind of thing.’

            ‘ She’ll love her husband very dearly, if she marries the right man; she’ll just be devoted to him.’

            ‘ Yes; and if she married the wrong man, or found out she didn’t like the right man after she had got him, she might love some one else very dearly, and just be devoted to him, or break her heart, or go and do something off the beaten track. It never does to marry a woman likely to go off the beaten track in any way—gives one a world of trouble, and does not pay.’

            ‘ I don’t believe May will be much trouble to her husband. She’ll never marry a man she doesn’t love, and she will think the man she does marry perfect, as long as she lives.’

            ‘ Don’t think much of her man.’

            ‘ You mean Ralph Bicknell; why not?’

            ‘ Should say he is a selfish beggar. Thinks his own views and feelings of such a very superior order he never trouble himself to consider other people’s.’

            ‘ I think they love each other,’ I answer, with a sigh, ‘ and that is the great point. I don’t suppose there are many really perfect marriages.’

            ‘ Do you think most people fight a little bit sometimes?’ he asks.

            ‘ Why, no, of course not;’ and I try to laugh. ‘ What I mean is, that I believe very few people marry between whom there is absolute sympathy, and perfect love and understand in all things, so that their two lives just become one.’

            ‘ Dare say not,’ the sardine answers, with half a sigh. ‘ It’s a good thing, too,’ he adds. ‘ The everlastingly went on finding kindred hearts and sympathetic souls, and all that sort of thing, you know. Life would become a mass of hearts and souls, and nerves and intellects, and nobody knows where the rest would go to; there wouldn’t be any good, wholesome commonplaceness left.’

            ‘ What nonsense.’

            ‘ It is not nonsense at all,’ he says. ‘ Mr. What-is-his-name downstairs, and lots of other people, say that over-education and over-study may damage the health and bodies of the rising generation. Don’t believe it will myself; believe it will only prevent them from becoming fat and lazy. Still, just as, from that point of view, people may go on until in a few generations ahead they have no physiques to walk about in, so would the universal indulgence in the finest feelings wear away those that have been found best for everyday wear and tear. One must take a large view of things sometimes,’ he says, speaking like an oracle, and getting up and looking as philosophic as he knows how.

‘ But never mind,’ he goes on, ‘ let’s stop this. What do you think of Nellie, eh? I have not had a chance of asking you before.’

            ‘ She’s a dear little thing.’

            ‘ Yes, she is;’ and then he adds, in the most cheerful manner, ‘ I don’t believe she cares a bit about me. Don’t think it ever enters her head that I am on the war-path.’

            ‘ I am afraid it doesn’t,’ I answer regretfully.

            ‘ It soon will. I shall have a shy at her the first time I get the chance,’ she says, getting very red.

            ‘ A shy at her. What is that?’

            ‘ Shall ask her to marry me,’ he says calmly.

            ‘ She’ll refuse you,’ I exclaim in dismay.

            ‘ Of course she will,’ he says, in a lively, triumphant tone, as if that were precisely what he was going to propose to her for. ‘ But, you see, she evidently hasn’t any idea of matrimony with me in her head yet, and something must put it there, so I think that’ll be the best way.’

            ‘ Some men wouldn’t like the idea of being refused, even if they thought it would help them towards being accepted later on,’ I say, thinking that the sardine has got his personal vanity well under control.

            ‘ Ah, you see, they are the men who prefer their own very superior feelings to the woman they are after.’

            ‘ But what will you do when she has said “No”?’

            ‘ Hang about till it’s time to ask again. Perhaps she will say “Yes” then. I hope she will some day. I am awfully fond of her.’ He gets up again and walks about, and looks at Molly’s portrait just as he looked at Clarence Grove’s picture when he came to St. John’s Wood. ‘ That really is a nice little portrait of the young un,’ he says. ‘ You’ll make a lot of money when you get back if you go on like that.’

            ‘ Yes,’ I say wearily, ‘ when I get back.’

            ‘ That won’t be just yet, will it? But, to go back to the other matter, there’s nothing like plain sailing, you know, then you know where you are. If you like a woman, I believe in letting her know it, and then she knows where she is. If you alter your mind you can tell her so; but I shan’t alter mine. Not that sort of person; know what I’m about, and what I want.’

            ‘ Mr. Cohen, I want to ask you about Miss Vincent and Mr. Bicknell. Why don’t you like him, and what do you think about them?’

            ‘ I have watched them a good deal this last week, and it strikes me that they don’t know whether they want each other, or whether they don’t. Never happy apart, and only irritate each other when they are together.’

            ‘ There’s something in what you say; but I wonder why it is?’

            ‘ I think he knows she’ fond of him, and rather takes advantage of it. A dangerous kind of game with a girl like that; she might go off and marry another fellow if he tries it on too much. There’s no knowing what a woman will put up with if she’s really in love. Still, it’s risky.’

            ‘ She knows he’s found of her.’

            ‘ You mean she knows he has been. A woman likes to be told it, freshened up, every day, or else she thinks he’s altered or changed his mind, or that she’s grown into a fright, or some such nonsense. My sister was once fond of a man something like this beggar. I believe that’s why I rather hate him.’

            ‘ Well?’

            ‘ Well, he shilly-shallied about, and tried to find out if she cared about him; never had generosity enough to tell her, in plain language, that he cared about her; but just said things in roundabout ways.’

            ‘ Well?’

            ‘ He never had courage to risk plain “Yes” or “No” from her lips; at last, in pique and that kind of thing, she went off and married someone else, then the beggar thought he was badly treated.’

 

 

 

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