Books: Maurice Guest

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"Why, I think it must be a horrid book," cried Ephie. "All about
dying. Fancy some one dying every minute. It couldn't possibly
be true. For then the world would soon be empty."

"Always there are coming more into it," said Furst, in his blunt,
broken English.

A pause ensued. Dove flicked dust off his trouser-leg; and the
American men present were suddenly fascinated by the bottoms of their
cups. Ephie was the first to regain her composure.

"Now let us talk of something pleasant, something quite different--from
dying." She turned and, over her shoulder, laughed mischievously at
Maurice, who was siting behind her. Then, leaning forward in her
chair, with every eye upon her, she told how Maurice had saved her
music from the wind, and, with an arch face, made him appear very
ridiculous. By her prettily exaggerated description of a heated,
perspiring young man, darting to and fro, and muttering to himself in
German, her hearers, Maurice included, were highly diverted--and no one
more than Mrs. Cayhill.

"You puss, you puss!" she cried, wiping her eyes and shaking a finger
at the naughty girl.

The general amusement had hardly subsided when Furst rose to his feet,
and, drawing his heels together, made a flowery little speech, the
gist of which was, that he would have esteemed himself a most
fortunate man, had he been in Maurice's place. Ephie and her mother
exchanged looks, and shook with ill-concealed mirth, so that Furst,
who had spoken serioulsy and in good faith, sat down red and
uncomfortable; and Boehmer, who was dressed in what he believed to be
American fashion, smiled in a superior manner, to show he was aware
that Furst was making himself ridiculous.

"Look here, Miss Ephie," said James; "the next time you have to go out
alone, just send for me, and I'll take care of you."

"Or me" said Dove. "You have only to let me know."

"No, no, Mr. Dove!" cried Mrs. Cayhill. "You do far too much for her
as it is. You'll spoil her altogether."

But at this, several of the young men exclaimed loudly: that would be
impossible. And Ephie coloured becomingly, raised her lashes, and
distributed winning smiles. Then quiet had been restored, she assured
them that they all very kind, but she would never let anyone go with
her but Joan--dear old Joan. They could not imagine how fond she was of
Joan.

"She is worth more than all of you put together." And at the
cries of: "Oh, oh!" she was thrown into a new fit of merriment, and
went still further. "I would not give Joan's little finger for anyone
in the world."

And meanwhile, as all her hearers--all, that is to say, except Dove,
who sat moody, fingering his slight moustache, and gazing at Ephie
with fondly reproachful eyes--as all of them, with Mrs. Cayhill at
their head, made vehement protest against this sweeping assertion,
Johanna sat alone in her bedroom, at the back of the house. It was a
dull room, looking on a courtyard, but she was always glad to escape
to it from the flippant chatter in the sitting-room. Drawing a little
table to the window, she sat down and began to read. But, on this day,
her thoughts wandered; and, ultimately, propping her chin on her hand,
she fell into reverie, which began with something like "the fool and
his Schiller!" and ended with her rising, and going to the
well-stocked book-shelves that stood at the foot of the bed.

She took out a couple of volumes and looked through them, then
returned them to their places on the shelf. No, she said to herself,
why should she? What she had told the young man was true: she never
lent her books; he would soil them, or, worse still, not appreciate
them as he ought--she could not give anyone who visited there on
Sunday, credit for a nice taste.

Unknown to herself, however, something worked in her, for, the very
next time Maurice was there, she met him in the passage, as he was
leaving, and impulsively thrust a paper parcel into his hand.

"There is a book, if you care to take it."

He did not express the surprise he felt, nor did he look at the title.
But Ephie, who was accompanying him to the door, made a face of
laughing stupefaction behind her sister's back, and went out on the
landing with him, to whisper: "What HAVE you been doing to Joan?"--at
which remark, and at Maurice's blank face, she laughed so immoderately
that she was forced to go down the stairs with him, for fear Joan
should hear her; and, in the house-door, she stood, a white-clad
little figure, and waved her hand to him until he turned the corner.

Having read the first volume of HAMMER UND AMBOSS deep into two
nights, Maurice returned it and carried away the second. But it was
only after he had finished PROBLEMATISCHE NATUREN, and had
expressed himself with due enthusiasm, that Johanna began to thaw a
little. She did not discuss what he read with him; but, going on the
assumption that a person who could relish her favourite author had
some good in him, she gave the young man the following proof of her
favour.

Between Ephie and him there had sprung up spontaneously a mutual
liking, which it is hard to tell the cause of. For Ephie knew nothing
of Maurice's tastes, interests and ambitions, and he did not dream of
asking her to share them. Yet, with the safe instincts of a young
girl, she chose him for a brother from among all her other
acquaintances; called him "Morry"; scarcely ever coquetted with him;
and let him freely into her secrets. It is easier to see why Maurice
was attracted to her; for not only was Ephie pretty and charming; she
was also adorably equable--she did not know what it was to be out of
humour. And she was always glad to see him, always in the best
possible spirits. When he was dull or tired, it acted like a tonic on
him, to sit and let her merry chatter run over him. And soon, he found
plenty of makeshifts to see her; amongst other things, he arranged to
help her twice a week with harmony, which was, to her, an unexplorable
abyss; and he ransacked the rooms and shelves of his acquaintances to
find old Tauchnitz volumes to lend to Mrs. Cayhill.

The latter paid even less attention to the sudden friendship of her
daughter with this young man than the ordinary American mother would
have done; but Johanna's toleration of it was, for the most part, to
be explained by the literary interests before mentioned. For Johanna
was always in a tremble lest Ephie should become spoiled; and
thoughtless Ephie could, at times, cause her a most subtle torture, by
being prettily insincere, by assuming false coquettish airs, or by
seeming to have private thoughts which she did not confide to her
sister. This, and the knowledge that Ephie was now of an age when
every day might be expected to widen the distance between them,
sometimes made Johanna very gruff and short, even with Ephie herself.
As her sister, she alone knew how much was good and true under the
child's light exterior; she admired in Ephie all that she herself had
not--her fair prettiness, her blithe manner, her easy, graceful
words--and, had it been necessary, she would have gone down on her
knees to remove the stones from Ephie's path.

Thus although on the casual observer, Johanna only made the impression
of a dark, morose figure, which hovered round two childlike
beings, intercepting the sunshine of their lives, yet Maurice had soon
come often enough into contact with her to appreciate her
unselfishness; and, for the care she took of Ephie, he could almost
have liked her, had Johanna shown the least readiness to be liked.
Naturally, he did not understand how highly he was favoured by her; he
knew neither the depth of her affection for Ephie, nor the exact
degree of contempt in which she held the young men who dangled there
on a Sunday--poor fools who were growing fat on emotion and silly
ideas, when they should have been taking plain, hard fare at college.
To Dove, Johanna had a particular aversion; chiefly, and in a
contradictory spirit, because it was evident to all that his
intentions were serious. But she could not hinder wayward Ephie from
making a shameless use of him, and then laughing at him behind his
back--a laugh in which Mrs. Cayhill was not always able to refrain from
joining, though it must be said that she was usually loud in her
praises of Dove, at the expense of all visitors who were not American.

"From these Dutch you can't expect much, one way or the other," she
declared. "And young Guest sometimes sits there with a face as long as
my arm. But Dove is really a most sensible young fellow--why, he thinks
just as I do about Arnerica."

And as a special mark of favour, when Dove left the house on Sunday
afternoon, his pockets bulged with NEW YORK HERALDS.

VII.

Meanwhile, before the blinds in the BRUDERSTRASSE were drawn up again,
Maurice had found his way back to Madeleine. When they met, she smiled
at him in a somewhat sarcastic manner, but no reference was made to
the little falling-out they had had, and they began afresh to read and
play together. On the first afternoon, Maurice was full of his new
friends, and described them at length to her. But Madeleine damped his
ardour.

"I know them, yes, of course," she said. "The usual Americans--even
the blue-stocking, from whom heaven defend us. The little one is
pretty enough as long as she keeps her mouth shut. But the moment she
speaks, every illusion is shattered.--Why I don't go there on a Sunday?
Good gracious, do you think they want me?--me, or any other petticoat?
Are honours made to be divided?--No, Maurice, I don't like Americans. I
was once offered a position in America, as 'professor of piano and
voice-production' in a place called Schenectady; but I didn't
hesitate. I said to myself, better one hundred a year in good old
England, than five in a country where the population is so inflated
with its importance that I should always be in danger of running
amuck. And besides that, I should lose my accent, and forget how to
say 'leg'; while the workings of the stomach would be discussed before
me with an unpleasant freedom."

"You're too hard on them, Madeleine," said Maurice, smiling in spite
of himself. But he was beginning to stand in awe of her sharp tongue
and decided opinions; and, in the week that followed, he took himself
resolutely together, and did not let a certain name cross his lips.

Consequently, he was more than surprised on returning to his room one
day, to find a note from Madeleine, saying that she expected Louise
that very afternoon at three.

It was not news to Maurice that Louise had come home. The evening
before, as he turned out of the BRUDERSTRASSE, a closed droschke
turned into it. After the vehicle had lumbered past him and
disappeared, the thought crossed his mind that she might be
inside it. He had not then had time to go back but early this very
morning, he had passed the house and found the windows open. So
Madeleine had engaged her immediately! As usual, Furst had kept him
waiting for his lesson; it was nearly three o'clock already, and he
was so hurried that he could only change his collar; but, on the way
there, in a sudden spurt of gratitude, he ran to a flower-shop, and
bought a large bunch of carnations.

He arrived at Madeleine's room in an elation he did not try to hide;
and over the carnations they had a mock reconciliation. Madeleine
wished to distribute the flowers in different vases about the room,
but he asked her put them all together on the centre table. She
laughed and complied.

For several weeks now, musical circles had been in a stir over the
advent of a new piano-teacher named Schrievers--a person who called
himself a pupil of Liszt, held progressive views, arid, being a free
lance, openly ridiculed the antiquated methods of the Conservatorium.
Madeleine was extremely interested in the case, and, as they sat
waiting, talked about it to Maurice with great warmth, enlarging
especially upon the number of people who had the audacity to call
themselves pupils of Liszt. To Maurice, in his present frame of mind,
the matter seemed of no possible consequence--for all he cared, the
whole population of the town might lay claim to having been at
Weimar--and he could not understand Madeleine finding it important. For
he was in one of those moods when the entire consciousness is so
intently directed towards some end that, outside this end, nothing has
colour or vitality: all that has previously impressed and interested
one, has no more solidity than papier mache. Meanwhile she spoke on,
and did not appear to notice how time was flying. He was forced at
length to take out his watch, and exclaim, in feigned surprise, at the
hour.

"A quarter to four already!"

"Is it so late?" But on seeing his disturbance, she added: "It will be
all right. Louise was never punctual in her life."

He did his best to look unconcerned, and they spoke of that evening's
ABENDUNTERHALTUNG, at which Furst was to play. But by the time the
clock struck four, Maurice had relapsed, in spite of himself, into
silence. Madeleine rallied him.

"You must make shift with my company, Maurice. Not but what I am sure
Louise will come. But you see from this what she is--the most
unreliable creature in the world."

To pass the time, she suggested that he should help her to make
tea, and they were both busy, when the electric bell in the passage
whizzed harshly, and the next moment there came a knock at the door.
But it was not Louise. Instead, two persons entered, one of whom was
Heinrich Krafft, the other a short, thickset girl, in a man's felt hat
and a closely buttoned ulster.

On recognising her visitors, Madeleine made a movement of annoyance,
and drew her brows together. "You, Heinz!" she said.

Undaunted by this greeting, Krafft advanced to her and, taking her
hands, kissed them, one after the other. He was also about to kiss her
on the lips, but she defended herself. "Stop! We are not alone."

"Just for that reason," said the girl in the ulster drily.

"What ill wind blows you here to-day?" Madeleine asked him.

As he was still wearing his hat, she took it off, and dropped it on
the floor beside him; then she recollected Maurice, and made him known
to the other two. Coming forward, Maurice recalled to Krafft's memory
where they had already met, and what had passed between them. Before
he had finished speaking, Krafft burst into an unmannerly peal of
laughter. Madeleine laughed, too, and shook her finger at him. "You
have been up to your tricks again!" Avery Hill, the girl in the
ulster, did not laugh aloud, but a smile played round her mouth, which
Maurice found even more disagreeable than the mirth of which he had
been the innocent cause. He coloured, and withdrew to the window.

Krafft was so convulsed that he was obliged to sit down on the sofa,
where Madeleine fanned him with a sheet of music. He had been seized
by a kind of paroxysm, and laughed on and on, in a mirthless way, till
Avery Hill said suddenly and angrily: "Stop laughing at once, Heinz!
You will have hysterics."

In an instant he was sobered, and now he seemed to fall, without
transition, into a mood of dejection. Taking out his penknife, he set
to paring his nails, in a precise and preoccupied manner. Madeleine
turned to Maurice.

"You'll wonder what all this is about," she said apologetically. "But
Heinz is never happier than when he has succeeded in imposing on some
one--as he evidently did on you."

"Indeed!" said Maurice. Their laughter had been offensive to him, and
he found Krafft, and Madeleine with him, exceedingly foolish.

There was a brief silence. Krafft was absorbed in what he was doing,
and Avery Hill, on sitting down, had lighted a cigarette, which she
smoked steadily, in long-drawn whiffs. She was a pretty girl, in spite
of her severe garb, in spite, too, of her expression, which was too
composed and too self-sure to be altogether pleasing. Her face was
fresh of skin, below smooth fair hair, and her lips were the red, ripe
lips of Botticelli's angels and Madonnas. But the under one, being
fuller than the other, gave the mouth a look of over-decision, and it
would be difficult to imagine anything less girlish than were the cold
grey eyes.

"We came for the book you promised to lend Heinz," she said, blowing
off the spike of ash that had accumulated at the tip of the cigarette.
"He could not rest till he had it."

Madeleine placed a saucer on the table with the request to use it as
an ash-tray, and taking down a volume of De Quincey from the hanging
shelf, held it out to Krafft.

"There you are. It will interest me to hear what you make of it."

Krafft ceased his paring to glance at the title-page. "I shall
probably not open it," he said.

Madeleine laughed, and gave him a light blow on the hand with the
book. "How like you that is! As soon as you know that you can get a
thing, you don't want it any longer."

"Yes, that's Heinz all over," said Avery Hill. "Only what he hasn't
got, seems worth having."

Krafft shut his knife with a click, and put it back in his pocket."
And that's what you women can't understand, isn't it?--that the best of
things is the wishing for them. Once there, and they are nothing--only
another delusion. The happiest man is the man whose wishes are never
fulfilled. He always has a moon to cry for."

"Come, come now," said Madeleine. "We know your love for paradox. But
not to-day. There's no time for philosophising today. Besides, you are
in a pessimistic mood, and that's a bad sign."

"I and pessimism? Listen, heart of my heart, I have a new story for
you." He moved closer to her, and put his arm round her neck. "There
was once a man and his wife----"

But, at the first word, Madeleine put her hands to her ears.

"Mercy, have mercy, Heinz! No stories, I entreat you. And behave
yourself, too. Take your arm away." She tried to remove it. "I have
told you already, I can't have you here to-day. I'm expecting a
visitor."

He laid his head on her shoulder. "Let him come. Let the whole world
come. I don't budge. I am happy here."

"You must go and be happy elsewhere," said Madeleine more decisively
than she had yet spoken. "And before she comes, too."

"She? What she?"

"Never mind."

"For that very reason, Mada."

She whispered a word in his ear. He looked at her, incredulously at
first, then whimsically, with a sham dismay; and then, as if Maurice
had only just taken shape for him, he turned and looked at him also,
and from him to Madeleine, and back to him, finally bursting afresh
into a roar of laughter. Madeleine laid her hand over his mouth. "Take
him away, do," she said to Avery Hill--"as a favour to me."

"Yes, when I have finished my cigarette," said the girl without
stirring.

Unsettled all the same, it would seem, by what he had heard, Krafft
rose and shuffled about the room, with his hands in his pockets.
Approaching Maurice, he even stood for a moment and contemplated him,
with a kind of mock gravity. Maurice acted as if he did not see
Krafft; long since, he had taken up a magazine, and, half hidden in a
chair between window and writing-table, pretended to bury himself in
its contents. But he heard very plainly all that passed, and, at the
effect produced on Krafft by the name of the expected visitor, his
hands trembled with anger. If the fellow had stood looking at him for
another second, he would have got up and knocked him down. But Krafft
turned nonchalantly to the piano, where his attention was caught by a
song that was standing on the rack. He chuckled, and set about making
merciless fun of the music--the composer was an elderly
singing-teacher, of local fame. Madeleine grew angry, and tried to
take it from him.

"Hold your tongue, Heinz! If your own songs were more like this, they
would have a better chance of success. Now be quiet! I won't hear
another word. Herr Wendling is a very good friend of mine."

"A friend! Heavens! She says friend as if it were an excuse for
him.--Mada, let your friend cease making music if he hopes for
salvation. Let him buy a broom and sweep the streets--let him----"

"You are disgusting!"

She had got the music from him, but he was already at the piano,
parodying, from memory, the conventional accompaniment and sentimental
words of the song. "And this," he said, "from the learned ass who is
not yet convinced that the FEUERZAUBER is music, and who groans like a
dredge when the last act of SIEGFRIED is mentioned. Wendling and
Wagner! Listen to this!--for once, I am a full-blooded Wagnerite."

He felt after the chords that prelude Brunnhilde's awakening by
Siegfried. Until now, Avery Hill had sat indifferent, as though what
went on had nothing to do with her; but no sooner had Krafft commenced
to play than she grew uneasy; her eyes lost their cold assurance, and,
suddenly getting up and going round to the front of the piano, she
pushed the young man's hands from the keys. Krafft yielded his place
to her, and, taking up the chords where he had left them, she went on.
She played very well--even Maurice in his disturbance could, not but
notice it--with a firm, masculine touch, and that inborn ease, that
enviable appearance of perfect fitness, of being one with the
instrument, which even the greatest players do not always attain. She
had, besides, grip and rhythm, and long, close-knit hands insinuated
themselves artfully among the complicated harmonies.

When she began to play, Madeleine made "Tch, tch, tch!" and shook her
head, in despair of now ever being rid of them. Krafft remained
standing behind the piano at the window leaning his forehead on the
glass. Maurice, who watched them both surreptitiously, saw his face
change, and grow thoughful as he stood there; but when Avery Hill
ceased abruptly on a discord, he wheeled round at once and patted her on
the back. While looking over to Maurice, he said: "No doubt you found
that very pretty and affecting?"

"I think that's none of your business," said Maurice.

But Krafft did not take umbrage. "You don't say so?" he murmured with
a show of surprise.

"Now, go, go, go!" cried Madeleine. "What have I done to be subjected
to such a visitation? No, Heinz, you don't sit down again. Here's your
hat. Away with you!--or I'll have you put out by force."

And at last they really did go, to a cool bow from Maurice, who
still sat holding his magazine. But Madeleine had hardly closed the
door behind them, when, like a whirlwind, Krafft burst into the room
again.

"Mada, I forgot to ask you something," he said in a stage-whisper,
drawing her aside. "Tell me--you KUPPLERIN, you!--does he know her?" He
pointed over his shoulder with his thumb at Maurice.

Madeleine shook her head, in real vexation and distress, and laid a
finger on her lip. But it was of no use. Stepping over to Maurice,
Krafft bowed low, and held his hat against his breast.

"It is impossible for you to understand how deeply it has interested
me to meet you," he said. "Allow me, from the bottom of my heart, to
wish you success." Whereupon, before Maurice could say "damn!" he was
gone again, leaving his elfin laugh behind him in the air, like smoke.

Madeleine shut the door energetically and gave a sigh of relief.

"Thank goodness! I thought they would never go. And now, the chances
are, they'll run into Louise on the stairs. You'll wonder why I was so
bent on getting rid of them. It's a long story. I'll tell it to you
some other time. But if Louise had found them here when she came, she
would not have stayed. She won't have anything to do with Heinz."

"I don't wonder at it," said Maurice. He stood up and threw the
magazine on the table.

Madeleine displayed more astonishment than she felt. "Why what's the
matter? You're surely not going to take what Heinz said, seriously? He
was in a bad mood to-day, I know, and I noticed you were very short
with him. But you mustn't be foolish enough to be offended by him. No
one ever is. He is allowed to say and do just what he likes. He's our
spoilt child."

Maurice laughed. "The fellow is either a cad, or an unutterable fool.
You, Madeleine, may find his impertinence amusing. I tell you
candidly, I don't!" and he went on to make it clear to her that the
fault would not be his, were Krafft and he ever in the same room
together again. "The kind of man one wants to kick downstairs. What
the deuce did he mean by guffawing like that when you told him who was
coming?"

"You mean about Louise?" Madeleine gave a slight shrug. "Yes,
Maurice--unfortunately that was not to be avoided. But sit down
again, and let me explain things to you. When you hear----"

But he did not want explanations; he did not even want an answer to
the question he had put; his chief concern now was to get away. To
stay there, in that room, for another quarter of an hour, would be
impossible, on such tenterhooks was he. To stay--for what? Only to
listen to more slanderous hints, of the kind he had heard before. As
it was, he did not believe he could face her frankly, should she still
come. He felt as if, in some occult way, he had assisted at a
tampering with her good name.