_Chapter 2_
Siegmund's violin, desired of Helena, lay in its case beside Siegmund'slean portmanteau in the white dust of the lumber-room in Highgate. Itwas worth twenty pounds, but Beatrice had not yet roused herself to sellit; she kept the black case out of sight.
Siegmund's violin lay in the dark, folded up, as he had placed it forthe last time, with hasty, familiar hands, in its red silk shroud. Aftertwo dead months the first string had snapped, sharply striking thesensitive body of the instrument. The second string had broken nearChristmas, but no one had heard the faint moan of its going. The violinlay mute in the dark, a faint odour of must creeping over the smooth,soft wood. Its twisted, withered strings lay crisped from the anguish ofbreaking, smothered under the silk folds. The fragrance of Siegmundhimself, with which the violin was steeped, slowly changed into anodour 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 hisviolin, he seemed to have his fingers on the strings of his heart and ofthe heart of Helena. It was his little beloved that drank his being andturned it into music. And now Siegmund was dead; only an odour of mustremained of him in his violin.
It lay folded in silk in the dark, waiting. Six months before it hadlonged for rest; during the last nights of the season, when Siegmund'sfingers had pressed too hard, when Siegmund's passion, and joy, and fearhad hurt, too, the soft body of his little beloved, the violin hadsickened for rest. On that last night of opera, without pity Siegmundhad 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 thespattering roar of applause quicken his pulse. It was hoarse, andsavage, and startling on his inflamed soul, making him shiver withanticipation, 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 theopera-house. The members of the orchestra rose, laughing, mingling theirweariness with good wishes for the holiday, with sly warning andsuggestive advice, pressing hands warmly ere they disbanded. Other yearsSiegmund had lingered, unwilling to take the long farewell of hisassociates of the orchestra. Other years he had left the opera-housewith a little pain of regret. Now he laughed, and took his comrades'hands, and bade farewells, all distractedly, and with impatience. Thetheatre, awesome now in its emptiness, he left gladly, hastening like aflame stretched level on the wind.
With his black violin-case he hurried down the street, then halted topity the flowers massed pallid under the gaslight of the market-hall.For himself, the sea and the sunlight opened great spaces tomorrow. Themoon was full above the river. He looked at it as a man in abstractionwatches some clear thing; then he came to a standstill. It was uselessto hurry to his train. The traffic swung past the lamplight shone warmon all the golden faces; but Siegmund had already left the city. Hisface 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 agarment before him, to reveal the white moon-glitter brilliant as livingflesh. Mechanically, overcast with the reality of the moonlight, he tookhis seat in the train, and watched the moving of things. He was in akind of trance, his consciousness seeming suspended. The train slid outamongst lights and dark places. Siegmund watched the endless movement,fascinated.
This was one of the crises of his life. For years he had suppressed hissoul, in a kind of mechanical despair doing his duty and enduring therest. Then his soul had been softly enticed from its bondage. Now he wasgoing to break free altogether, to have at least a few days purely forhis 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 thislast night his life passed out of his control, and he sat at thecarriage-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 onefashion for so many years, was casting him forth. He was trembling inall his being, though he knew not with what. All he could do now was towatch the lights go by, and to let the translation of himself continue.
When at last the train ran out into the full, luminous night, andSiegmund saw the meadows deep in moonlight, he quivered with a lowanticipation. The elms, great grey shadows, seemed to loiter in theircloaks across the pale fields. He had not seen them so before. The worldwas changing.
The train stopped, and with a little effort he rose to go home. Thenight air was cool and sweet. He drank it thirstily. In the road againhe lifted his face to the moon. It seemed to help him; in its brillianceamid the blonde heavens it seemed to transcend fretfulness. It wouldfront the waves with silver as they slid to the shore, and Helena,looking along the coast, waiting, would lift her white hands with suddenjoy. He laughed, and the moon hurried laughing alongside, through theblack masses of the trees.
He had forgotten he was going home for this night. The chill wetness ofhis 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 tobed. Nevertheless, he went very quietly into the drawing-room. There themoonlight entered, and he thought the whiteness was Helena. He held hisbreath and stiffened, then breathed again. 'Tomorrow,' he thought, as helaid his violin-case across the arms of a wicker chair. But he had aphysical feeling of the presence of Helena: in his shoulders he seemedto be aware of her. Quickly, half lifting his arms, he turned to themoonshine. 'Tomorrow!' he exclaimed quietly; and he left the roomstealthily, for fear of disturbing the children.
In the darkness of the kitchen burned a blue bud of light. He quicklyturned up the gas to a broad yellow flame, and sat down at table. He wastired, excited, and vexed with misgiving. As he lay in his arm-chair, helooked round with disgust.
The table was spread with a dirty cloth that had great brown stainsbetokening children. In front of him was a cup and saucer, and a smallplate with a knife laid across it. The cheese, on another plate, waswrapped in a red-bordered, fringed cloth, to keep off the flies, whicheven then were crawling round, on the sugar, on the loaf, on thecocoa-tin. Siegmund looked at his cup. It was chipped, and a stain hadgone 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 nearthe door. Boots and shoes of various sizes were scattered over thefloor, while the sofa was littered with children's clothing. In theblack stove the ash lay dead; on the range were chips of wood, andnewspapers, and rubbish of papers, and crusts of bread, and crusts ofbread-and-jam. As Siegmund walked across the floor, he crushed twosweets underfoot. He had to grope under sofa and dresser to find hisslippers; and he was in evening dress.
It would be the same, while ever Beatrice was Beatrice and Siegmund herhusband. He ate his bread and cheese mechanically, wondering why he wasmiserable, why he was not looking forward with joy to the morrow. As heate, he closed his eyes, half wishing he had not promised Helena, halfwishing he had no tomorrow.
Leaning back in his chair, he felt something in the way. It was a smallteddy-bear and half of a strong white comb. He grinned to himself. Thiswas the summary of his domestic life--a broken, coarse comb, a childcrying because her hair was lugged, a wife who had let the hair go tillnow, when she had got into a temper to see the job through; and then theteddy-bear, pathetically cocking a black worsted nose, and liftingabsurd arms to him.
He wondered why Gwen had gone to bed without her pet. She would want thesilly thing. The strong feeling of affection for his children came overhim, battling with something else. He sank in his chair, and graduallyhis 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 r
ose, 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 quiteuncovered, her wilful head thrown back, her mouth half open. Her blackhair was tossed across the pillow: he could see the action. Marjorysnuggled under the sheet. He placed the teddy-bear between thetwo 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, orthey 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 themirror. He looked back; he peered at himself. His hair still grew thickand dark from his brow: he could not see the grey at the temples. Hiseyes were dark and tender, and his mouth, under the black moustache, wasfull of youth.
He rose, looked at the children, frowned, and went to his own smallroom. He was glad to be shut alone in the little cubicle of darkness.
Outside the world lay in a glamorous pallor, casting shadows that madethe farm, the trees, the bulks of villas, look like live creatures. Thesame pallor went through all the night, glistening on Helena as she laycurled up asleep at the core of the glamour, like the moon; on the searocking 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 bewith her. With her, nothing mattered but love and the beauty of things.He felt parched and starving. She had rest and love, like water andmanna for him. She was so strong in her self-possession, in her love ofbeautiful 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 soundedfinal. 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 forsome time, rapidly beating his fingers on his knee.
'Thirty-eight years old,' he said to himself, 'and disconsolate as achild!' He began to muse of the morrow.
When he seemed to be going to sleep, he woke up to find thoughtslabouring over his brain, like bees on a hive. Recollections, swiftthoughts, flew in and alighted upon him, as wild geese swing down andtake possession of a pond. Phrases from the opera tyrannized over him;he played the rhythm with all his blood. As he turned over in thistorture, he sighed, and recognized a movement of the De Beriot concertowhich Helena had played for her last lesson. He found himself watchingher as he had watched then, felt again the wild impatience when she waswrong, started again as, amid the dipping and sliding of her bow, herealized where his thoughts were going. She was wrong, he was hasty; andhe felt her blue eyes looking intently at him.
Both started as his daughter Vera entered suddenly. She was a handsomegirl of nineteen. Crossing the room, brushing Helena as if she were apiece of furniture in the way, Vera had asked her father a question, ina hard, insulting tone, then had gone out again, just as if Helena hadnot been in the room.
Helena stood fingering the score of _Pelleas_. When Vera had gone, sheasked, in the peculiar tone that made Siegmund shiver:
'Why do you consider the music of _Pelleas_ cold?'
Siegmund had struggled to answer. So they passed everything off, withoutmention, 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 thehousehold. Then she and Louisa went occasionally to whatever hall ortheatre had Siegmund in the orchestra, so that shortly the three formedthe habit of coming home together. Then Helena had invited Siegmund toher home; then the three friends went walks together; then the two wentwalks 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, andhe had lost himself to her.
That day, three weeks before the end of the season, when Vera had soinsulted Helena, the latter had said, as she put on her coat, looking athim all the while with heavy blue eyes: 'I think, Siegmund, I cannotcome here any more. Your home is not open to me any longer.' He hadwrithed in confusion and humiliation. As she pressed his hand, closelyand 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, whenhe lay resting his head on her lap in Richmond Park, she said:
'You are so tired, Siegmund.' She stroked his face, and kissed himsoftly. Siegmund lay in the molten daze of love. But Helena was, if itis not to debase the word, virtuous: an inconsistent virtue, cruel andugly for Siegmund.
'You are so tired, dear. You must come away with me and rest, the firstweek in August.'
His blood had leapt, and whatever objections he raised, such as havingno money, he allowed to be overridden. He was going to Helena, to theIsle of Wight, tomorrow.
Helena, with her blue eyes so full of storm, like the sea, but, alsolike the sea, so eternally self-sufficient, solitary; with her thickwhite throat, the strongest and most wonderful thing on earth, and hersmall hands, silken and light as wind-flowers, would be his tomorrow,along with the sea and the downs. He clung to the exquisite flame whichflooded 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 hadbeen 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 andinflamed, she broke forth in her suspicion and her abuse, and hercontempt, while two large-eyed children stood listening by. Siegmundhated his wife for drawing on him the grave, cold looks of condemnationfrom his children.
Something he had said touched Beatrice. She came of good family, hadbeen brought up like a lady, educated in a convent school in France. Heevoked her old pride. She drew herself up with dignity, and called thechildren away. He wondered if he could bear a repetition of thatdegradation. It bled him of his courage and self-respect.
In the morning Beatrice was disturbed by the sharp sneck of the halldoor. Immediately awake, she heard his quick, firm step hastening downthe gravel path. In her impotence, discarded like a worn out object, shelay for the moment stiff with bitterness.
'I am nothing, I am nothing,' she said to herself. She lay quite rigidfor a time.
There was no sound anywhere. The morning sunlight pierced vividlythrough the slits of the blind. Beatrice lay rocking herself, breathinghard, her finger-nails pressing into her palm. Then came the sound of atrain slowing down in the station, and directly the quick'chuff-chuff-chuff' of its drawing out. Beatrice imagined the sunlighton 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.