Books: Maurice Guest

H >> Henry Handel Richardson >> Maurice Guest

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51

He worked steadily enough. A skilled observer might have
remarked a slight contraction of the corners of his mouth; none of his
friends, however, noticed anything, with the exception of Madeleine,
and all she said was: "You look so cross sometimes. Is anything the
matter?"

Late one afternoon, they were on the ice as usual. While Madeleine
talked to Dickensey, Maurice practised beside them. In making a
particularly complicated gyration, he all but overbalanced himself,
and his cap fell on the ice. As he was brushing the snow off it, he
chanced to raise his eyes. A number of people were standing on the
wooden bridge, watching the skaters; to the front, some children
climbed and pushed on the wooden railing. His eye was ranging
carelessly over them, when he started so violently that he again let
his cap drop. He picked it up, threw another hasty look at the bridge,
then turned and skated some distance away, where he could see without
being seen. Yes, he had not been mistaken; it was Louise; he
recognised her although a fur hat almost covered her hair. She was
gazing down, with an intentness he knew in her; one hand rested on the
parapet. And then, as he looked, his blood seemed to congeal: she was
not alone; he saw her turn and speak to some one behind her. For a
moment things swam before him. Then, a blind curiosity drove him
forward to find out whom she spoke to. People moved on the bridge,
obstructing his view, then several went away, and there was no further
hindrance to his seeing: her companion was the shabby little
Englishman, of doubtful reputation, with whom he had met her once or
twice that summer. He felt himself grow cold. But now that he had
certainty, his chief idea was to prevent the others from knowing, too;
he grew sick at the thought of Madeleine's sharp comments, and
Dickensey's cynicism. Rejoining them, he insisted--so imperiously that
Madeleine showed surprise--on their skating with him on the further
pond; and he kept them going round and round without a pause.

When the bridge was empty, and he had made sure that Louise was not
standing anywhere about the edge of the ice, he left his companions,
and, without explanation, crossed to the benches and took off his
skates. He did not, however, go home; he went into the SCHEIBENHOLZ,
and from there along outlying roads till he reached the river; and
then, screwing on his skates again, he struck out with his face to the
wind. Dusk was falling; at first he met some skaters making for home;
but these were few, and he soon left them behind. When the
state of the ice did not allow of his skating further, he plunged into
the woods again, beyond Connewitz, tumbling in his haste, tripping
over snow-bound roots, sinking kneedeep in the soft snow. His
endeavour was to exhaust himself. If he sat at home now, before this
fever was out of him, he might be tempted to knock his head against
the wall of his room. Movement, space, air--plenty of air!--that was
what he needed.

Hitherto, he had been surprised at his own conduct; now he was aghast:
the hot rush of jealousy that had swept through him at the sight of
the couple on the bridge, was a revelation even to himself. His
previous feelings had been those of a child compared with this--a mere
weak revolt against the inevitable. But what had now happened was not
inevitable; that was the sting of it: it was a violent chance-effect.
And his distress was so keen that, for the first time, she, too, had
to bear her share of blame. He said jeeringly to himself, that,
quixotic as ever, he had held aloof from her, leaving her in solitude
to an atonement of his own imagining; and meanwhile, some one who was
not troubled by foolish ideals stepped in and took his place. For it
WAS his place; he could not rid himself of that belief. If anyone had
a right to be at her side it was he, unless, indeed, all that he had
undergone on her behalf during the past months counted for nothing.

Of course this Eggis was an unscrupulous fellow; but it was just such
men as this--he might note that for future use--who won where others
lost. At the same time, he shrank from the idea of imitating him; and
even had he been bold enough, not a single errand could he devise to
serve him as an excuse. He could not go to her and say: I come because
I have seen you with some one else. And yet that would be the truth;
and it would lurk beneath all he said.

The days of anxiety that followed were hard to bear. He dreaded every
street-corner, for fear Louise and the other should turn it; dreaded
raising his eyes to the bridges over the ice; and was so irritable in
temper that Madeleine suggested he should go to Dresden in the
Christmas holidays, for change of air.

For, over all this, Christmas had come down--the season of gift-making,
and glittering Christmas trees, of BOWLE, STOLLEN, and HONIGKUCHEN.
For a fortnight beforehand, the open squares and places were set out
with fir-trees of all sizes--their pungent fragrance met one at every
turn: the shops were ablaze till late evening, crowded with
eagerly seeking purchasers; the streets were impassible for the masses
of country people that thronged them. Every one carried brown paper
parcels, and was in a hurry. As the time drew near, subordinates and
officials grew noticeably polite; the very houseporter touched his cap
at your approach. Bakers' shops were piled high with
WEIHNACHTSSTOLLEN, which were a special mark of the festival: cakes
shaped like torpedoes, whose sugared, almonded coats brisked brown and
tempting. But the spicy scent of the firs was the motive that recurred
most persistently: it clung even to the stairways of the houses.

Maurice had assisted Madeleine with her circumstantial shopping; and,
at dusk on Christmas Eve, he helped her to carry her parcels to the
house of some German friends. He himself was invited to Miss Jensen's,
where a party of English and Americans would celebrate the evening in
their own fashion; but not till eight o'clock. When he had picked out
at a confectioner's, a TORTE for the Fursts, he did not know how to
kill time. He was in an unsettled mood, and the atmosphere of
excitement, which had penetrated the familiar details of life, jarred
on him. It seemed absurdly childish, the way in which even the
grown-up part of the population surrendered itself to the sentimental
pleasures of the season. But foreigners were only big children; or, at
least, they could lay aside age and dignity at will. He felt
misanthropic, and went for a long walk; and when he had passed the
last tree-market, where poor buyers were bargaining for the poor trees
that were left, he met only isolated stragglers. In some houses, the
trees were already lighted.

On his return, he went to a flower-shop in the KONIGSPLATZ, and chose
an azalea to take to Miss Jensen. While he was waiting for the pot to
be swathed in crimped paper, his eye was caught by a large bunch of
red and yellow roses, which stood in a vase at the back of the
counter. He regarded them for a moment, without conscious thought;
then, suddenly colouring, he streched out his hand.

"I'll take those roses, too. What do they cost?"

The girl who served him--a very pretty girl, with plaits of
straw-coloured hair, wound Madonna-like round her head--named a sum
that seemed exorbitant to his inexperience, and told a wordy story of
how they had been ordered, and then countermanded at the last moment.

"A pity. Such fine flowers!"

Her interest was awakened in the rather shabby young man who
paid the price without flinching; and she threw inquisitive looks at
him as she wrapped the roses in tissue-paper.

A moment later, Maurice was in the street with the flowers in his
hand. He had acted so spontaneously that he now believed his mind to
have been made up before he entered the shop; no, more, as if all that
had happened during the past week had led straight up to his impulsive
action. Or was it only that, at the sight of the flowers, a kind of
refrain had begun to run through his head: she loves roses, loves
roses?

But he did not give himself time for reflection; he hurried through
the cold night air, sheltering the flowers under his coat. Soon he was
once more in the BRUDERSTRASSE, on the stair, every step of which,
though he had only climbed it some three or four times, he seemed to
know by heart. As, however, he waited for the door to be opened, his
heart misgave him; he was not sure how she would regard his gift, and,
in a burst of cowardice, he resolved just to hand in the roses,
without even leaving his name. But his first ring remained unanswered,
and before he rang again, he had time to be afraid she would not be at
home--a simple, but disappointing solution.

There was another pause. Then he heard sounds, steps came along the
passage, and the door was opened by Louise herself.

He was so unprepared for this that he could not collect his wits; he
thrust the flowers into her hand, with a few stammered words, and his
foot was on the stair before she could make a movement to stop him.

Louise had peered out from the darkness of the passage to the dusk of
the landing, with the air of one roused from sleep. She looked from
him to the roses in her hand, and back at him. He tried to say
something else, raised his hat, and was about to go. But, when she saw
this, she impulsively stepped towards him.

"Are they for me?" she asked. And added: "Will you not come in?
Please, come in."

At the sound of her voice, Maurice came back from the stair-head. But
it was not possible for him to stay: friends--engaged--a promise of long
standing.

"Ah then . . . of course." She retreated into the shadow of the
doorway. "But I am quite alone. There is no one in but me."

"Why, however does that happen?" Maurice asked quickly, and
was ready at once to be wrath with all the world. He paused
irresolute, with his hand on the banisters.

"I said I didn't mind. But it is lonely."

"I should think it was.--On this night of all others, too."

He followed her down the passage. In the room there was no light
except what played on the walls from the streetlamps, the blinds being
still undrawn. She had been sitting in the dark. Now, she took the
globe off the lamp, and would have lighted it, but she could not find
matches.

"Let me do it," said Maurice, taking out his own; and, over the head
of this trifling service, he had a feeling of intense satisfaction. By
the light that was cast on the table, he watched her free the roses
from their paper, and raise them to her face. She did not mention them
again, but it was ample thanks to see her touch several of them
singly, as she put them in a jug of water.

But this done, they sat on opposite sides of the table, and had
nothing to say to each other. After each banal observation he made
came a heart-rending pause; she let a subject drop as soon as it was
broached. It was over two months now since Maurice had seen her, and
he was startled by the change that had taken place in her. Her face
seemed to have grown longer; and there were hollows in the fine oval
of the cheeks, in consequence of which the nose looked larger, and
more pinched. The chin-lines were sharpened, the eyes more sunken,
while the shadows beneath them were as dark as though they were
plastered on with bistre. But it was chiefly the expression of the
face that had altered: the lifelessness of the eyes was new to it, and
the firm compression of the mouth: now, when she smiled, no thin line
of white appeared, such as he had been used to watch for.

Even more marked than this, though, was the change that had taken
place in her manner. He had known her as passionately self-assertive;
and he could not now accustom himself to the condition of apathy in
which he found her. "Moping to death" had been no exaggeration; help
was needed here, and at once, if she were not to be irretrievably
injured.

As he thought these things, he talked at random. There were not many
topics, however, that could be touched on with impunity, and he
returned more than once to the ice and the skating, as offering a kind
of neutral ground, on which he was safe. And Louise listened, and
sometimes assented; but her look was that of one who listens
to the affairs of another world. Could she not be persuaded to join
them on the JOHANNATEICH, he was asking her. What matter though she
did not skate! It was easily learned. Madeleine had been a beginner
that winter, and now seldom missed an afternoon.

"Oh, if Madeleine is there, I should not go," she said with a touch of
the old arrogance.

Then he told her of the frozen river, with its long, lonely,
grey-white reaches. Her eyes kindled at this, he fancied, and in her
answer was more of herself. "I have never trodden on ice in my life.
Oh, I should be afraid--horribly afraid!"

For those who did not skate there were chairs, he urged--big,
green-painted, sledge-like chairs, which ran smoothly. The ice was
many inches thick; there was not the least need to be afraid.

But she only smiled, and did not answer.

"Then I can't persuade you?" he asked, and was annoyed at his own
powerlessness. She can go with Eggis, he told himself, and
simultaneously spoke out the thought. "I saw you on the bridge the
other day."

But if he had imagined this would rouse her, he was wrong.

"Yes?" she said indifferently, and with that laming want of curiosity
which prevents a subject from being followed up.

They sat in silence for some seconds. With her fingers, she pulled at
the fringe of the tablecloth. Then, all of a sudden rising from her
chair, she went over to the jug of roses, which she had placed on the
writing-table, bent over the flowers with a kind of perceptible
hesitation. and as suddenly came back to her seat.

"Suppose we went to-night." she said, and for the first time looked
hard at Maurice.

"To-night?" he had echoed, before he could check himself.

"Ah yes--I forgot. You are going out."

"That's the least of it," he answered, and stood up, fearful lest she
should sink back into her former listlessness. "But it's Christmas
Eve. There wouldn't be a soul on the river but ourselves. Are you sure
you would like it?"

"Just for that reason," she replied, and wound her handkerchief in and
out of her hands, so afraid was she now that he would refuse. "I could
be ready in five minutes."

With his brain in a whirl, Maurice went back to the flowershop, and,
having written a few words of apology on a card, ordered this to be
sent with his purchase to Miss Jensen. When he returned,
Louise was ready. But he was not satisfied: she did not know how cold
it would be: and he made her put on a heavy jacket under her fur cape,
and take a silk shawl, in which, if necessary, she could muffle up her
head. He himself carried a travelling-rug for her knees.

"As if we were going on a journey!" she said, as she obeyed him. Her
eyes shone with a spark of their old light, in approval of the
adventurous nature of their undertaking.

The hard-frozen streets, over which a cutting wind drove, were
deserted. In many windows, the golden glory of the CHRISTBAUM was
visible; the steep blackness of the houses was splashed with patches
of light. At intervals, a belated holidaymaker was still to be met
with hurrying townwards: only they two were leaving the town, and its
innocent revels, behind them. Maurice had a somewhat guilty feeling
about the whole affair: they also belonged by rights to the town
to-night. He was aware, too, of a vague anxiety, which he could not
repress; and these feelings successfully prevented him taking an undue
pleasure in what was happening to him. He had swung his skates,
fetched in passing, over his shoulder; and they walked as quickly as
the slippery snow permitted. Louise had not spoken since leaving the
house; she also stood mutely by, while the astonished boatman, knocked
out in the middle of his festivities, unlocked the boat-shed where the
ice-chairs were kept. The Christmas punch had made him merry; he
multiplied words, and was even a little facetious at their expense.
According to him, a snow-storm was imminent, and he warned them not to
be late in returning.

Maurice helped Louise into the chair, and wrapped the rug round her.
If she were really afraid, as she had asserted, she did not show it.
Even after they had started, she remained as silent as before; indeed,
on looking back, Maurice thought they had not exchanged a word all the
way to Connewitz. He pushed in a kind of dream; the wind was with
them, and it was comparatively easy work; but the ice was rough, and
too hard, and there were seamy cracks to be avoided. The snow had
drifted into huge piles at the sides; and, as they advanced, it lay
unswept on their track. It was a hazily bright night, but rapid clouds
were passing. Not a creature was to be seen: had a rift opened in the
ice, and had they two gone through it, the mystery of their
disappearance would never have been solved.

Slight, upright, unfathomable as the night, Louise sat before
him. What her thoughts were on this fantastic journey, he never knew,
nor just what secret nerve in her was satisfied by it. By leaning
sideways, he could see that her eyes were fixed on the grey-white
stretch to be travelled: her warm breath came back to him; and the
coil of her hair, with its piquant odour, was so close that, by
bending, he could have touched it with his lips. But he was still in
too detached a mood to be happy; he felt, throughout, as if all this
were happening to some one else, not to him.

At their journey's end, he helped her, cold and stiff, along the snowy
path to the WALDCAFE. In a corner of the big room, which was empty,
they sat beside the stove, before cups of steaming coffee. The
landlady served them herself, and looked with the same curious
interest as the boatman at the forlorn pair.

Louise had laid her fur cap aside with her other wraps, and had drawn
off her gloves; and now she sat with her hand propping her chin. She
was still disinclined to speak; from the expression of her eyes,
Maurice judged that her thought were very far away. Sitting opposite
her, he shaded his own eyes with his hand, and scrutinised her
closely. In the stronger light of this room, he could see more plainly
than before the havoc trouble had made of her face. And yet, in spite
of the shadows that had descended on it, it was still to him the most
adorable face in the world. He could not analyse his feelings any
better now than in the beginning; but this face had exactly the same
effect upon him now as then. It seemed to be a matter of the nerves.
Nor was it the face alone: it was also the lines of throat and chin,
when she turned her head; it was the gesture with which she fingered
the knot of hair on her neck; above all, her hands, whose every
movement was full of meaning: yes, these things sent answering ripples
through him, as sound does through air.

He had stared too openly: she felt his eyes, and raised her own. For a
few seconds, they looked at each other. Then she held out her hand.

"You are my friend."

He pressed it, without replying; he could not think of anything
suitable to say; what rose to his lips was too emotional, too
tell-tale. But he made a vow that, from this day on, she should never
doubt the truth of what she said.

"You are my friend."

He would take care of her as no one had ever yet tried to do.
She might safely give herself into his charge. The unobtrusive aid
that was mingled tenderness and respect, should always be hers.

"Are you warmer now?"

He could not altogether suppress the new note that had got into his
voice. All strangeness seemed to have been swept away between them; he
was wide-awake to the fact that he was sitting alone with her, apart
from the rest of the world.

He looked at his watch: it was time to go; but she begged for a little
longer, and so they sat on for another half-hour, in the warm and
drowsy stillness.

Outside, they found a leaden sky; and they had not gone far before
snow began to fall: great flakes came flying to them, smiting their
faces, stinging their eyes, melting on their lips. The wind was
against them; they were exposed to the full force of the blizzard.
Maurice pushed till he panted; but their progress was slow. At
intervals, he stopped, to shake the snow off the rug, and to enwrap
Louise afresh; and each violent gust that met him when he turned a
corner, smote him doubly; for he pictured to himself the fury with
which it must hurl itself against her, sitting motionless before it.

It took them twice as long to return; and when Louise tried to get out
of the chair, she found herself so paralysed with cold that she could
hardly stand. Blinded by the snow, she clung to Maurice's arm; he
heard her teeth chatter, as they toiled their way along the
ARNDTSTRASSE, through the thick, new snow-layer. Not a droschke was to
be seen; and they were half-way home before they met one. The driver
was drunk or asleep, and had first to be roused. Louise sank limply
into a corner.

The cab slithered and slipped over the dangerous roads, jolting them
from side to side. Maurice had laid the rug across her knees, and she
had ceased to shiver. But, by the light of a street-lamp which they
passed, he was dismayed to see that tears were running down her
cheeks.

"What is it? Are you so cold?--Just a little patience. We shall soon be
there."

He took her hand, and chafed it. At this, she began to cry. He did not
know how to comfort her, and looked out of the window, scanning each
house they passed, to see if it were not the last. She was still
crying when the cab drew up. The house-key had been forgotten; there
was nothing for it but to ring for the landlady, and to stand in the
wind till she came down. The old woman was not so astonished
as Maurice had expected; but she was very wroth at the folly of the
proceeding, and did not scruple to say so.

"SO 'NE DUMMHEIT, SO 'NE DUMMHEIT!" she mumbled, as, between them,
they got Louise up the stairs; and she treated Maurice's advice
concerning cordials and hot drinks with scant courtesy.

"JA, JA--JAWOHL!" she sniffed. And, on the landing, the door was shut
in his face.

VIII.

What she needed, what she had always needed, was a friend, he said to
himself. She had never had anyone to stand by her and advise her to
wisdom, in the matter of impulsive acts and wishes. He would be that
friend. He had not, it was true, made a very happy beginning, with the
expedition that had ended so unfortunately; but he promised himself
not to be led into an indiscretion of the kind again. It was a
friend's part to warn in due time, and to point out the possible
consequences of a rash act. He only excused his behaviour because he
had not seen her for over two months, and had felt too sorry for her
to refuse the first thing she asked of him. But from now on, he would
be firm. He would win her back to life--reawaken her interest in what
was going on around her. He would devote himself to serving her: not
selfishly, as others had done, with their own ends in view; the
gentle, steady aid should be hers, which he had always longed to give
her. He felt strong enough to face any contingency: it seemed, indeed,
as if his love for her had all along been aiming at this issue; as if
each of the unhappy hours he had spent, since first meeting her, was
made up for by the words: "You are my friend."

A deep sense of responsibility filled him. In obedience, however, to a
puritanic streak in his nature, he hedged himself round with
restrictions, lest he should believe he was setting out on all too
primrose a path. He erected limiting boundaries, which were not to be
overstepped. For example, on the two days that followed the memorable
Christmas Eve, he only made inquiries at the door after Louise, and
when he learned that the cold she had caught was better, did not
return. For, on one point, his mind was made up: idle tongues should
have no fresh cause for gossip.

At the expiry of a fortnight, however, he began to fear that if he
remained away any longer, she would think him indifferent to her offer
of friendship. So, late one afternoon, he called to see her. But when
he was face to face with her, he doubted whether she had given him a
thought in the interval: she seemed mildly surprised at his coming. It
was even possible that she had forgotten, by now, what she had said to
him; and he sought anew for a means of impressing himself on
her consciousness.

She was crouched in the rocking-chair, close beside the stove, and was
wrapped in a thick woollen shawl; but the hand she gave him was as
cold as stone. She was trying to keep warm, she said; she had not been
properly warm since the night on the ice.

"But there's an easy remedy for that," said Maurice, who came in ruddy
from the sharp air. "You must go out and walk. Then you will soon get
warm."

But she shuddered at the suggestion, and also made an expressive
gesture to indicate the general laxity of her dress--the soiled
dressing-gown, her untidy hair. Then she leaned forward again, holding
both hands, palms out, to the mica pane in the door of the stove,
through which the red coals glowed.