pippa had been wont to haunt jasper’s studio a good deal. his pictured saints appealed to her imagination. she loved the brilliance of their robes and the gold of their backgrounds.
colour appealed to her, as already seen, enormously, though she had no power with brush or pencil herself. if she was ever to find expression for the thoughts and fancies which filled her brain she would possibly one day find it in writing. beauty of language already moved her profoundly, and she would listen by the hour to anyone reading poetry aloud.
jasper missed the child almost more than miss mason did. he seemed to have nothing to fill up the gap she left in his life, and his old restlessness in a measure returned. he took to dropping in at miss mason’s studio at odd hours, in order, so it seemed, to talk about pippa, though he would often sit moody and silent. he would stare at the picture of pippa wrapped in scarlet silk, her arms round the faun’s neck, which picture barnabas had painted about a month previously, and which now hung in miss mason’s studio.
and one evening after looking at it for a long time he made a sudden remark—a remark that seemed forced from him.
“if stella had lived she would have been nearly the same age as pippa.”
miss mason looked up quickly.
“who,” she asked, “was stella?”
“my little girl,” said jasper shortly.
“ah,” said miss mason. and then she added quietly, “and your wife died too?”
“no,” said jasper, “she is alive.”
there was a silence. the studio window was wide open, and the evening sunlight was streaming in. from one of the trees in the garden a thrush was singing a song of love and happiness.
“perhaps,” said miss mason suddenly, “you would care to tell me about it.”
and jasper told her. he told her the whole story, omitting nothing; though, wonderful to relate, making no excuses for himself.
“i suppose,” he ended, “that bridget lost all interest in life, and i was always wanting her to be something she had lost the power of being. and i got disheartened because she could not adapt herself to my pattern.”
for a moment miss mason did not reply. she did not care to say that it had been largely jasper’s fault that his wife had lost interest in life. after a moment she spoke slowly.
“i think,” she said, “it is always dangerous to [pg 190]try and cut people to our own pattern. we are so terribly apt to cut the cords of love first.”
“i know,” said jasper, “and now it is, as she said, too late.”
“it is never too late,” said miss mason energetically. “why don’t you go and see her?”
“i gave her my word of honour that i would not.”
“pooh!” said miss mason. “it is sometimes infinitely more honourable to break one’s word than to keep it. this is a case in point. do you still care for your wife?”
jasper hesitated. “i care for my memory of her as she was when i first married her—before the child died. i know after that at first i was disgusted. but that passed, especially later when i saw less of her. then at the bottom of my heart i wanted to get back to the old footing. somehow it seemed impossible. before i saw her i felt i loved her, but the sight of her untidiness and the sordidness of the surroundings killed it. it would be killed again if i saw her now. it’s no use pretending otherwise.”
“why don’t you take her out of her surroundings then?” asked miss mason.
jasper looked up quickly. “it’s no use,” he said. “i love her now, but if i went down there the feeling would die away. when i see her slovenly and untidy it seems to kill my affection. i can’t help it. even when i was a child i could [pg 191]not eat the food i most liked if it were served in a careless fashion. i have honestly tried to fight the feeling. it is, however, part of my physical nature, and i can’t rid myself of it.” jasper’s voice was quite humble and genuine.
miss mason’s brain was working rapidly. “i suppose chiswick is rather a commonplace neighbourhood,” she remarked. “foolish of you to choose it in the first instance. where did you say the house was?” the question was put indifferently.
jasper mentioned the street and number. miss mason appeared hardly to have heard it. she seemed engrossed in her own thoughts.
jasper stayed a little longer in the studio. it was, in a sense, a comfort to have spoken of the story, and yet it had brought the memory of the last seven years almost too vividly before his mind.
when he got up to go miss mason held out her hand.
“good night,” she said. “don’t feel too miserable. things often turn out better than one expects.”
and when he had gone she sat a long time in her big chair, her brain full of the wildest and most exciting plans, in which she was establishing herself as proxy to the fates. and the fates laughed, and gave the threads of two lives temporarily into her hands for her own weaving.
the next morning miss mason told sally to order a taxi to be at the studio at eleven o’clock.
“if i’m not taken there quickly,” she said to herself, “my courage will fail me, and i shall come home again.”
and she went over in her mind many sentences she had been carefully preparing during the long hours of a sleepless night.
one of them began rather like an old-fashioned letter. “my dear mrs. merton, i have ventured to call upon you in order to discuss a matter i am sure you must have very much at heart, namely, the welfare of your husband jasper merton.” she had repeated it a good many times to make sure she had it verbatim.
there were other phrases such as, “pardon what may appear an unwarrantable interference on my part.” and, “the mutual interest we both must feel in one for whom you have a wifely love, and i the affection of friendship.”
she felt she had them all glibly on her tongue, when the hoot of the taxi outside the studio warned her of its arrival.
“if i am not back to lunch, sally,” said miss mason, with the air of one embarking on some dangerous enterprise from which she might never return, “run out and buy a chop for yourself, and we can have the steak this evening. and give mimsi a piece of boiled whiting and a saucerful of milk.”
she got into the taxi, tightly clutching her black satin bag, and sat down in one corner. it was the first time she had driven in a taxi, and she felt a trifle nervous. but for her desire to arrive at her destination before she had time to change her mind about going, she would undoubtedly have taken a four-wheeler.
the speed of the vehicle seemed excessive, but as other taxis passed them going at an even greater rate, she made up her mind to hope for the best. she did, however, put up a small mental prayer for safety.
in spite of the rate at which they were travelling they seemed a long time in getting to their destination. at last miss mason began to feel uneasy. she had heard of people being kidnapped and murdered on account of their money, and though she had only put ten shillings worth of silver and one sovereign in her purse, the chauffeur might think her worth infinitely more.
she decided to ask him how much further they had to go. she noticed a long tube hanging from the front window. it was no doubt a whistle. she took it up and blew gently down it. there was no sound. she collected the whole force of her lungs and blew violently. the chauffeur, feeling a sudden and unpleasant draught at the back of his neck, looked round. he saw miss mason purple in the face from her efforts, and the speaking tube at her lips. fearing apoplexy he stopped the taxi and came to the door.
“wot is it, mum?” he asked.
“i only wanted to know if we were near the address i gave you?” she said breathlessly. “i think this whistle must be out of order, i can’t make it sound.”
the chauffeur grunted. “that ain’t no bloomin’ whistle-pipe. that there’s a speakin’ toob,” he remarked scornfully. “be at oxford road in five minutes now.”
he shut the door with a bang and climbed back to his seat.
“whistle!” he said to himself. “whistle! thought there was a bloomin’ draught. the old party must ’ave fair busted ’erself.”
miss mason sank back in her corner and began to repeat the sentences in a rapid whisper.
in less than five minutes the taxi stopped before a small house divided from the pavement by a gravel plot.
the chauffeur got down and opened the taxi door.
“’ere y’are, mum,” he said.
miss mason got out, paid the man, crossed the gravel plot, and mounted the steps. her heart was beating uncomfortably fast.
“is mrs. merton at home?” she asked of emma, who opened the door.
“yes’m. will you come inside’m?” she showed miss mason into the dismal little parlour. “what name shall i say, ’m?”
“mrs. merton won’t know my name,” said miss mason desperately. “but ask her if she will speak to me for a few moments.”
emma left the room breathing heavily as she moved, and miss mason sat very upright on the little sofa, her hands still clutching the black satin bag. her eyes took in the whole room. she saw the dingy and torn tablecloth, the rather dirty chintz covers to the chairs, and the distinctly dirty muslin curtains to the windows. a mantel-border which covered the chimney-piece had come unnailed at one side, and was hanging in an untidy festoon. the carpet was faded, and crumbs scattered from the last meal were below one of the chairs. there was a large japanese fan in the fender before the empty grate; its edges were broken and torn. it was also considerably fly-marked. miss mason could understand jasper’s feelings very well. she saw what the place must mean to a man of his fastidious instincts. it might be that he was largely to blame that it had ever reached such a state, but having reached it it was almost unavoidable that he should shrink from it.
a step on the stairs made her start. she clutched more tightly at the bag and began murmuring “unwarrantable intrusion,” “mutual interest,” in a spasmodic fashion, her eyes fixed on the door.
suddenly it opened, and a woman in a rather soiled white dress came into the room. she made miss mason think of a faded lily.
the woman looked with something like amazement at the odd figure in the mushroom hat, grey dress, and wide white linen collar, seated on the sofa clutching a black satin bag.
miss mason got to her feet. “my dear,” she began, but the rest of the sentence was lost. “i’m downright nervous,” said miss mason, with one of her gruff little laughs, “and you’ll think me an interfering old fool, but i was bound to come.”
bridget looked at her. “there isn’t,” she said with a note of anxiety in her voice, “anything wrong with jasper?”
“oh, no,” said miss mason quickly, “but i was talking to him last night.”
“ah!” said bridget.
“and——” said miss mason, and stopped. it seemed entirely impossible now to put her ideas into words. it is one thing to have marvellous and fairy tale schemes in one’s mind, and plan all kinds of wonderful arrangements during the magic hours of the night. it is quite another to find words for them in broad daylight and in a rather sordid little parlour, especially when they seemed to resolve themselves into the rather impertinent statement that jasper would love his wife if she brushed her hair. it is hardly a suggestion one can make in cold blood to a complete stranger. “i just came,” ended miss mason helplessly.
she looked through the window wondering how she could best make her escape, and wishing with all her heart that she had kept the taxi.
it was bridget herself who came to the rescue.
“i suppose,” she said slowly, “that jasper told you our story—it’s a sordid little story, isn’t it—and you wanted to help?”
miss mason nodded. something in bridget’s eyes made her own fill with tears. she forgot her desire to run away. she felt that she was near a dumb animal in pain.
“tell me,” said bridget, “what jasper told you?”
very stumblingly miss mason gave her some idea of the conversation. she wanted her to know the truth, yet dreaded to hurt her more than necessary.
“then jasper does care a little,” said bridget wonderingly. “but all this——” she looked round the dingy room. “what was your idea when you came to me?” she asked simply.
“great interference on my part, no doubt,” said miss mason gruffly. “began to make up a plan. thought if he was to see you again in a pretty room and a pretty frock——” she stopped.
bridget glanced down at her own dress. “yes?” she said again. she had reddened slightly.
“can tell me to go if you like,” said miss mason. “had no business to come. but thought—— my dear. i just planned to take you to a pretty room and bring jasper to you.”
bridget looked at her. “i don’t know who you are,” she said impulsively, “nor anything about you. but you are a dear.”
“then you’re not angry?” asked miss mason.
“i want,” said bridget, in a muffled voice, “to cry. but i’m not going to. what were your plans? i’m sure you’d made some.”
and then miss mason unfolded all the schemes she had planned during the night hours. they were of a little flat somewhere in chelsea not too far from the studios. the drawing-room was to be furnished in shades of brown and cream, and it was to be filled with roses in slender glass vases and china bowls. and there was to be a woman among the flowers, and jasper coming in to find her.
“but i haven’t the money for that,” said bridget. “and i can’t ask jasper for any more.”
“but i have,” said miss mason bluntly. “my dear, i’m an old woman. is it worth while to you, for your husband’s sake, to give me the pleasure of arranging it?”
bridget bit her lip. she tried to speak, but no words would come.
“don’t try to say anything,” said miss mason.
“i—i——” began bridget. and, somehow, the next moment she was down on her knees by miss mason, who was soothing her with little odd articulations and pattings as she had soothed pippa one night when she had awakened from a bad dream.
“i’m sorry,” said bridget at last, sitting up and pushing back her hair from her face, “but it’s all been so lonely. at times i’ve felt that just for something to do i could be bad—really bad, you know. anything for excitement, and to forget my own thoughts. at first i used to hate myself. then i tried to hate jasper, but i didn’t—i didn’t. i—i loved him all the time. you see, he gave me my baby. but i was so lonely and miserable i wanted to be wicked, only i remembered my baby, and——”
“i know, my dear,” said miss mason.
“have you been lonely?” asked bridget.
“utterly lonely, my dear, for fifty-five years at least, ever since my parents died. and only women can understand the loneliness of women. men have their pipes, and they can always swear a little, which must at times be an enormous help.”
“but you’re not lonely now?” asked bridget.
miss mason smiled, a little glad smile. “my dear, i am so utterly happy now that i long for every one else to be happy. it was that that made me so sorry for you and jasper, and made me [pg 200]want to come and see you. and now i want you to come and have some luncheon with me somewhere—you’ll have to tell me where—and then we’ll go and look at flats.”
bridget got up from the floor.
“it’s all too wonderful,” she said, “and i don’t know that i’ve the right to let you help me.”
“nonsense,” said miss mason gruffly. “might just as well say i’ve no right to ask you to give me the pleasure of doing a little thing like this; but i’m going to ask you, all the same. now go and put on a hat.”
bridget left the room. in a few moments she came down in a dark blue linen coat and skirt, and a black straw hat swathed with rose-coloured silk. she had brushed her hair and looked a different being.
“can we get a four-wheeler?” asked miss mason. “came in a taxi, but didn’t enjoy it.”
“there’s a train and an omnibus,” said bridget, “that will take us to notting hill gate, and we can get any amount of cabs from there.”
so for the first time in her life miss mason mounted to the top of an omnibus and thoroughly enjoyed it. she peered over garden walls as they passed, and did her best to look through windows, and made up a good many quite fascinating stories about the inhabitants of the houses—stories very different from the mental pictures of the very same lives that jasper had been wont to paint. in miss mason’s stories there was always a mother—a mother clasping the downy head of a new-born baby to her heart; a mother watching the first toddling steps of a tiny child; a mother hearing a little white-nightgowned figure lisp a childish prayer. the father in these stories—of course there was a father—took an extraordinarily back seat.
her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a question from bridget.
“how did jasper come to tell you our story?” she asked.
“we were looking at a picture of pippa,” replied miss mason quietly, “and he said that little stella would have been nearly the same age.”
bridget nodded. for a moment she was silent. then she spoke again. “who,” she asked, “is pippa?”
“my little girl,” said miss mason promptly. “at least, she came to me out of the nowhere last december, and now she’s mine.”
“a christmas gift,” said bridget.
miss mason nodded. “i like to hear you say that,” she said. “i gave pippa her first christmas tree. it was my first for the matter of that.”
and then they fell to talking about pippa and stella, after the fashion of women who love children, each capping the other with a new anecdote. but after a time miss mason was left to do most of the talking, for bridget suddenly found her voice fail her.
“pippa,” said miss mason, “has true inventive genius. one night last january i told her to say her prayers before she got into bed. she announced that she’d already said them. ‘where?’ i asked. ‘in my baf,’ she replied, ‘much warmer.’ i couldn’t help feeling there was a good deal to be said in favour of the bathroom on a cold winter’s night. but all the same, i told her she was irreverent to say her prayers lying down. i knew she’d said them that way. she always ends her ablutions with lying full length in the water. whereupon she remarked in an aggrieved voice, ‘turned over on my front, anyhow.’”
“true prostration in prayer,” laughed bridget. “i shall love pippa.”
already it was almost impossible to believe bridget to be the same apathetic woman who, slovenly and untidy, had entered the dingy little parlour barely two hours previously. after lunch and on the way to some flats in beaufort street she was almost radiant.
“we will put things through as quickly as we can,” said miss mason. “i hate loitering when one has set out on a piece of business.” and in her heart she was longing to get bridget away from the dismal surroundings of her present home without a moment’s delay. she would have liked to take her to her own studio, only there was no second bedroom, and also jasper would have seen her.
after a little search miss mason decided on a flat she thought would do. it was on the third floor, and consisted of a dining-room, a drawing-room, four bedrooms, a servant’s room, a bathroom, and kitchen.
“what do you think of it?” asked miss mason. “it’s for you to say as you’ll be living in it.”
“it’s heavenly,” said bridget ecstatically, “but really there are an unnecessary number of rooms.”
“not at all,” said miss mason firmly. “i hope you’ll be here a long time, and—one never knows,” she ended significantly. which little speech caused bridget to blush crimson.
“the rent,” said miss mason, “is my affair for the first year, at all events, till you’ve got rid of the house in chiswick. and the furniture will be my wedding present, as i didn’t happen to know you when the ceremony took place.”
and bridget, her eyes full of happy tears, put her arms round miss mason and kissed her.
