CHAPTER XIII—THE TURNING POINT

Before my experience at Venice the world had consisted for me of Vi, myself, and other people; now it was only myself and Vi. I spent my days in shadowy unreality; just as a child, waking from a bad dream, sees one face he can trust gazing over the brink of his horror, so out of the blurred confusion of my present I saw the face of Vi.

Fiesole had not shown me love in its purity, but she certainly had taught me something of its courage and selfishness. She had disabused my mind forever of the thought that it was a polite, intensified form of liking. A blazing ship, she had met me in mid-ocean and had set my rigging aflame. I had turned from her, but not in time to get off scatheless. Her wild unrestraint had accustomed my imagination to phases of desire which had before seemed abnormal and foreign to my nature.

When I missed her at Milan, I abandoned my pursuit of her. Now that the temptation was over, I realized how near we had come to wrecking each other’s lives. Physical lassitude overtook me. Because I had withstood Fiesole, I thought myself safe in indulging my fancy with more intimate thoughts of Vi. I excused myself for so doing, by telling myself that it was her memory that had made me strong to escape. It was like saying that because water had rescued me from fire it could no longer drown me.

I traveled northwards into the mountains to Raveno. Each morning I rowed across Maggiore to the island of Isola Madré. Lying beneath the camphor trees, watching the turquoise of the lake filling in the spaces between the yellowing bamboo canes, I gave rein to my longing. Shadowy foliage dripped from shadowy trees, curtaining the glaring light; down spy-hole vistas of overgrown pathways I watched the lazy world drift by. I numbed my cravings with the opiate of voluptuous beauty.

I had been there a fortnight when a letter from home arrived. With its confident domestic chatter, it brought a message of trust. It took from me my sense of isolation. One of them would understand.

Slowly the thought had taken shape within me that I must go to Vi. If I saw her only once again, I believed that I would be satisfied. It would not be necessary to speak to her—that would be unsportsmanlike if she had managed to forget me. All I asked was to be allowed just once to look upon her face. She should not know that I was near her; I would look at her and go away. With that strange sophistry that we practise on ourselves, I tried to be persuaded that, were I to see her in her own surroundings with her husband and Dorrie, it would be a lesson to me of how little share I had in her life. Perhaps I had even idealized her memory; seeing her might cure me. So I reasoned, but I was conscious that my own judgment on the wisdom of such a step was not to be trusted. Ruthita was too young to tell. My father, though I admired him, was not the man to whom a son would willingly betray a weakness. I would speak to the Snow Lady.

As I drove from the station through London, old scenes and memories woke to life. The city had spread out towards Stoke Newington, so that it had lost much of its quaintness; but it retained enough of its old-world quiet to put me in touch with my childhood.

I alighted at the foot of Pope Lane. The wooden posts still stood there to shut out traffic. I walked quickly up the avenue of fragrant limes with the eager expectancy of one who had been years absent instead of days. In the distance I heard the rumble of London. The golden August evening lay in pools upon the pathway. Sensations of the happy past came back. Dead memories stirred, plucking at my heartstrings. I thought of how Ruthita and I had bowled hoops and played marbles on that same gray pavement, making the air ring with our childish voices. I thought of those rare occasions when the Spuffler had carried me away with him into a boy’s world of mysterious small things, which he knew so well how to find. All the comings and goings of school-days, immense exaltations and magnified tragedies, rose before me—Ruthita waiting to catch first sight of me, and Ruthita running beside the dog-cart, with flushed cheeks and hair flying, to share the last of me as I drove away. What had happened since then seemed for the moment but an interlude in the momentous play.

Passing between the steeply-rising red-brick walls, dotted with gates, I came to the door through which I had been so eager to escape when it had been locked against me. I reflected that I had not gained much from the new things which I had dragged into my life. The narrowness which I had once detested as imprisoned dullness I now coveted as peaceful security.

I found the bell beneath the Virginia creeper. The door was opened by Hetty. Hetty had grown buxom and middle-aged. Her sweetheart had never come for her. The tradesmen no longer made love to her; they left their goods perfunctorily and went out in search of younger faces. Her hips had broadened. The curve between her bust and her waist had vanished. The dream of love was all that she had gained from life. I wondered whether she still told herself impossible stories of the deliverance wrought by marriage. If she did, no signs of her romantic tendencies revealed themselves in her face. Her expression had grown vacantly kind and stolid. To me she was respectful nowadays, and seemed even distressed by the immodesty of the memory that I had once been the little boy whom she had spanked, spoilt, bathed, and dried.

She gave a quick cry at catching sight of me, for I had warned no one of my coming.

“Sh! where are they?” I asked her.

She told me that the master was at work in his study, and that Miss Ruthita and her ma were in the garden.

I walked round the house slowly, lasting out the pleasure of their surprise. Nothing seemed to have changed except we people. Sunflowers kept guard in just the same places, like ranks of lean soldiers wearing golden helmets. Along the borders scarlet geraniums flared among the blue of lobelia and the white of featherfew, just as they had when I was a boy. Pigeons, descendants of those whose freedom I had envied, perched on the housetops opposite, or wheeled against the encrimsoned sky.

I stole across the lawn to where two stooping figures sat with their backs towards me. Halfway across I halted, gazing over my shoulder. Through the study-window, with ivy aslant the pane, I saw my father. His hair was white.. In the stoop of his shoulders was the sign of creeping age. He did not look up to notice me; he had never had time. As the years went by I grew proudly sorry for him. I saw him now, as I had seen him so many times when I paused to glance up from my play. He was cramped above his desk, writing, writing. His face was turned away. His head was supported on his hand as though weary. He was-the prisoner now; it was I who held the key of escape. How oddly life had changed!

Ruthita saw me. Her sewing fell from her lap. In a. trice she was racing towards me.

“You! You!” she cried.

Her thin arms went round me. Suddenly I felt miles distant from her because I was unworthy.

“Why did you come back?” she asked me. There was a note of anxiety in her voice. She searched my bronzed face.

“To see you, chickabiddy.”

“No, no. That’s not true,” she whispered; but she pressed her cheek against my shoulder as though she were willing to distrust her own denial. “You can get on quite well without me, Dannie; you would never have come back to see me only.”

The Snow Lady touched me on the elbow. Her eyes were excited and full of questioning. She gazed quickly from me to Ruthita. With a self-consciousness which was foreign to both of us, we dropped our eyes under her gaze and separated. Ruthita excused herself, saying that she would go and tell my father.

The Snow Lady offered me her cheek; it was soft and velvety. Slipping her arm through mine, she led me away to the apple-tree under which they had been sitting. She was still the frail little Madam Favart, half-frivolous, half-saintly; my father’s intense reticence had subdued, but not quite silenced her gaiety. Her silver hair was as abundant as ever and her figure as girlish; but her face had tired lines, especially about the eyes. I sat myself on the grass at her feet.

“How is he?” I asked.

“Your father?”

“Yes.”

“Much the same. He doesn’t change.”

“Is he still at the same old grind?”

She nodded. “But, Dante,” she said, “you look thinner and older.”

“That’s the heat and the rapid traveling. A day or two’s rest’ll put me right.”

She dropped her sewing into her lap and, pressing her cool hand against my forehead, drew me back against her. It was a mothering love-trick of hers that had lasted over from my childhood.

“What brought you home so suddenly, laddie?”

Her hand slipped to my shoulder. I bent aside and kissed it. “To see you and Ruthie. I had something to tell you.” She narrowed her eyes shrewdly. “You’ve been worried for nearly a year now. I’ve noticed it.”

“Have I shown it so plainly?”

“Plainly enough for me to notice. Is it something to do with a woman? But of course it is—at your age only a woman could make you wear a solemn face.”

“Yes. It’s a woman. And I want you to help me, Snow Lady, just as you used to long ago when I couldn’t make things go right.”

The slow tears clouded her eyes; yet my news seemed to make her happy. “When I was as old as you, Ruthie had been long enough with me to grow long curls.” She smiled inscrutably.

From where we sat we could watch the house. While we had been talking, I had seen through the study-window how Ruthita stole to my father’s chair. He looked up irritably at being disturbed. Her attitude was all meekness and apology as she explained her intrusion. He seemed to sigh at having to leave his work. She withdrew while he completed his sentence. He laid his pen carefully aside, glanced out into the garden shortsightedly, rose, and melted into the shadows at the back of his cave. The door at the top of the steps opened. He descended slowly and gravely, as though his brain was still tangled in the web of thought it had been weaving.

We sat together beneath the apple-tree while the light faded. Little ovals of gold, falling flaky through leaves on the turf, paled imperceptibly into the twilight grayness. My father’s voice was worn and unsteady. It came over me that he had aged; up till now I had not noticed it. Beyond the wall in a neighboring garden children were playing; a woman called them to bed; a lawn-mower ran to and fro across the silence. He questioned me eagerly as to where I had been in Italy, punctuating my answers and descriptions with such remarks as, “I always wanted to go there—never had time—always felt that such a background would have made all the difference.”

It was noticeable that Ruthita and the Snow Lady suppressed themselves in his presence; if they ventured anything, it was only to keep him interested or to lead his thoughts in happier directions. Presently he told them that they would be tired if they sat up later. Taking the hint as a command, they bade us good-night.

Darkness had gathered when they left us; to the southward London waved a torch against the clouds. We watched the lights spring up in the bedrooms, and saw Ruthita and then the Snow Lady step to their windows and draw down their blinds. Presently the lights went out.

“Lord Halloway’s been here again.” When I waited for further explanation my father added, “Didn’t like the fellow at first; he improves on acquaintance.”

Then I spoke. “Depends how far you carry his acquaintance.”

My father fidgeted in his chair. “He’s got flaws in his character, but he’s honest in keeping back nothing. Most people in our position wouldn’t hesitate two minutes over such a match.” Then, after a long pause, “And what’s to become of Ruthita when I die?”

I took him up sharply. I was young enough to fear the mention of death. “You’ll live for many years yet. After that, I’ll take care of her if she doesn’t marry.”

My father sat upright. I wondered how I had hurt him. He spoke stiffly. “You’ll inherit Sir Charles’s money. When I married a first and a second time, I didn’t consult his convenience, and the responsibilities I undertook are mine. Ruthita’s only your sister by accident; already you’ve been too much together. We must consider this offer apart from sentiment. He’s sowed his wild oats—well, he’s sorry. And he’ll be the Earl of Lovegrove by and by. To stand in her way would be selfishness.”

His argument took me by surprise. “Is Ruthita anxious for it? What does she say?”

“She knows nothing of the world. She takes her coloring from you. She’s afraid to speak out her mind. She thinks you would never forgive her.”

His voice was high-strung and challenging.

“I don’t believe it,” I said quietly. “She doesn’t love him—she’d be selling herself for safety.”

In the interval that followed I could feel the grimness of his expression which the darkness hid from my eyes. “You’re young; you don’t understand. For years I’ve had to struggle to make ends meet. I’m about done—I’m tired. If Ruthita were settled, I could lie down with an easy mind. There’s enough saved to see me and her mother to our journey’s end.”

He rose to his feet suddenly. “You think I’m acting shabbily. Good-night.”

He walked away, a gaunt shadow moving through the silver night. The awe I had of him kept me from following. I sat there and tried to puzzle out how this thing might be avoided. I could help financially; but my help would be refused because it was Sir Charles’s money.

Next morning I woke at six and dressed. Dew was on the turf; it sparkled in the gossamer veils of spider-webs caught among the bushes. Blackbirds and thrushes in trees were calling. A cock crew, and a cock in the distance echoed. The childish thought came back to me—how much grown-ups miss of pleasure in their anxiety for the morrow. There is so much to be enjoyed for nothing!

A window-sash was raised sharply. Looking up I saw Ruthita in her white night-gown, with her hair tumbled like a cloud about her breast. I watched her, thinking her lovely—so timid and small and delicate. I called to her softly; she started and drew back. I waited. Soon she came down to me in the garden. I must have eyed her curiously.

“You’ve heard?”

She held out her hand pleadingly, afraid that I would judge her. “They’re making me,” she cried, “and I don’t—don’t want to, Dannie.”

I led her away behind the tool-shed at the bottom of the garden; it was the place where I had discovered Hetty in her one flirtation.

“I’m not wanted,” moaned Ruthita; “I cost money. So they’re giving me to a man I don’t love.”

“They shan’t,” I told her, slipping my arm about her. “You shall come to me—I don’t suppose I shall ever marry.”

She nestled her head against my shoulder, saying, “You were always good to me; I don’t know why. I’m not much use to anybody.”

“Rubbish!” I retorted. “None of us could get along without you.”

Then I told her that if the pressure became unbearable she must come to me. She promised.

The Snow Lady found us sitting there together; we made room for her beside us. Shortly after her coming Ruthita made an excuse to vanish.

I turned to the Snow Lady abruptly. “She’s not going to marry Halloway.”

She raised her brows, laughing with her eyes. “Why not? Why so positive?”

“Because it’s an arranged marriage.”

“Mine with her father was arranged; it was very happy.”

Somehow I knew she was not serious.

“You don’t want it?” I challenged.

“No, I don’t want it; but Ruthita’s growing older. No one else has asked for her. It would be a shame if she became an old maid.”

“She won’t.”

“She won’t, if you say so,” said the Snow Lady.

During breakfast my father was silent. He seemed conscious of a conspiracy against him. When the meal was ended, he retired to his study, where he shut himself up, working morosely. I sought opportunities to tell the Snow Lady what I had come to say, but I could never find an opening to introduce the name of Vi. Whenever we were alone together she insisted on discussing Ruthita’s future, stating and re-stating the reasons for and against the proposed match. The atmosphere was never sympathetic for the broaching of my own perplexities. Gradually I came to see that I must make my decision unaided; then I knew that I should decide in only one way. I engaged a passage to Boston provisionally, telling myself that it could be canceled. That I think was the turning-point, though I still pretended to hesitate.

The day before the boat sailed, my father announced at table, avoiding my eyes, that Lord Halloway had written that he would call next day. I went to my bedroom and commenced to pack. Ruthita followed.

“You’re going?”

“Yes.”

“Because he’s coming?”

“Partly.”

Her eyes were blinded with tears; she sank against the wall in a fit of sobbing. “Oh, I wish you could take me—I wish you could take me!” she cried.

I comforted her, telling her to be brave, reminding her of her promise to come to me if they used pressure. She dabbed her eyes. “You and I’ve always stood together, little sister; you mustn’t be afraid,” I told her.

I carried my bags downstairs into the hall. The Snow Lady met me.

“What’s this? You’re going?” Her voice reflected dismay and bewilderment.

“Yes, going.”

“But not for long! You’ll be back shortly?”

“That depends.”

I entered my father’s study. He looked up from his writing. “I’m going away.”

He held my hand in silence a moment; his throat was working; he would not look me in the eyes. “Won’t you stay?” he asked hoarsely.

I shook my head.

“Good-by,” he muttered. “Don’t judge us harshly. Come back again.”

Ruthita accompanied me to the end of the lane. She did not come further; she was grown up now and ashamed to be seen crying. At the last minute I wanted to tell her. I realized that she would understand—she was a woman. The knowledge came too late. She said she would write me at Oxford, and I did not correct her. I looked back as I went down the road and waved. I turned a corner; she was lost to sight.

Next day I sailed.