Day's End and Other Stories (21 page)

As she played on she thought: ‘I'll never play this waltz again. It has the atmosphere of this room. It's the last time!' The waltz slid dreamily to an end: for a minute she sat in utter silence, the room dark and mysterious, the air of the waltz quite dead, then the tea-cups rattled again and the thought came back to her: ‘I'm going away!'

She rose and went out quietly. The grass on the roadside moved under the evening wind, sounding like many pairs of hands rubbed softly together. But there was no other sound, her feet were light, no one heard her, and as she went down the road she told herself: ‘It's going to happen! It's come at last!'

‘Elden 6.13. Olde 6.18.'

Should she go to Elden or Olde? At the crossroads she stood to consider, thinking that if she went to Elden no one would know her. But at Olde some one would doubtless notice her and prattle about it. To Elden, then, not that it mattered. Nothing mattered now. She was going, was as good as gone!

Her breast, tremulously warm, began to rise and fall as her excitement increased. She tried to run over the things in her bag and could remember only ‘the blue dress with the rosette,' which she had thrown in first and had since covered over. But it didn't matter. Her money was safe, everything was safe, and with that thought she dropped into a strange quietness, deepening as she went on, in which she had a hundred emotions and convictions. She was never going to strum that waltz again, she had played cards for the last, horrible time, the loneliness, the slowness, the oppression were ended, all ended.

‘I'm going away!'

She felt warm, her body tingled with a light delicious thrill that was like the caress of a soft night-wind. There were no fears now. A certain indignation, approaching fury even, sprang up instead, as
she thought: ‘No one will believe I've gone. But it's true – I'm going at last.'

Her bag grew heavy. Setting it down in the grass she sat on it for a brief while, in something like her attitude in the dark room during the afternoon, and indeed actually began to rub her gloved fingers over the backs of her hands. A phrase or two of the waltz came back to her.… That silly piano! Its bottom G was flat, had always been flat! How ridiculous! She tried to conjure up some sort of vision of London, but it was difficult and in the end she gave way again to the old cry: ‘I'm going away.' And she was pleased more than ever deeply.

On the station a single lamp burned, radiating a fitful yellowness that only increased the gloom. And worse, she saw no one and in the cold emptiness traced and retraced her footsteps without the friendly assurance of another sound. In the black distance all the signals showed hard circles of red, looking as if they could never change. But she nevertheless told herself over and over again: ‘I'm going away – I'm going away.' And later: ‘I hate every one. I've changed until I hardly know myself.'

Impatiently she looked for the train. It was strange. For the first time it occurred to her to know the time and she pulled back the sleeve of her coat. Nearly six-thirty! She felt cold. Up the line every signal displayed its red ring, mocking her. ‘Six-thirty, of course, of course.' She tried to be careless. ‘Of course, it's late, the train is late,' but the coldness,
in reality her fear, increased rapidly, until she could no longer believe those words.…

Great clouds, lower and more than ever depressing, floated above her head as she walked back. The wind had a deep note that was sad too. These things had not troubled her before, now they, also, spoke failure and foretold misery and dejection. She had no spirit, it was cold, and she was too tired even to shudder.

In the absolutely dark, drowsy room she sat down, telling herself: ‘This isn't the only day. Some day I shall go. Some day.'

She was silent. In the next room they were playing cards and her father suddenly moaned: ‘I thought the ace had gone.' Somebody laughed. Her father's voice came again: ‘I never have a decent hand! I never have a decent hand! Never!'

It was too horrible! She couldn't stand it! She must do something to stop it! It was too much. She began to play the waltz again and the dreamy, sentimental arrangement made her cry.

‘This isn't the only day,' she reassured herself. ‘I shall go. Some day!'

And again and again as she played the waltz, bent her head and cried, she would tell herself that same thing:

‘Some day! Some day!'

When first the visitor came to call on them it was spring. For tea there were cream pies, and cakes with cinnamon; and about the room were set pots of anemones, primroses and blackthorn Nina had gathered from the woods the previous day. The sun was shining; and all through tea the visitor sat as if transfigured, his high forehead, his black hair, and the shoulders of his jacket fringed with lines of a feathery gold.

But to Nina it also seemed that after shaking hands with her, and giving her one hasty, half-shy look and asking her name, he did not notice her again. Between him and her mother began a long conversation on all sorts of subjects, on music, the spring, the early heat, the different Easter customs in different countries, with a mention of her father, who had died a year before.

And from this conversation she gathered that Strawn, the visitor, was a pianist and had lived abroad, but that when she had been a little girl had lived in England and visited them often, a friend of her father's. She could not remember this, but the
thought that he played on the piano thrilled her. She began to say to herself, regarding shyly his long, white fingers, his sunny face and dark eyes:

‘After tea I will ask if he will play to us and perhaps hear me play.'

For a long time she sat still, wondering in a shy, apprehensive way what he would think of her.

All the time her mother and the visitor would talk absorbedly to each other. Outside a soft wind was blowing: emerald buds bounced against each other and dust sometimes came tinkling up against the panes. The edges of some pines at the end of the road were being turned first gold, then red, by the setting sun and among them were already masses of darkness. Tea went on for a long time until the lines of gold vanished from Strawn's face and all the colours of the room merged into one colour.

Nevertheless, all this time, she thought: ‘In a little while he will say something to me. Soon he will ask if I play.'

And she began to think of what she should play to him, a dance of Brahms', some Schumann, some Mozart. She lost herself in dreaming of this, lost herself so completely that when she suddenly looked up and saw him laughing, the reality of the laugh, the sparkle of his eyes and the joyful way he smacked his hands together came as a shock to her.

Just at that moment he looked at her too. She flushed a dark crimson and began tapping her nails together in confusion. Then she waited for him to
speak to her and in the midst of her bewilderment was filled suddenly with a desire to know him better, to attract and impress him.

When he did not speak to her she thought with disappointment and sadness, ‘It's because I'm only a girl, only seventeen.'

And from that moment she had a constant longing: ‘If only I were older, only a little older!'

Soon afterwards, at last, tea was finished. Nina's mother and the visitor got up, still talking, and went into the garden. Nina remained behind and for a long time sat watching with a dreamy, naive expression the chair where Strawn had sat. Each time she thought of his silence towards her she felt hurt, envious of her mother, disappointed and sad.

Before, she had been irresponsible and vivacious, playing in the woods, the garden and on the piano without care. Now, each time she thought of the visitor, she was conscious of a desire to be attractive, but what precise degree of attraction would be best, if she should be smiling, graceful, quiet or melancholy, she did not know.

She got up and looked at her face in the glass. In appearance she was dark, with a skin which in the twilight was pale, waxen and alight. And that she should be able to use this loveliness, together with that of her voice, her movements and her playing, in order to attract anyone, thrilled her excitedly.

Soon afterwards she opened the window an inch or two, and sitting down at the piano began playing.
And while playing she thought of her mother and Strawn walking under the cherry-trees, among the raspberry and gooseberry bushes, and all the time hoped and wondered if they would hear her.

And then, sometime later, she heard voices, footsteps and Strawn saying, ‘Good-bye.'

And soon afterwards she was conscious of shaking hands, waiting for Strawn to say something about the piece she had played with the window open and of an acute, lingering disappointment because he said nothing, scarcely even looked at her, but walked abruptly away.…

*

Some time later she learned that he had moved his residence and in future would be nearer them and come to see them and even stay more often.

She played the piano untiringly and before each visit contrived somehow to decorate everywhere with spring flowers, arrange her hair attractively, and make the special cream pies which she believed he loved.

But at each visit it seemed to her that he gave his attention only to her mother. And each time he left she was wretched, angry, disappointed and sad.

Then it happened that once when he came, unexpected, her mother was not there. It was evening time and Nina was among the gooseberry-bushes at the bottom of the garden, eating young gooseberries and thinking how thrilling it would be if Strawn were to come suddenly and find her there.

When his head appeared among the trees and he called: ‘Where are you?' she was startled and scratched her hands and dropped some gooseberries she had been holding in her dress.

After that she did not move, but only watched him come towards her. As he came to her he half-smiled and said:

‘It's Nina, isn't it?'

She nodded and said: ‘My mother isn't here.'

‘She didn't know, she was not expecting me,' he smiled. He took off his hat and fanned his face and blew out his cheeks like a boy. She laughed shyly and said:

‘Perhaps you had better come and sit down and wait for her. She's gone to the village.'

He seemed not to hear this and asked: ‘What are you eating?'

‘Gooseberries.'

‘I'll eat some too,' he said.

And for a long time afterwards she remembered the way he foraged in the bushes, picking gooseberries; and how, throwing them up in the air he caught them again in his mouth, crunched them up at once and made sour faces. And all the time, as she watched him and laughed, it seemed that the past was only a dream and that her emotions about him were at last what she had wished them to be, and were fierce and passionate, like little revolutions in the streets of her mind.

‘I can talk and be understood!' she thought.

They fell into conversation and soon afterwards left off picking gooseberries and went and sat in the summer-house and talked of the spring. Later they talked of herself and of music. The way he talked she thought wonderful and enchanting. And while listening to him she clasped her hands and let her face fall sideways upon them, lightly and with joy.

Once she unclasped her hands, looked serious and said:

‘I want to ask you something.'

‘What is it you want to ask?'

And she said timidly: ‘Why is it you haven't spoken to me?'

For having spoken she felt bewildered and ashamed. She tried to turn away, but he seized her hands and tried to look into her hot, flushed face, which she hung downwards to her breast. And he began to whisper:

‘Nina, tell me what I've done, forgive me, you don't understand.'

But suddenly she had no thought of sadness and was aware only of the superb happiness given her by his voice and his presence.

‘I only wanted to talk to you!' she cried.

He laughed. Nina laughed too and said:

‘But now all that's gone – it's all right. I'm happy!'

They went on talking. Dusk fell, the little gooseberries lost themselves in the dark trees, and above the bigger trees spread like broad, black umbrellas put up to keep off the dew. The dusk, the warm-smelling
silence and Strawn's voice excited her imagination. She began to tell herself, with little flutters of joy, ‘He is in love with me, he is in love with me!'

She thought that she too was in love. And from that moment it seemed that her love was serious, passionate and tender. As they sat there Strawn saw that she had scratched her hands and, wetting his handkerchief, bathed off the blood. And it seemed to Nina that now where the smart had been burned something joyful and pleasant instead.

As they went into the house to look for her mother she kept laughing. Her eyes would light up and she would exclaim:

‘I'm so happy – and yet I don't know why!'

‘Yes? That's lovely,' he would say.

She would watch if he were watching her. And all the time it seemed to her that he must know why she was so happy, why she kept saying absurd things, flinging her arms about, and asking him to look at the trees, the sky and the flowers sleeping in the painted stillness of coming darkness.

When he did not seem to notice the reason of all this she would console herself: ‘It will happen! It will come!'

Now she no longer wanted to play to him or hear him play, but only to be near him, to be excited by him and listen to his voice.

She would look at his face and think joyfully: ‘He understands!'

At the sight of her mother, who came suddenly running down the steps of the house saying, ‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry!' she was no longer envious or sad. When they all three went into the house and Strawn for the first time played Mozart on the piano to them, little thrills of pure joy like lovely scales ran up and down her spine, and when he ceased playing, apologised and declared, ‘I'm getting old,' she thought of the way he had blown his cheeks out like a boy and eaten gooseberries in the garden. And she thought of him only as being young, understanding and splendid.