Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

“ The death of a beloved husband or wife is a devastating blow; but when the memory is beautiful, time softens it into a hallowed sweetness. It is the bitter sorrow which refuses to be healed, which fills the heart with a ceaseless unrest. Not even to Kathie would I express my doubts, but the conviction weighed upon me that the cloud which hung over Charmion Fane was the remembrance of unhappiness rather than joy! ”

“ After a long rest the Vicar will be better than he has been for years, and it will be your business to see that he never works so hard again. You were always longing for a change, Delphine. Think how you will enjoy Switzerland, sitting out in the crisp clear air, looking at those glorious mountains, with no house or parish to worry over—nothing to do but wait on your dear man, and watch him growing stronger every day!”
She looked at me dumbly, while the colour faded out of her cheeks, and the pretty curved lips twitched and trembled. ”

“ Now, thanks to Charmion, the way was made easy, and I could put my hand to the plough without fear of drawing back.
I leapt out of bed in a tingle of excitement. Impossible to lie still when things were happening at such a rapid rate. The sun was shining, and, looking at a belt of trees in the distance, I could catch a faint shimmer of green. It is perhaps the most intoxicating moment of the year, when that first gleam of spring greets the eye, and this special year it held an added exhilaration, for it seemed to speak of the budding of fresh personal life. ”

“ I could not, even for Charmion, give up the prospect of that flat, and all that it had come to mean; but—let me acknowledge it honestly—it was balm and relief to know that I could have a means of escape, and that at culminating moments of weariness, when everything seemed wry and disappointing, and the whole weight of seven storeys seemed to be pressing down on my brains, I could bang my door, turn the key, and fly off to peace and beauty, and a healing pandering to personal tastes!
Woman is a complex character, and I am no better than my kind. ”

“ That one illuminating suggestion of Bridget’s has cleared the way. From the moment of hearing there had been no real hesitation; before night fell my plans were made, and a telegram to Charmion was speeding on its way. A new life lay before me—a dual life, teeming with interest and possibility. On one hand, my fate must be to some extent bound up with that of Charmion Fane, the most interesting and, in a sense, mysterious woman I had ever met; on the other, I was plunging into the unknown, and transforming myself into a new personality, to meet the new circumstances. ”

“ What good looks I possessed suffered a serious eclipse even before wig and spectacles went on, and as a crowning horror, a venerable “boat-shaped” hat (another relic of Aunt Eliza) and a draggled chenille veil.
Bridget was hysterical with enjoyment over the whole abject effect, but I descended the stairs and passed through the great hall of the hotel with a miserable feeling of running the blockade. Suppose I met anyone! Suppose anyone knew me! Suppose—I flushed miserably at the thought—Charmion herself was discovered sitting in the hall, and raised her lorgnon to quiz me as I passed by! ”

“ Perfect happiness is not for this world. It was all beautiful. The place where we camped was like another Garden of Eden; the weather was exquisite, such days, such mornings! Oh, Evelyn, such nights! The sky a dome of deepest blue, with the stars shining as you never saw them in this damp, misty atmosphere. And he and I—”
Her voice broke. Her hand went up to her face to hide the quivering of her lips. It was a petrifying thing to see Charmion break down. ”

“ You are the first woman—the only woman. Before you came I was content. Since we met, I have been in torment. You woke me up. When a man is roused from a trance it gives him pain. You brought pain to me—sleeplessness, discontent, a craving that grew and grew. I wished we had never met—you had upset my life; I believed that I hated you for it. Delphine questioned me. It was then I told her that I disliked you. I meant it—I thought I meant it! I longed for you to disappear and leave me in peace, yet all the time I thought of you more and more. Your smile! ”

“ Illness, the really critical touch-and-go illness which nurses call “a good case,” turns a home into an isolation camp. The outer world retreats to an immeasurable distance, and the watchers stare out of the windows, and behold with stupefaction hard-hearted men and women walking abroad on two legs, with hats on their heads, and umbrellas in their hands, talking and laughing and pursuing their petty avocations, not in the least affected by the fact that the temperature had again soared up to 104, and the doctor spoke gravely about heart strain. ”

“ I always feel it is the last straw for a woman when she has to give up her home in a time of trouble. A home is a refuge, and you have made The Clough so charming. It will be a wrench to move all the dear old furniture, and to leave the garden where you and Kathie were so happy together. Wherever you look, poor dear, you must feel a fresh stab. ”

“ The lesson is that death is not the last and worst enemy which we are so apt to think it when our dear ones are in its grasp. Oh, there were hours of darkness in which death seemed to us a lovely and beautiful thing, when we blamed ourselves for shrinking from the wrench of giving back a little child into God’s tender care. Who could compare a darkened life on earth with the perfected powers, the unimaginable glories of eternity? There were times when our prayers were reversed, and we asked God to take Billie home! ”

“ Charmion was dressed in business-like grey tweeds, with a soft grey felt hat slouched over her head. She looked very pale, very frail, intensely, vibratingly alive. This extraordinary contradiction between body and mind made a charm and mystery which it is difficult to express in words. One longed to protect and shield her, to tuck her up on a sofa, and tend her like a fragile child, at the very same moment that mentally one was sitting at her feet, domineered by the influence of a master mind! ”

“ As a rule, I get fidgety in the evening when talk is the only amusement, but I can sit and listen to Charmion for as long as she chooses to go on. She is—interesting! She says things in an interesting way, and has interesting things to say. I have met extraordinarily clever and well-informed people who are terrible bores. Charmion would be interesting if she told one how to make an egg flip! As I watched the delicate play of expression on the tired face, which was yet so thrillingly alive, as I listened to the slow soft drawl of her voice, I felt a sudden rush of thankfulness and exhilaration. ”

“ I can drive a car. I can ride anything that goes on four legs. I can dance, and skate, and arrange flowers with taste. I can re-trim a hat, and at a pinch make a whole blouse. I can order a nice meal, and grumble when it is spoiled. I can strum on the piano and paint Christmas cards. I can entertain a house-party of big-wigs.
I have also (it seems a queer thing to say!) a kind of genius for simply—being kind! The poor people in the village call me “the kind one,” to distinguish me from Kathie, who, poor lamb! never did an unkind thing in her life. ”

“ There is something about you which makes people stare. Dear Kathie could pass along quietly, or sit in a corner of a room and be conveniently overlooked, but you—I am not paying you a compliment, my dear, I consider it is a misfortune!—you take the eye! Wherever you go, people will notice you and gossip about your movements. At twenty-six, and with your appearance, I ask you candidly, as aunt to niece—do you consider yourself a suitable person to live alone, and minister to widowers? ”

“ Delphine came up to me and slipped her hand through my arm.
“Evelyn, you have managed beautifully, but you must be dead tired and longing for tea. I’m going to stand over you and make you rest. Stupid of Jacky to send the Squire to help you! You’d have been happier with anyone else, but he’s so dense, so in the clouds, that he doesn’t notice these things. Evelyn, isn’t it strange how he dislikes you?”
“Who? Your husband?”
“Nonsense. No. You know quite well—Mr Maplestone. At first, of course, one can understand he was prejudiced; but now! And when you have been so nice!” ”

“ There was a large central hall from either side of which opened two rooms of medium size, facing respectively east and west; a quaint descent of two steps led the way to a really spacious drawing-room, through the great windows of which was a lovely vista of velvet lawn, and a great cedar drooping its green branches to the ground.
Parallel with the drawing-room, and also facing south, was a long glassed-in apartment which had evidently been used to harbour plants, garden-chairs, and impedimenta, but which revealed itself to our eyes as an ideal sun-parlour for chilly days. ”

“ If you had any idea what it is to live in a flat this size, with five small children tumbling over each other all day long, laughing and quarrelling and getting into mischief on every conceivable occasion, behaving like perfect little fiends one hour and angels straight from heaven the next—well, you would realise that there isn’t much time left over to sit down and nurse a private woe! ”

“ Honestly and truly, he believed that she was bracing herself to the fray out of the purest, most disinterested motives. Never for one moment did it occur to him that a grown woman could hanker after such ploys for her own amusement. There is much in his unconsciousness which is beautiful, but—there is danger, too! Surely, surely when two people live together in such a terribly close relationship as husband and wife, before all things it must be necessary to understand! ”

“ Old Miss Harding had a pull over Evelyn Wastneys. My name is Evelyn Wastneys, by the way, but that is a secret between us for the moment. And I am Charmion Fane’s friend, just as you are Edward Hallett’s, and the good, good God is going to give us the joy of seeing them happy together again. Mr Thorold! they have both been to blame, they have both had a share in spoiling their own lives—we won’t give them another chance! You and I, as staid, level-headed outsiders, are going to stage-manage their reconciliation.”
“How are we going to manage it?”
“Listen!” I said. “Listen!”
It’s a queer world. ”

“ If Aunt Eliza could have seen me then, what—oh, what would she have said! How I blessed the grey wig and the spectacles, and the few deft, disfiguring touches which made my presence so easy and comfortable, not only for myself but for those two poor, sad, helpless young men. However much one may rail against convention, it remains an unalterable fact that youth and good looks are not the best qualification for indiscriminate work among one’s fellow-creatures. ”

“ Poor Delphine, how her vanity would have suffered if she had been there at the moment! I suppose my face was expressive, for he added in quick explanation: “She’s a nice child. I’m fond of her, but she is still waiting to grow up. It’s perfectly true, Miss Wastneys, I know no women. They have been a sealed book to me.”
I was sorry for the big lonely thing. It must be hard to be born with a temperament which keeps one closed, as it were, within iron doors, while all the time the poor hungry soul longs to get out. ”

“ Charmion stared at me below knitted brows, and said shortly:—
“Yes, it is true. You ought to have business references. You shall have them! My lawyer shall write to you at once. I was a wretch to speak so sharply, Evelyn, but—you touched a sore point! Thankful? No, indeed! Money is a curse. The greatest handicap a woman can have. If I had my life to live again, I should choose to be a penniless working girl!” ”

“ That same evening a letter arrived from Charmion. Nothing like having all one’s excitements at the same time. It was good to see the dear writing again, and I was in the mood when I badly needed some words of comfort. I tore open the envelope, hoping to find them inside.
This is the letter:—
“Evelyn, Dear,—How is it faring with you, I wonder, in your grey London world, while I laze beneath Italian skies? It is a rest to know that you understand my silence, and don’t need to be reminded that it does not mean forgetfulness. That big heart of yours can be very patient and forbearing. ”

“ Mr Hallett rested his big shoulders against my cushions, and said in his low, grave tones:—
“You are a woman—you understand these things. Is there any way in which I can help? It’s pretty tough to see an old friend worried to death, and just sit and look on—but Thorold’s proud, and it’s difficult to interfere. It seems a cruel thing that illness should fall so heavily upon the middle classes. The rich are independent, the poor have hospitals; but a man in Thorold’s position is no sooner through with the mental torture than he is up against an army of bills. ”

“ Pause to wonder if it might not be better to make a man happy rather than to live alone, even if one were not really in love?
Pause to decide. Certainly not! Don’t be weak-minded. A grave injustice to him, as well as to yourself.
Pause to dream of Charmion and Kathie, and feel lone and lorn because they don’t write.
Grand decision. Always to be kind and considerate. To write regularly to lonely friends. Never to wax cross or impatient, neglect a duty, nor fail to render a service. To devote special attention and lavish special sympathy on spinsters in basement flats. ”

“ Spectacles and hair still left the personality of the face untouched; even the bushy eyebrows were but a partial disguise, but with the insertion of those small india-rubber pads came an utter and radical change. That chubby, square-faced woman was not Evelyn Wastneys. Never by any possibility could she see forty again. So far as propriety went, she might roam alone from one end of the world to the other. If she lived in the largest block of flats that was ever erected, her neighbours would regard her comings and goings with serene indifference. Admirable woman! ”

“ If I limped too much, in common politeness Mr Maplestone would be obliged to offer help. I had a vision of Charmion’s face if she looked out of the window and beheld us walking arm in arm up the drive!
“Why do you smile?” cried the voice by my side. There was positive offence in the tone, and, as I looked my amazement, he continued accusingly, “You always smile. Every time we meet. It must be an annoyance to stumble against me wherever you go. Yet you smile! And to-day you are hurt, and you still smile!” ”

“ Charmion piled up the cushions at one end of the sofa, nestled against them, and said smilingly:—
“Now! I’ve been very patient, but not another moment can I wait. There’s an air of mystery about you, Evelyn, a muffled excitement which intrigues me vastly. Oh! you’ve tried very hard! you kept up the chatter, but it’s been hard work. Your thoughts have strayed; half the time you have not heard my replies. Your eyes are dark and big—dilated, like an excited child’s! If you had not denied it so stoutly, I should feel convinced that there was a man—”
“My dear, this concerns you, not me. ”

“ Think of the happy hours one has spent on balconies in Switzerland and Italy! To have been in a room without one would have been to lose half the joy. And even in England—think of all the things one can do on a balcony of one’s very own. Sleep out when it is hot. Air your mattress. Hang up your sponge. Grow your pet flowers. Dry your hair. Cry it out quietly when you feel blue. Sentimentalise over the railings when you feel rose.”
Charmion’s fine brows arched, her lids drooped over her eyes. ”

“ Away with bitterness, away with remorse, the future lay ahead, it should not be wasted in vain regrets. Then, blushing and aglow, she told me her plans. “To-morrow—to-day,” she raised her eyes to the clock, and glowed anew, “we are going by train to a sunny bay in Cornwall, to spend a second honeymoon. Edward’s writing engagement could be fulfilled better in the country than in town. He had lingered in London for Thorold’s sake, not his own. One month, two months to themselves, they must have, and then”—she straightened herself as in eager anticipation—“America! I must take him back, Evelyn! ”