After My Fashion (17 page)

Was she, as Mrs Shotover had so bluntly told her, no better than an intriguing flirt whose infatuation for a man turned to gall and wormwood at the first catastrophe?

Or had Richard, by his miserable business, really poisoned with a fatal poison the well-spring of her love?

It is strange, she thought, these terrible little accidents of betrayal – what they can destroy! Like some evil acid thrown upon sensitive flesh, they seem able to bite to the very bone! Nelly sighed, as she walked, from a heart most ‘sorely charged'. It seemed so ridiculously small, the whole matter of this clandestine correspondence, of this burnt letter, revealing a sequence – so she told herself – of letters that had not been burnt! A ridiculously small matter! and yet it seemed to have given to the very essence of her being a strange organic shock.

She felt as if since he had thrown the thing into the fire two or three long bitter years had passed over her head instead of a few hours.

When they reached the top of the hill above Hill Cottage they were surprised to see a small motorcar standing by the gate.

‘Who's that?' said Canyot brusquely. ‘If it's a visitor I shall clear off. In fact,' he added, ‘I think I shall be off anyway. I don't feel in a mood for meeting people.'

He gave her his hand and looked into her eyes, hoping for some final glance of tenderness; but her gaze was fixed upon the unusual object at the gate. ‘Goodnight, Robert,' she repeated, almost mechanically, as with a wave of his hand he strode away.

She was met at the door by her husband. Directly she saw him she knew that something was wrong. ‘Is it Father?' she asked. Richard nodded without speaking and stood aside for her to go in.

Her father's bedroom was upon the ground floor. Its door stood wide open.

Directly the girl stepped across the threshold she knew that the old naturalist was dying. By his side stood the doctor, a quiet self-
contained young man with an expressionless face; at the foot of the bed sobbed Grace, her big tears streaming down her rosy cheeks and falling upon her apron.

‘What is it?' whispered Nelly to the doctor. ‘Is it his heart?'

It was Richard who answered her question. He stepped up close to her side and put his arm round her waist. ‘It was a sun stroke it seems,' he said. ‘He was brought back from West Horthing in Mrs Shotover's carriage. He must have become unconscious on the way. Grace was alone. Mrs Shotover's man carried him in and then went for the doctor. I have been several times to the top of the hill to look out for you. I found him like this when I came in and he has not changed since.'

The old man was lying on his back with his eyes closed. His breath was loud and unnatural, resembling the sound of water in an iron pipe. His mouth was wide open and every now and then a convulsive spasm crossed his face.

Nelly went up to him and bent down above him – ‘Father!' she whispered. And then in a louder tone, a tone full of a sudden desperate fear, ‘Father!'

Her voice seemed to reach the dying man's ears; for he made a little feeble movement with his hands.

The young doctor drew a step back.

‘Can't anything be done to make that breathing easier?' whispered Richard with something like a tone of reproach. ‘It must hurt him to breathe like that.'

Suddenly John Moreton opened his eyes and gazed at his daughter. The girl fell upon her knees and kissed his hand as it stirred faintly on the counterpane. Wildly and strangely the old man looked at her. His breathing grew shriller, harsher, huskier. It became the most dominant thing in the room. It became a living separate entity, a palpable horror that pressed with a ghastly weight upon them all; that tyrannized over them all. It was as if, in that repulsive sound, Death itself – the old eternal antagonist – was mocking them, was menacing them with an unintelligible threat.

Nelly spread out her arms over the bed and hid her face. It was not easy for her to look into those bewildered wild eyes with their inexplicable appeal. An unnatural longing suddenly seized Richard that he might rush from the room and escape, escape into the largeness of the evening, from this pitiful struggle. He felt as if every
breath the dying man drew rent and tore at his own throat. He felt stifled; as if it were he himself that were wrestling there with an invisible enemy.

The impassive young doctor contemplated the scene with serene detachment. He had seen hundreds of deaths in France and this particular death had less effect upon his emotional capacity than the shooting of an aged dog.

Nelly's head, buried in the white counterpane, was full of a turmoil of remorse. Why hadn't she been a better, a kinder, a more considerate girl? Her sobs shook the bed and mingled with the horrible rattling in the old man's throat.

Suddenly John Moreton jerked up his head from the pillow and held it erect. The young doctor was reminded of a similar movement in the neck of a frightened tortoise.

Inside the old man's mind, at that moment everything was absolutely clear. In a flash he saw the whole scene. He saw the impassive doctor. He saw the weeping servant. He saw his daughter lift her tear-stained face from the bed and gaze at him with desperate love. He caught in Richard's eye a look of fidgety irritation, a look that said ‘let's get this melancholy business over and go for a walk on the Downs'.

And in a flash he knew that this was his last moment of what is called
life
. He gathered up in a bundle all his inveterate thoughts – the
Eidolon Vulgaris
popped up on its pedestal before him as he had grown accustomed to envisage it. It nodded at him amiably from the top of his bookcase like a leering Punchinello. He did not think of it as the great illusion of humanity. He saw it as a whimsical but not unfriendly goblin whose feelings he had hurt by his contempt. He felt inclined to bid it goodbye and to apologize to it.

Yes, his brain was clearer than it had ever been in his life. The only thing that puzzled him was that the human arms of that crucifix which hovered just above poor Gracie's head were not fastened to anything but were waving in the air like the wings of a butterfly. What butterfly was it? That was the one thing that troubled him. He would like to know that, before darkness covered his eyes. He felt extremely happy, happier than he ever remembered feeling. Was that because Cecily and Betty were making it up? He knew they were making it up, though he could not see them. Those butterfly wings were doing it. They were hidden under the shelter of
those wings; and as the wings waved they were growing smaller and smaller and smaller.

Everything was growing smaller now, smaller and further away. And yet they were not leaving him. They were leaving themselves. He himself was getting further away – a stupid old man breathing like a cracked steam engine. He was
there
, and they were
there
, far off, far away – four unhappy people bending over a grotesque old entomologist stretched out on a bed. Why couldn't he communicate to them what a delicious thing it was to be fanned by butterfly wings?

Never had his brain been more clear. But it was annoying that he couldn't remember the name of that butterfly! And it was annoying that he couldn't remember what his opinions were about the immortality of the soul. He ought to be thinking about that now; not enjoying this unphilosophical happiness!

He was just on the point of dying. That was certain. This happiness was nothing less than death. What a curious discovery! And he was quite unable to explain this to any of these dear agitated young people. This was the queerest experience he had ever had in his life; it was teasing not to be able to speak.

The immortality of the soul? What was his view upon that problem? He hadn't the least idea. He had no idea of anything except of floating in a lovely blue space – a blue space that grew darker and darker. Then he recalled one single word out of a great many. It was the word
annihilation
.

That was the secret then; John Moreton was being annihilated. He wished this being annihilated would never stop. It was the happiest sensation he had ever known. He loved everyone; only he couldn't speak to tell them so. Annihilation had something to do with love, then? It must have. And it was beautiful beyond expression. But what was the connection between annihilation and the immortality of the soul? He wished he could remember what the immortality of the soul meant. It was a musical sentence. It must have meant something once to him when his brain was clouded. But his brain was clear now and it meant nothing at all!

How heavy his eyelids were growing; and how nice it was to love everyone, every single person – even foreman Pringle! Yes, his eyelids were very heavy. It would be still nicer when this blue space
in which he floated got quite dark! He was going to sleep now; going to sleep upon velvet-black butterfly wings.

Someone was weeping. It wasn't Cecily or Betty or Nelly. Who was it? It was the darkness of space. No! it was his mother.

At that moment he uttered a strange croaking cry like the cry of a bullfrog in a swamp. It seemed to himself that he shouted ‘Mother!' in an ecstasy of indescribable peace; but to the four figures watching his death it sounded as if he had uttered the meaningless syllables ‘Blub-blub'. His head sank back on the pillow after that; the young doctor in a quiet discreet voice informed them that he was dead.

The day following the old naturalist's death was a day of supreme discomfort for Richard. His feelings were those of natural sympathy with Nelly; on his own account he felt a certain sense of loss and bewilderment. The little cottage seemed to have changed its character. The old man lying upstairs dominated every corner of it with his silent presence; and it was difficult to understand exactly how Nelly was reacting to that wordless motionless appeal.

She went about her domestic duties as usual. She comforted poor Grace and kept her from any further outburst of grief. But what, all the while, was going on in her own mind it was impossible for Richard to guess.

Canyot came round in the morning after breakfast, and Nelly took him up at once to the dead man's room. A little later, when they were all three loitering miserably and awkwardly together in the little garden, ostensibly engaged in picking flowers to make ‘that room' as cheerful as it could be made, they were disagreeably startled by the appearance outside the gate of Mrs Shotover's dogcart.

Richard went to help her down.

‘I know all about it,' she said. ‘I telephoned to the doctor last
night. Thomas told me he had fetched him. How do you do, Mr Canyot— ‘this was in recognition of the young man's opening the gate for her.' And my dear, dear child!' She embraced Nelly with tender effusiveness. ‘And there is Grace! Take these things, Grace, will you? It's eau-de-cologne, my dear, and some of my best roses. I thought he would be glad to think I'd remembered to bring them. And now you'll take me upstairs at once won't you? Well, Mr Storm, I'm afraid all this is very sad and disturbing to you. It must be terribly upsetting to you writers, when something really human breaks in on your inventions. Dear, dear child!' She still continued to retain tight hold of Nelly's hand while she addressed her words to the two men. ‘And you, Mr Canyot, you've had your own loss of course; and no doubt you know how to comfort our little Nell. It is very nice that she has both of you to fall back upon. It would have been doubly sad if she'd had nobody but an old friend like me …

‘Yes, Grace. In water, Grace. It would be a pity for them to wither while we can fancy he enjoys them. Ah my dear, my dear' – this was addressed to Nelly again – ‘we old people must seem very tiresome sometimes to you young ones. But when it's all over I daresay you miss us. Yes; at once if you please. Yes; do take me up at once.'

Preceded by Grace and escorted by Nelly, Mrs Shotover walked solemnly up the little creaking stairs. What did actually go on under that high forehead and behind that elegantly poised head no human being will ever know. She shed no tear at the sight of her old friend. Very gracefully, and like a great actress in a play, she stooped, and kissed him; once on the forehead, and then with a quick birdlike movement, a sort of fleeting afterthought, on the bloodless lips.

Nelly thought she detected a furtive glance into the mirror as they went out together after placing the roses on the table; but her rush of cynical thoughts was dissipated in a wave of sympathetic feeling when she noticed that the hand which rested on her arm as she helped the old lady downstairs shook like a leaf in the wind.

‘Very beautiful and very peaceful,' she said, addressing the two men when she came out into the garden; for the one thing that Nelly wanted to avoid at that moment was to be left alone with her.

‘And now you two must come back to lunch with me,' she said. ‘I'm sure Grace will be glad to have you off her hands. She doesn't
look as if she was fit to do a thing more. I daresay Mr Canyot will be available if he's wanted. Oh yes you
must
both of you come. It would be quite the dear man's wish, I'm certain of that. You must let me take you all in hand. He would wish it. You see I
did
understand him. Mr Canyot is just the right person to take care of dear faithful Grace. Aren't you, Mr Canyot? An artist like you is always so nice to simple natures. Have you thought of taking a death mask? No, I suppose not. Oh, there's just one more thing – if you don't mind, Nelly dear. No! No! I'll be down in a minute. Just one little thing. You must humour an old woman, my pet. One minute!' And with more alacrity than she had yet displayed Mrs Shotover went up for the second time to the room above.

What passed on this occasion between those ancient friends only the invisible watchers of life and death will ever know. When she came down again the old lady was a little quieter.

While she was away, Richard had whispered to Nelly – ‘Do you really wish to go with her?' Nelly had nodded. ‘And you'd like me to come too?' Nelly had nodded again. ‘I don't want to be alone with her today; and we can't hurt her feelings. She was Father's friend.'

So Nelly climbed up by Mrs Shotover's side in the front of the dog-cart; and Richard held on at the back in company with Thomas.

Never had the author of
The Life of Verlaine
had so uncomfortable a drive.

He felt as though Mrs Shotover had ears in the back of her head and heard every word he said to Thomas; Thomas, in any case, was the most taciturn of feudal servants and had already acquired a prejudice against him as a foreigner and not quite the right sort of gentleman.

The lunch passed easily enough; for after the stress they had been through, and the long jolting drive over the Downs, they were both hungry. The uncomfortable time for Richard came afterwards, when they lingered over the coffee in Mrs Shotover's drawing room.

Nelly clung resolutely and tenaciously to her husband. She seemed to have made a vow not to be separated from him for a moment; their hostess, whether she liked it or not, had no alternative but to submit.

So Richard became aware of the enormous importance, in events of this kind, of the right fabrics to be selected for a young woman's mourning.

Of course you'll leave it all to me, ‘said Mrs Shotover.' I'll drive you in to Selshurst tomorrow and have you fitted. They keep the medium sizes practically made up, you know. And you're a good medium, my dear. Just a few touches here and there, and that sweet little Mrs Fortescue will fit you to a nicety! I'd have had her over here this afternoon, if we'd only known in time. You needn't look so pompous and reproachful, Mr Storm. Need he, Nelly? Your dear father never minded my little jokes.

‘Ah you modern men, you modern men! You're always grave when you ought to laugh; and you chuckle like wicked ogres when you ought to be grave.

‘The question of Nelly's looking nice at her father's funeral, when quite a lot of the neighbourhood may be there, is not a thing to laugh at. No gentleman ever laughs at a woman for her seriousness about dress. That kind of humour is just pure vulgarity and shows simple ignorance of life. It's like the bucolic laughter of stupid rustics when they see well-dressed people coming out of church.'

‘I haven't been in an English drawing room for quite ten years,' remarked Richard, in an effort to change the conversation.

‘So I imagined!' was on the tip of Mrs Shotover's tongue; but she substituted for it, ‘Dear me! How glad you must be to be civilized again!'

‘I don't like drawing rooms,' said Nelly. ‘I've never had one. I think men's rooms are much nicer.'

‘That's what all the young people say now,' cried the old lady. ‘You'll turn England into a dreadful place soon, where there's no more society and no more good manners and no more good conversation. You should have seen the tea parties we used to have at Fixden Manor in my young days.
There
was a drawing room for you! And the men were witty too. I can remember old Lord Trace-bridge, how he used to flirt with my aunt, Lady Gower. That room had no less than seven mirrors. One of them got cracked one day; and the Bishop of Sodor and Man said to Grandmamma – but that's too naughty a story to repeat before Mr Storm! I'll tell it you tomorrow, Nelly, when we're driving to Selshurst'

Richard looked round Mrs Shotover's drawing room with an eye of unmingled contempt. There was not one single book to be seen in any direction except a great morocco-covered edition of the poems of Lord Byron, lying on its side on a tortoiseshell slab, and a tiny volume of 151
Dodd's Beauties of Shakespeare
, used as a letter-weight on the lady's rosewood writing table.

To make up for the lack of books there were endless vases of flowers of every conceivable size and colour; there were plants in Japanese pots and plants in Chinese pots and plants upon little stands of old English pottery.

On the mantelpiece and on every available space in the room were an incredible assortment of objects that could hardly be called
objets d'art
.

The most harmless of this gallery of knickknacks were portraits of elegant human beings, nearly all of them in full dress, varying from the dark ancient daguerreotypes in silhouette down to the latest modern photographs of young soldiers and young society belles.

‘I see you're looking at my things,' said the owner of this pretty collection. ‘The work of a lifetime, young man! The work of a lifetime! My French novels I keep upstairs. But we won't talk of
them
now! All the same I wish you'd make Mr Storm write something really amusing, Nelly. Something witty, for one to read at night when one goes to bed. I read a lot in bed. It's the only place where I get a moment's time.'

‘Oh, here's a picture of your father when he was a young man. You've seen it before? Yes? It's rather nice I think, don't you?'

She replaced the object carefully in its former position and sighed deeply, looking at herself as she did so in one of her innumerable mirrors.

‘Poor dear John! He never minded my bad little ways. I've told him before now the most terrible stories. You've heard him laugh, haven't you, love, when we've been together in his study? Well! he's past laughing now, poor darling. Why don't
you
ever laugh, Mr Storm? For I can see you never do, does he Nelly? He “grimly smiles”, as the novels say, and that's all. I must confess I like a man who can laugh. You modern writers take life so horribly seriously. One would think you were always in pain. Are you in pain when you “smile grimly” like that, Mr Storm? I hope Nelly looks after
your stomach. I always used to advise her father to take castor oil, didn't I Nelly? It was quite a joke between us. And other things too. Heigh ho! And the dear, dear man is lying there all alone. Well! I see you're anxious to be off and I won't keep you. But what is
your
opinion of these modern authors, Mr Storm, and their spiritualistic nonsense? I say that when we are dead we're in good society. In these days you have to die to be in good society. Oh my sweet little Nell, how I am rattling on! Well! you must excuse me. I am an old woman and hardly see anybody nowadays.'

‘It was very kind of you to bring us over,' said Nelly, rising, ‘but really you mustn't trouble about tomorrow. I've got several black dresses.'

‘Nonsense, child, nonsense. You talk in the way your mother used to. Black dresses indeed! I hope, Mr Storm, you won't let her get silly and dowdy now she's married. But I'm sure you won't. I expect you'll be getting her all sorts of things from Paris. That's what she married you for, you know, not to hear sermons about art! And do let me hear you laugh sometimes. I suspect serious faces. I always have. I advise Nelly to watch you very carefully when you're silent like that and looking out of the windows and into the bushes. You may try to make her believe you're composing lives of the poets or something; but I know better! You bad sly man! You're probably thinking of some naughty little girl in Paris! There! Don't look so sad, Nelly. It does him good to be teased a bit. These modern clever men have no sense of humour. Well! goodbye my dear one. You
will
walk back, eh? I could easily get Thomas to drive you. Oh dear, dear! What a thing life is. Well! be a brave girl. That's what'll really please your father. I'm sure the dear man is safe in heaven by now. If he's
not
there, the Lord may send Betty Shotover to the other place!

‘You
will
walk, then? Well, goodbye, and God bless you! I'll be over tomorrow early.'

They shook hands with her at the door; and Richard threw up his arms and beat at the laurels with his stick as soon as they were out of her sight.

‘What an awful woman! What a perfectly horrible old woman!' Then, as if to relieve his feelings, he proceeded to make a goblin-like grimace in the direction of Mrs Shotover's drawing room,

‘Don't, Richard,' said Nelly. ‘You hurt my feelings; and it isn't pretty of you. I don't think it's ever nice to despise people quite like that, when you've been enjoying their hospitality. Besides she was a friend of Father's.'

‘Damn her hospitality!' cried Storm, letting loose the stored-up venom of his outraged vanity. ‘She only asked me there to annoy me. She might just as well have had you by yourself. She has always hated me from the first time we met. Her Fixden Manor! Her aunt, Lady Gower! What a disgusting old snob. I expect she saw I saw through her from the very start. That's why she loathes me. We know how to put people like that into their places in France.'

‘Perhaps she sees through
you
, Richard!'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I only mean that when it comes to
seeing through
people, we're all at bottom much of a muchness.'

‘Don't for God's sake, Nelly, use those awful expressions. I know they're supposed to be arch and debonair and genteel in England; but I detest them. We're not living in Wonderland or Looking-Glass-land.'

‘I wish we were!' cried Nelly looking at him with a little surprised tilt of her eyebrows. She was still in the dark as to what had really ruffled him; for it was inconceivable that a person of his intelligence could take poor dear Aunt Bet quite as seriously as that!