_Chapter 2_
Siegmund's violin, desired of Helena, lay in its case beside Siegmund's
lean portmanteau in the white dust of the lumber-room in Highgate. It
was worth twenty pounds, but Beatrice had not yet roused herself to sell
it; she kept the black case out of sight.
Siegmund's violin lay in the dark, folded up, as he had placed it for
the last time, with hasty, familiar hands, in its red silk shroud. After
two dead months the first string had snapped, sharply striking the
sensitive body of the instrument. The second string had broken near
Christmas, but no one had heard the faint moan of its going. The violin
lay mute in the dark, a faint odour of must creeping over the smooth,
soft wood. Its twisted, withered strings lay crisped from the anguish of
breaking, smothered under the silk folds. The fragrance of Siegmund
himself, with which the violin was steeped, slowly changed into an
odour of must.
Siegmund died out even from his violin. He had infused it with his life,
till its fibres had been as the tissue of his own flesh. Grasping his
violin, he seemed to have his fingers on the strings of his heart and of
the heart of Helena. It was his little beloved that drank his being and
turned it into music. And now Siegmund was dead; only an odour of must
remained of him in his violin.
It lay folded in silk in the dark, waiting. Six months before it had
longed for rest; during the last nights of the season, when Siegmund's
fingers had pressed too hard, when Siegmund's passion, and joy, and fear
had hurt, too, the soft body of his little beloved, the violin had
sickened for rest. On that last night of opera, without pity Siegmund
had struck the closing phrases from the fiddle, harsh in his impatience,
wild in anticipation.
The curtain came down, the great singers bowed, and Siegmund felt the
spattering roar of applause quicken his pulse. It was hoarse, and
savage, and startling on his inflamed soul, making him shiver with
anticipation, as if something had brushed his hot nakedness. Quickly,
with hands of habitual tenderness, he put his violin away.
The theatre-goers were tired, and life drained rapidly out of the
opera-house. The members of the orchestra rose, laughing, mingling their
weariness with good wishes for the holiday, with sly warning and
suggestive advice, pressing hands warmly ere they disbanded. Other years
Siegmund had lingered, unwilling to take the long farewell of his
associates of the orchestra. Other years he had left the opera-house
with a little pain of regret. Now he laughed, and took his comrades'
hands, and bade farewells, all distractedly, and with impatience. The
theatre, awesome now in its emptiness, he left gladly, hastening like a
flame stretched level on the wind.
With his black violin-case he hurried down the street, then halted to
pity the flowers massed pallid under the gaslight of the market-hall.
For himself, the sea and the sunlight opened great spaces tomorrow. The
moon was full above the river. He looked at it as a man in abstraction
watches some clear thing; then he came to a standstill. It was useless
to hurry to his train. The traffic swung past the lamplight shone warm
on all the golden faces; but Siegmund had already left the city. His
face was silver and shadows to the moon; the river, in its soft grey,
shaking golden sequins among the folds of its shadows, fell open like a
garment before him, to reveal the white moon-glitter brilliant as living
flesh. Mechanically, overcast with the reality of the moonlight, he took
his seat in the train, and watched the moving of things. He was in a
kind of trance, his consciousness seeming suspended. The train slid out
amongst lights and dark places. Siegmund watched the endless movement,
fascinated.
This was one of the crises of his life. For years he had suppressed his
soul, in a kind of mechanical despair doing his duty and enduring the
rest. Then his soul had been softly enticed from its bondage. Now he was
going to break free altogether, to have at least a few days purely for
his own joy. This, to a man of his integrity, meant a breaking of bonds,
a severing of blood-ties, a sort of new birth. In the excitement of this
last night his life passed out of his control, and he sat at the
carriage-window, motionless, watching things move.
He felt busy within him a strong activity which he could not help.
Slowly the body of his past, the womb which had nourished him in one
fashion for so many years, was casting him forth. He was trembling in
all his being, though he knew not with what. All he could do now was to
watch the lights go by, and to let the translation of himself continue.
When at last the train ran out into the full, luminous night, and
Siegmund saw the meadows deep in moonlight, he quivered with a low
anticipation. The elms, great grey shadows, seemed to loiter in their
cloaks across the pale fields. He had not seen them so before. The world
was changing.
The train stopped, and with a little effort he rose to go home. The
night air was cool and sweet. He drank it thirstily. In the road again
he lifted his face to the moon. It seemed to help him; in its brilliance
amid the blonde heavens it seemed to transcend fretfulness. It would
front the waves with silver as they slid to the shore, and Helena,
looking along the coast, waiting, would lift her white hands with sudden
joy. He laughed, and the moon hurried laughing alongside, through the
black masses of the trees.
He had forgotten he was going home for this night. The chill wetness of
his little white garden-gate reminded him, and a frown came on his face.
As he closed the door, and found himself in the darkness of the hall,
the sense of his fatigue came fully upon him. It was an effort to go to
bed. Nevertheless, he went very quietly into the drawing-room. There the
moonlight entered, and he thought the whiteness was Helena. He held his
breath and stiffened, then breathed again. 'Tomorrow,' he thought, as he
laid his violin-case across the arms of a wicker chair. But he had a
physical feeling of the presence of Helena: in his shoulders he seemed
to be aware of her. Quickly, half lifting his arms, he turned to the
moonshine. 'Tomorrow!' he exclaimed quietly; and he left the room
stealthily, for fear of disturbing the children.
In the darkness of the kitchen burned a blue bud of light. He quickly
turned up the gas to a broad yellow flame, and sat down at table. He was
tired, excited, and vexed with misgiving. As he lay in his arm-chair, he
looked round with disgust.
The table was spread with a dirty cloth that had great brown stains
betokening children. In front of him was a cup and saucer, and a small
plate with a knife laid across it. The cheese, on another plate, was
wrapped in a red-bordered, fringed cloth, to keep off the flies, which
even then were crawling round, on the sugar, on the loaf, on the
cocoa-tin. Siegmund looked at his cup. It was chipped, and a stain had
gone under the glaze, so that it looked like the mark of a dirty mouth.
He fetched a glass of water.
The room was drab and dreary. The oil-cloth was worn into a hole near
the door. Boots and shoes of various sizes were scattered over the
floor, while the sofa was littered with children's clothing. In the
black stove the ash lay dead; on the range were chips of wood, and
newspapers, and rubbish of papers, and crusts of bread, and crusts of
bread-and-jam. As Siegmund walked across the floor, he crushed two
sweets underfoot. He had to grope under sofa and dresser to find his
slippers; and he was in evening dress.
It would be the same, while ever Beatrice was Beatrice and Siegmund her
husband. He ate his bread and cheese mechanically, wondering why he was
miserable, why he was not looking forward with joy to the morrow. As he
ate, he closed his eyes, half wishing he had not promised Helena, half
wishing he had no tomorrow.
Leaning back in his chair, he felt something in the way. It was a small
teddy-bear and half of a strong white comb. He grinned to himself. This
was the summary of his domestic life--a broken, coarse comb, a child
crying because her hair was lugged, a wife who had let the hair go till
now, when she had got into a temper to see the job through; and then the
teddy-bear, pathetically cocking a black worsted nose, and lifting
absurd arms to him.
He wondered why Gwen had gone to bed without her pet. She would want the
silly thing. The strong feeling of affection for his children came over
him, battling with something else. He sank in his chair, and gradually
his baffled mind went dark. He sat, overcome with weariness and trouble,
staring blankly into the space. His own stifling roused him.
Straightening his shoulders, he took a deep breath, then relaxed again.
After a while he rose, took the teddy-bear, and went slowly to bed.
Gwen and Marjory, aged nine and twelve, slept together in a small room.
It was fairly light. He saw his favourite daughter lying quite
uncovered, her wilful head thrown back, her mouth half open. Her black
hair was tossed across the pillow: he could see the action. Marjory
snuggled under the sheet. He placed the teddy-bear between the
two girls.
As he watched them, he hated the children for being so dear to him.
Either he himself must go under, and drag on an existence he hated, or
they must suffer. But he had agreed to spend this holiday with Helena,
and meant to do so. As he turned, he saw himself like a ghost cross the
mirror. He looked back; he peered at himself. His hair still grew thick
and dark from his brow: he could not see the grey at the temples. His
eyes were dark and tender, and his mouth, under the black moustache, was
full of youth.
He rose, looked at the children, frowned, and went to his own small
room. He was glad to be shut alone in the little cubicle of darkness.
Outside the world lay in a glamorous pallor, casting shadows that made
the farm, the trees, the bulks of villas, look like live creatures. The
same pallor went through all the night, glistening on Helena as she lay
curled up asleep at the core of the glamour, like the moon; on the sea
rocking backwards and forwards till it rocked her island as she slept.
She was so calm and full of her own assurance. It was a great rest to be
with her. With her, nothing mattered but love and the beauty of things.
He felt parched and starving. She had rest and love, like water and
manna for him. She was so strong in her self-possession, in her love of
beautiful things and of dreams.
The clock downstairs struck two.
'I must get to sleep,' he said.
He dragged his portmanteau from beneath the bed and began to pack it.
When at last it was finished, he shut it with a snap. The click sounded
final. He stood up, stretched himself, and sighed.
'I am fearfully tired,' he said.
But that was persuasive. When he was undressed he sat in his pyjamas for
some time, rapidly beating his fingers on his knee.
'Thirty-eight years old,' he said to himself, 'and disconsolate as a
child!' He began to muse of the morrow.
When he seemed to be going to sleep, he woke up to find thoughts
labouring over his brain, like bees on a hive. Recollections, swift
thoughts, flew in and alighted upon him, as wild geese swing down and
take possession of a pond. Phrases from the opera tyrannized over him;
he played the rhythm with all his blood. As he turned over in this
torture, he sighed, and recognized a movement of the De Beriot concerto
which Helena had played for her last lesson. He found himself watching
her as he had watched then, felt again the wild impatience when she was
wrong, started again as, amid the dipping and sliding of her bow, he
realized where his thoughts were going. She was wrong, he was hasty; and
he felt her blue eyes looking intently at him.
Both started as his daughter Vera entered suddenly. She was a handsome
girl of nineteen. Crossing the room, brushing Helena as if she were a
piece of furniture in the way, Vera had asked her father a question, in
a hard, insulting tone, then had gone out again, just as if Helena had
not been in the room.
Helena stood fingering the score of _Pelléas_. When Vera had gone, she
asked, in the peculiar tone that made Siegmund shiver:
'Why do you consider the music of _Pelléas_ cold?'
Siegmund had struggled to answer. So they passed everything off, without
mention, after Helena's fashion, ignoring all that might be humiliating;
and to her much was humiliating.
For years she had come as pupil to Siegmund, first as a friend of the
household. Then she and Louisa went occasionally to whatever hall or
theatre had Siegmund in the orchestra, so that shortly the three formed
the habit of coming home together. Then Helena had invited Siegmund to
her home; then the three friends went walks together; then the two went
walks together, whilst Louisa sheltered them.
Helena had come to read his loneliness and the humiliation of his lot.
He had felt her blue eyes, heavily, steadily gazing into his soul, and
he had lost himself to her.
That day, three weeks before the end of the season, when Vera had so
insulted Helena, the latter had said, as she put on her coat, looking at
him all the while with heavy blue eyes: 'I think, Siegmund, I cannot
come here any more. Your home is not open to me any longer.' He had
writhed in confusion and humiliation. As she pressed his hand, closely
and for a long time, she said: 'I will write to you.' Then she left him.
Siegmund had hated his life that day. Soon she wrote. A week later, when
he lay resting his head on her lap in Richmond Park, she said:
'You are so tired, Siegmund.' She stroked his face, and kissed him
softly. Siegmund lay in the molten daze of love. But Helena was, if it
is not to debase the word, virtuous: an inconsistent virtue, cruel and
ugly for Siegmund.
'You are so tired, dear. You must come away with me and rest, the first
week in August.'
His blood had leapt, and whatever objections he raised, such as having
no money, he allowed to be overridden. He was going to Helena, to the
Isle of Wight, tomorrow.
Helena, with her blue eyes so full of storm, like the sea, but, also
like the sea, so eternally self-sufficient, solitary; with her thick
white throat, the strongest and most wonderful thing on earth, and her
small hands, silken and light as wind-flowers, would be his tomorrow,
along with the sea and the downs. He clung to the exquisite flame which
flooded him....
But it died out, and he thought of the return to London, to Beatrice,
and the children. How would it be? Beatrice, with her furious dark eyes,
and her black hair loosely knotted back, came to his mind as she had
been the previous day, flaring with temper when he said to her:
'I shall be going away tomorrow for a few days' holiday.'
She asked for detail, some of which he gave. Then, dissatisfied and
inflamed, she broke forth in her suspicion and her abuse, and her
contempt, while two large-eyed children stood listening by. Siegmund
hated his wife for drawing on him the grave, cold looks of condemnation
from his children.
Something he had said touched Beatrice. She came of good family, had
been brought up like a lady, educated in a convent school in France. He
evoked her old pride. She drew herself up with dignity, and called the
children away. He wondered if he could bear a repetition of that
degradation. It bled him of his courage and self-respect.
In the morning Beatrice was disturbed by the sharp sneck of the hall
door. Immediately awake, she heard his quick, firm step hastening down
the gravel path. In her impotence, discarded like a worn out object, she
lay for the moment stiff with bitterness.
'I am nothing, I am nothing,' she said to herself. She lay quite rigid
for a time.
There was no sound anywhere. The morning sunlight pierced vividly
through the slits of the blind. Beatrice lay rocking herself, breathing
hard, her finger-nails pressing into her palm. Then came the sound of a
train slowing down in the station, and directly the quick
'chuff-chuff-chuff' of its drawing out. Beatrice imagined the sunlight
on the puffs of steam, and the two lovers, her husband and Helena,
rushing through the miles of morning sunshine.
'God strike her dead! Mother of God, strike her down!' she said aloud,
in a low tone. She hated Helena.
Irene, who lay with her mother, woke up and began to question her.
