Books: Maurice Guest

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"You won't realise what you are asking me to do."

He spoke in a constrained voice, for he felt the impossiblity of
standing out much longer against her. Louise caught the note of
yielding, and taking his hand in hers, laid it against her forehead.

"Feel that! Feel how it throbs and burns! And so it has gone
on for hours now, for days. I can't think or feel--with that fever in
me. I must know who it was, or I shall go mad. Don't torture me then--
you, too! You are good. Be kind to me now. Be my friend, Maurice Guest."

Maurice was vanquished; in a low voice he told her what she wished to
hear. She read the syllables from his lips, repeated the name slowly
after him, then shook her head; she did not know it. Letting his hand
drop, she went back to the sofa.

"Tell me everything you know about her," she said imperiously. "What
is she like?--what is she like? What is the colour of her hair?"

Maurice was a poor hand at description. Questioned thus, he was not
even sure whether to call Ephie pretty or not; he knew that she was
small, and very young, but of her hair he could say little, except
that it was not black.

Louise caught at the detail. "Not black, no, not black!" she cried.
"He had black enough here," and she ran her hands through her own
unruly hair.

There was nothing she did not want to know, did not try to force from
his lips; and a relentless impatience seized her at his powerlessness.

"I must see her for myself," she said at length, when he had stammered
into silence. "You must bring her to me."

"No, that you really can't ask me to do."

She came over to him again, and took his hands. "You will bring her
here to-morrow--to-morrow afternoon. Do you think I shall hurt her? Is
she any better than I am? Oh, don't be afraid! We are not so easily
soiled."

Maurice demurred no more.

"For until I see her, I shall not know--I shall not know," she said to
herself, when he had pledged his word.

The tense expression of her face relaxed; her mouth drooped; she lay
back in the sofa-corner and shut her eyes. For what seemed a long
time, there was no sound in the room. Maurice thought she had fallen
asleep. But at his first light movement she opened her eyes.

"Now go," she said. "Please, go!" And he obeyed.

The night was cold, but, as he stood irresolute in the street, he
wiped the perspiration from his forehead. He felt very perplexed. Only
one thing was clear to him: he had promised to bring Ephie to see her
the next day, and, however wrong it might be, the promise was given
and must be kept. But what he now asked himself was: did not
the bringing of the child, under these circumstances, imply a tacit
acknowledgment that she was seriously involved?--a fact which, all
along, he had striven against admitting. For, after his one encounter
with Ephie and Schilsky, in the woods that summer, and the first
firing of his suspicions, he had seen nothing else to render him
uneasy; a few weeks later, Ephie had gone to Switzerland, and, on her
return in September, or almost directly afterwards--three or four days
at most--Schilsky had taken his departure. There had been, of course,
his drunken boasts to take into account, but firstly, Maurice had only
retained a hazy idea of their nature, and, in the next place, the
events which had followed that evening had been of so much greater
importance to him that he had had no thoughts to spare for Ephie--more
especially as he then knew that Schilsky was out of the way. But now
the whole affair rose vividly before his mind again, and in his heart
he knew that he had always believed--just as Louise believed--in Ephie's
guilt. No: guilt was too strong a word. Yet however harmless the
flirtation might have been in itself, it had been carried on in secret,
in an underhand way: there had been nothing straightforward or above-board
about it; and this alone was enough to compromise a young girl.

The Cayhills had been in Leipzig again for three weeks, but so
occupied had Maurice been during this time, that he had only paid them
one hasty call. Now he felt that he must see Ephie at once, not only
to secure her word that she would come out with him, the following
day, but also to read from her frank eyes and childish lips the
assurance of her innocence, or, at least, the impossibility of her guilt.

But as he walked to the LESSINGSTRASSE, he remembered, without being
able to help it, all the trifles which, at one time or another, had
disturbed his relations with Ephie. He recalled each of the thin,
superficial untruths, by means of which she had defended herself, the
day he had met her with Schilsky: it seemed incredible to him now that
he had not seen through them instantly. He called up her pretty,
insincere behaviour with the circle of young men that gathered round
her; the language of signs by which she had conversed with Schilsky in
the theatre. He remembered the astounding ease with which he had made
her acquaintance in the first case, or rather, with which she had made
his. Even the innocent kiss she had once openly incited him to, and on
the score of which she had been so exaggeratedly angry--this, too, was
summoned to bear witness against her. Each of these incidents
now seemed to point to a fatal frivolity, to a levity of character
which, put to a real test, would offer no resistance.

Supper was over in the PENSION, but only Mrs. Cayhill sat in her
accustomed corner. Ephie was with the rest of the boarders in the
general sitting-room, where Johanna conducted Maurice. Boehmer was
paying an evening visit, as well as a very young American, who
laughed: "Heh, heh!" at everything that was said, thereby displaying
two prominently gold teeth. Mrs. Tully sat on a small sofa, with her
arm round Ephie's waist: they were the centre of the group, and it did
not appear likely that Maurice would get an opportunity of speaking to
Ephie in private. She was in high spirits, and had only a saucy
greeting for him. He sat down beside Johanna, and waited, ill at ease.
Soon his patience was exhausted; rising, he went over to the sofa, and
asked Ephie if he might come to take her for a walk, the next
afternoon. But she would not give him an express promise; she pouted:
after all these weeks, it suddenly occurred to him to come and see
them, and then, the first thing he did, was to ask a favour of her.
Did he really expect her to grant it?

"Don't, Ephie, love, don't!" cried Mrs. Tully in her sprightly way.
"Men are really shocking creatures, and it is our duty, love, to keep
them in their place. If we don't, they grow presumptuous," and she
shot an arch look at Boehmer, who returned it, fingered his beard, and
murmured: "Cruel--cruel!"

"And even if I wanted to go when the time came, how do you expect me
to know so long beforehand? Ever so many things may happen before
to-morrow," said Ephie brilliantly; at which Mrs. Tully laughed very
much indeed, and still more at Boehmer's remark that it was an ancient
privilege of the ladies, never to be obliged to know their own minds.

"It's a libel--take that, you naughty boy!" she cried, and slapped him
playfully on the hand. "Ephie, love, how shall we punish him?"

"He is not to come again for a week," answered Ephie slily; and at
Boehmer's protestations of penitence and despair, both she and Mrs.
Tully laughed till the tears stood in their eyes, Ephie all the more
extravagantly because Maurice stood unsmiling before her.

"I ask this as a direct favour, Ephie. There's something I want to say
to you--something important," he added in a low voice, so that only she
could hear it.

Ephie changed colour at once, and tried to read his face.

"Then I may come at five? You will be ready? Good night."

Johanna followed him into the passage, and stood by while he put on
his coat. They had used up all their small talk in the sitting-room,
and had nothing more to say to each other. When however they shook
hands, she observed impulsively: "Sometimes I wish we were safe back
home again." But Maurice only said: "Indeed?" and displayed no
curiosity to know the reason why.

After he had gone, Ephie was livelier than before, as long as she was
being teased about her pale, importunate admirer. Then, suddenly, she
pleaded a headache, and went to her own room.

Johanna, listening outside the door, concluded from the stillness that
her sister was asleep. But Ephie heard Johanna come and go. She could
not sleep, nor could she get Maurice's words out of her mind. He had
something important to say to her. What could it be? There was only
one important subject in the world for her now; and she longed for the
hour of his visit--longed, hoped, and was more than half afraid.

III.

Since her return to Leipzig, Ephie's spirits had gone up and down like
a barometer in spring. In this short time, she passed through more
changes of mood than in all her previous life. She learned what
uncertainty meant, and suspense, and helplessness; she caught at any
straw of hope, and, for a day on end, would be almost comforted; she
invented numberless excuses for Schilsky, and rejected them, one and
all. For she was quite in the dark about his movements; she had not
seen him since her return, and could hear nothing of him. Only the
first of the letters she had written to him from Switzerland had
elicited a reply, and he had left all the notes she had sent him,
since getting back, unanswered.

Her fellow-boarder, Mrs. Tully, was her only confidant; and that, only
in so far as this lady, knowing that what she called "a little
romance" was going on, had undertaken to enclose any letters that
might arrive during Ephie's absence. Johanna had no suspicions, or
rather she had hitherto had none. In the course of the past week,
however, it had become plain even to her blind, sisterly eyes that
something was the matter with Ephie. She could still be lively when
she liked, almost unnaturally lively, and especially in the company of
Mrs. Tully and her circle; but with these high spirits alternated fits
of depression, and once Johanna had come upon her in tears. Driven
into a corner, Ephie declared that Herr Becker had scolded her at her
lesson; but Johanna was not satisfied with this explanation; for
formerly, the master's blame or praise had left no impression on her
little sister's mind. Even worse than this, Ephie could now, on slight
provocation, be thoroughly peevish--a thing so new in her that it
worried Johanna most of all. The long walks of the summer had been
given up; but Ephie had adopted a way of going in and out of the
house, just as it pleased her, without a word to her sister. Johanna
scrutinised her keenly, and the result was so disturbing that she
resolved to broach the subject to her mother.

On the morning after Maurice's visit, therefore, she appeared in the
sitting-room, with a heap of undarned stockings in one hand,
her work-basket in the other, and with a very determined expression on
her face. But the moment was not a happy one: Mrs. Cayhill was deep in
WHY PAUL FERROL KILLED HIS WIFE; and would be lost to her surroundings
until the end of the book was reached. Had Johanna been of an
observant turn of mind, she would have waited a little; for, finding
the intermediate portion of the novel dry reading, Mrs. Cayhill was
getting over the pages at the rate of three or four a minute, and
would soon have been finished.

But Johanna sat down at the table and opened fire.

"I wish to speak to you, mother," she said firmly.

Mrs. Cayhill did not even blink. Johanna drew several threads across a
hole she was darning, before she repeated, in the same decided tone:
"Do you hear me, mother? There is something I wish to speak to you
about."

"Hm," said Mrs. Cayhill, without raising her eyes from the page. She
heard Johanna, and was even vaguely distracted by her from the web of
circumstance that was enveloping her hero; but she believed, from
experience, that if she took no notice of her, Johanna would not
persist. What the latter had to say would only be a reminder that it
was mail-day, and no letters were ready; or that if she did not put on
her bonnet and go out for a walk, she would be obliged to take another
of her nerve-powders that night: and Mrs. Cayhill hated moral
persuasion with all her heart.

"Put down your book, mother, please, and listen to me," continued
Johanna, without any outward sign of impatience, and as she spoke, she
drew another stocking over her hand.

"What IS the matter, Joan? I wish you would let me be," answered Mrs.
Cayhill querulously, still without looking up.

"It's about Ephie, mother. But you can't hear me if you go on
reading."

"I can hear well enough," said Mrs. Cayhill, and turning a page, she
lost herself, to all appearance, in the next one. Johanna did not
reply, and for some minutes there was silence, broken only by the
turning of the leaves. Then, compelled by something that was stronger
than herself, Mrs. Cayhill laid her book on her knee, gave a loud
sigh, and glanced at Johanna's grave face.

"You are a nuisance, Joan. Well, make haste now--what is it?"

"It's Ephie, mother. I am not easy about her lately. I don't think she
can be well. She is so unlike herself."

"Really, Joan," said Mrs. Cayhill, laughing with an exaggerated
carelessness. "I think I should be the first to notice if she were sick.
But you like to make yourself important, that's what it is, and to have a
finger in every pie. There is nothing whatever the matter with the child."

"She's not well, I'm sure," persisted Johanna, without haste. "I have
noticed it for some time now. I think the air here is not agreeing
with her. I constantly hear it said that this is an enervating place.
I believe it would be better for her if we went somewhere else for the
winter--even if we returned home. Nothing binds us, and health is the
first and chief----"

"Go home?" cried Mrs. Cayhill, and turned her book over on its face.
"Really, Joan, you are absurd! Because Ephie finds it hard to settle
down again, after such a long vacation--and that's all it is--you want
to rush off to a fresh place, when . . . when we are just so
comfortably fixed here for the winter, and where we have at last
gotten us a few friends. As for going home, why, every one would
suppose we'd gone crazy. We haven't been away six months yet--and when
Mr. Cayhill is coming over to fetch us back--and . . . and everything."

She spoke with heat; for she knew from experience that what her elder
daughter resolved on, was likely to be carried through.

"That is all very well, mother," continued Johanna unmoved. "But I
don't think your arguments are sound if we find that Ephie is really
sick, and needs a change."

"Arguments not sound! What big words you love to use, Joan! You let
Ephie be. She grows prettier every day, and she's a favourite wherever
she goes."

"That's another thing. Her head is being turned, and she will soon be
quite spoilt. She begins to like the fuss and attention so well that----"

"You had your chances too, Joan. You needn't be jealous."

Johanna had heard this remark too often to be sensitive to it.

"When it comes to serious 'chances,' as you call them, no one will be
more pleased for Ephie or more interested than I. But this is
something different. You see that yourself, mother, I am sure. These
young men who come about the house are so foolish, and immature, and
they have such different ideas of things from ourselves. They think
so. . . so"--Johanna hesitated for a word--"so laxly on earnest subjects.
And it is telling on Ephie--Look, for instance, at Mr. Dove! I don't
want to say anything against him, in particular. He is really
more serious than the rest. But for some time now, he has been making
himself ridiculous,"--Johanna had blushed for Dove on the occasion of
his last visit. "No one could be more in earnest than he is; but Ephie
only makes fun of him, in a heartless way. She won't see what a grave
matter it is to him."

Mrs. Cayhill laughed, not at all displeased. "Young people will be
young people. You can't put old heads on young shoulders, Joan, or
shut them up in separate houses. Ephie is an extremely pretty girl,
and it will be the same wherever we go.--As for young Dove, he knows
well enough that nothing can come of it, and if he chooses to continue
his attentions, why, he must take the consequences--that's all.
Absurd!--a boy and girl flirtation, and to make so much of it! A
mountain of a molehill, as usual. And half the time, you only imagine
things, and don't see what is going on under your very nose. Anyone
but you, I'm sure, would find more to object to in the way young Guest
behaves than Dove."

"Maurice Guest?" said Johanna, and laid her hands with stocking and
needle on the table.

"Yes, Maurice Guest," repeated Mrs. Cayhill, with complacent mockery.
"Do you think no one has eyes but yourself?--No, Joan, you're not sharp
enough. Just look at the way he went on last night! Every one but you
could see what was the matter with him. Mrs. Tully told me about it
afterwards. Why, he never took his eyes off her."

"Oh, I'm sure you are mistaken," said Johanna earnestly, and was
silent from sheer surprise. "He has been here so seldom of late," she
added after a pause, thinking aloud.

"Just for that very reason," replied Mrs. Cayhill, with the same air
of wisdom. "A nice-minded young man stays away, if he sees that his
feelings are not returned, or if he has no position to offer.--And
another thing I'll tell you, Joan, though you do think yourself so
clever. You don't need to worry if Ephie is odd and fidgety sometimes
just now. At her age, it's only to be expected. You know very well
what I mean. All girls go through the same thing. You did yourself."

After this, she took up her book again, having, she knew, successfully
silenced her daughter, who, on matters of this nature, was extremely
sensitive.

Johanna went methodically on with her darning; but the new idea which
her mother had dropped into her mind, took root and grew. Strange that
it had not occurred to her before! Dove's state of mind had been
patent from the first; but she had had no suspicions of Maurice Guest.
His manner with Ephie had hitherto been that of a brother: he had never
behaved like the rest. Yet, when she looked back on his visit of the
previous evening, she could not but be struck by the strangeness of his
demeanour: his distracted silence, his efforts to speak to Ephie alone,
and the expression with which he had watched her. And Ephie?--what of her?
Now that Johanna thought of it, a change had also come over Ephie's mode
of treating Maurice; the gay insouciance of the early days had given place
to the pert flippancy which, only the night before, had so pained her
sister. What had brought about this change? Was it pique? Was Ephie
chafing, in secret, at his prolonged absences, and was she, girl-like,
anxious to conceal it from him?

Johanna gathered up her work to go to her own room and think the
matter out in private. In the passage, she ran into the arms of Mrs.
Tully, whom she disliked; for, ever since coming to the PENSION, this
lady had carried on a kind of cult with Ephie, which was distasteful
in the extreme to Johanna.

"Oh, Miss Cayhill!" she now exclaimed. "I was just groping my way--it
is indeed groping, is it not?--to your sitting-room. WHERE is your
sister? I want SO much to ask her if she will have tea with me this
afternoon. I am expecting a few friends, and should be so glad if she
would join us."

"Ephie is practising, Mrs. Tully," said Johanna in her coolest tone.
"And I cannot have her disturbed."

"She is so very, very diligent," said Mrs. Tully with enthusiasm. "I
always remark to myself on hearing her, how very idle a life like mine
is in comparison. I am able to do SO little; just a mere trifle here
and there, a little atom of good, one might say. I have no
talents.--And you, too, dear Miss Cayhill. So studious, so clever! I
hear of you on every side," and, letting her eyes rest on Johanna's
head, she wondered why the girl wore her hair so unbecomingly.

Johanna did not respond.

"If only you would let your hair grow, it would make such a difference
to your appearance," said Mrs. Tully suddenly, with disconcerting
outspokenness.

Johanna drew herself up.

"Thanks," she said. "I have always worn my hair like this, and at my
age, have no intention of altering it," and leaving Mrs. Tully
protesting vehemently at such false modesty, she went past her, into
her own room, and shut the door.

She sat down by the window to sew. But her hands soon fell to
her lap, and with her eyes on the backs of the neighbouring houses,
she continued her interrupted reflections. First, though, she threw a
quick, sarcastic side-glance on her mother and herself. As so often
before, when she had wanted to pin her mother's attention to a
subject, the centre of interest had shifted in spite of her efforts,
and they had ended far from where they had begun: further, she,
Johanna, had a way, when it came to the point, not of asking advice or
of faithfully discussing a question, but of emphatically giving her
opinion, or of stating what she considered to be the facts of the
case.

From an odd mixture of experience and self-distrust, Johanna had,
however, acquired a certain faith in her mother's opinions--these
blind, instinctive hits and guesses, which often proved right where
Johanna's carefully drawn conclusions failed. Here, once more, her
mother's idea had broken in upon her like a flash of light, even
though she could not immediately bring herself to accept it. Maurice
and Ephie! She could not reconcile the one with the other. Yet what if
the child were fretting? What if he did not care? A pang shot through
her at the thought that any outsider should have the power to make
Ephie suffer. Oh, she would make him care!--she would talk to him as he
had never been talked to in his life before.

The sisters' rooms were connected by a door; and, gradually, in spite
of her preoccupation, Johanna could not but become aware how brokenly
Ephie was practising. Coaxing, encouragement, and sometimes even
severity, were all, it is true, necessary to pilot Ephie through the
two hours that were her daily task; but as idle as to-day, she had
never been. What could she be doing? Johanna listened intently, but
not a sound came from the room; and impelled by a curiosity to observe
her sister in a new light, she rose and opened the door.

Ephie was standing with her back to it, staring out of the window, and
supporting herself on the table by her violin, which she held by the
neck. At Johanna's entrance, she started, grew very red, and hastily
raised the instrument to her shoulder.

"What are you doing, Ephie? You are wasting a great deal of time,"
said Johanna in the tone of mild reproof that came natural to her, in
speaking to her little sister. "Is anything the matter to-day? If you
don't practice better than this, you won't have the ETUDE ready by
Friday, and Herr Becker will make you take it again--for the third
time."

"He can if he likes. I guess I don't care," said Ephie nonchantly,
and, seizing the opportunity offered for a break, she sat
down, and laid bow and fiddle on the table.

"Have you remembered everything he pointed out to you at your last
lesson?" asked Johanna, going over to the music-stand, and peering at
the pages with her shortsighted eyes. "Let me see--what was it now?
Something about this double-stopping here, and the fingering in this
position."

Ephie laughed. "Old Joan, what do you know about it?"

"Not much, dear, I admit," said Johanna pleasantly. "But try and master
it, like a good girl. So you can get rid of it, and go on to something
else."

Ephie sat back, clasped her hands behind her head, and gave a long
sigh. "Yes, to the next one," she said. "Oh, if you only knew how sick
I am of them, Joan! The next won't be a bit better than this. They are
all alike--a whole book of them."

Johanna looked down at the little figure with the plump, white arms,
and discontented expression; and she tried to find in the childish
face something she had previously not seen there.

"Are you tired of studying, Ephie?" she asked. "Would you like to
leave off and go away?"

"Go away from Leipzig? Where to?" Ephie did not unclasp her hands, but
her eyes grew vigilant.

"Oh, there are plenty of other places, child. Dresden--or Weimar--or
Stuttgart--where you could take lessons just as well. Or if you are
tired of studying altogether, there is no need for you to go on with
it. We can return home, any day. Sometimes, I think it would be better
if we did. You have not been yourself lately, dear. I don't think you
are very well."

"I not myself?--not well? What rubbish you talk, Joan! I am quite
well, and wish you wouldn't tease me. I guess you want to go away
yourself. You are tired of being here. But nothing shall induce me to
go. I love old Leipzig. And I still have heaps to learn before I leave
off studying.--I don't even know whether I shall be ready by spring.
It all depends. And now, Joan, go away." She took up her violin and
put it on her shoulder. "Now it's you who are wasting time. How can I
practise when you stand there talking?"