In their estrangement from each other, so new to them, both clung closer to me, though they would tell me nothing, nor should I have understood if they had. When my mother was sobbing softly, her arms clasping me tighter and tighter with each quivering throb, then I hated my father, who I felt had inflicted this sorrow upon her. Yet when my father drew me down upon his knee, and I looked into his kind eyes so full of pain, then I felt angry with my mother, remembering her bitter tongue.
It seemed to me as though some cruel, unseen thing had crept into the house to stand ever between them, so that they might never look into each other’s loving eyes but only into the eyes of this evil shadow. The idea grew upon me until at times I could almost detect its outline in the air, feel a chillness as it passed me. It trod silently through the pokey rooms, always alert to thrust its grinning face before them. Now beside my mother it would whisper in her ear; and the next moment, stealing across to my father, answer for him with his voice, but strangely different. I used to think I could hear it laughing to itself as it stepped back into enfolding space.
To this day I seem to see it, ever following with noiseless footsteps man and woman, waiting patiently its opportunity to thrust its face between them. So that I can read no love tale, but, glancing round, I see its mocking eyes behind my shoulder, reading also, with a silent laugh. So that never can I meet with boy and girl, whispering in the twilight, but I see it lurking amid the half lights, just behind them, creeping after them with stealthy tread, as hand in hand they pass me in quiet ways.
Shall any of us escape, or lies the road of all through this dark valley of the shadow of dead love? Is it Love’s ordeal? testing the feeble-hearted from the strong in faith, who shall find each other yet again, the darkness passed?
Of the dinner itself, until time of dessert, I can give no consecutive account, for as footman, under the orders of this enthusiastic parlour-maid, my place was no sinecure, and but few opportunities of observation through the crack of the door were afforded me. All that was clear to me was that the chief guest was a Mr. Teidelmann – or Tiedelmann, I cannot now remember which – a snuffy, mumbling old frump, with whose name then, however, I was familiar by reason of seeing it so often in huge letters, though with a Co. added, on dreary long blank walls, bordering the Limehouse reach. He sat at my mother’s right hand; and I wondered, noticing him so ugly and so foolish seeming, how she could be so interested in him, shouting much and often to him; for added to his other disattractions he was very deaf, which necessitated his putting his hand up to his ear at every other observation made to him, crying querulously: “Eh, what? What are you talking about? Say it again,” – smiling upon him and paying close attention to his every want. Even old Hasluck, opposite to him, and who, though pleasant enough in his careless way, was far from being a slave to politeness, roared himself purple, praising some new disinfectant of which this same Teidelmann appeared to be the proprietor.
“My wife swears by it,” bellowed Hasluck, leaning across the table.
“Our drains!” chimed in Mrs. Hasluck, who was a homely soul; “well, you’d hardly know there was any in the house since I’ve took to using it.”
“What are they talking about?” asked Teidelmann, appealing to my mother. “What’s he say his wife does?”
“Your disinfectant,” explained my mother; “Mrs. Hasluck swears by it.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Hasluck.”
“Does she? Delighted to hear it,” grunted the old gentleman, evidently bored.
“Nothing like it for a sick-room,” persisted Hasluck; “might almost call it a scent.”
“Makes one quite anxious to be ill,” remarked my aunt, addressing no one in particular.
“Reminds me of cocoanuts,” continued Hasluck.
Its proprietor appeared not to hear, but Hasluck was determined his flattery should not be lost.
“I say it reminds me of cocoanuts.” He screamed it this time.
“Oh, does it?” was the reply.
“Doesn’t it you?”
“Can’t say it does,” answered Teidelmann. “As a matter of fact, don’t know much about it myself. Never use it.”
Old Teidelmann went on with his dinner, but Hasluck was still full of the subject.
“Take my advice,” he shouted, “and buy a bottle.”
“Buy a what?”
“A bottle,” roared the other, with an effort palpably beyond his strength.
“What’s he say? What’s he talking about now?” asked Teidelmann, again appealing to my mother.
“He says you ought to buy a bottle,” again explained my mother.
“What of?”
“Of your own disinfectant.”
“Silly fool!”
Whether he intended the remark to be heard and thus to close the topic (which it did), or whether, as deaf people are apt to, merely misjudged the audibility of an intended sotto vocalism, I cannot say. I only know that outside in the passage I heard the words distinctly, and therefore assume they reached round the table also.
A lull in the conversation followed, but Hasluck was not thin-skinned, and the next thing I distinguished was his cheery laugh.
“He’s quite right,” was Hasluck’s comment; “that’s what I am undoubtedly. Because I can’t talk about anything but shop myself, I think everybody else is the same sort of fool.”
But he was doing himself an injustice, for on my next arrival in the passage he was again shouting across the table, and this time Teidelmann was evidently interested.
“Well, if you could spare the time, I’d be more obliged than I can tell you,” Hasluck was saying. “I know absolutely nothing about pictures myself, and Pearsall says you are one of the best judges in Europe.”
“He ought to know,” chuckled old Teidelmann. “He’s tried often enough to palm off rubbish onto me.”
“That last purchase of yours must have been a good thing for young – ” Hasluck mentioned the name of a painter since world famous; “been the making of him, I should say.”
“I gave him two thousand for the six,” replied Teidelmann, “and they’ll sell for twenty thousand.”
“But you’ll never sell them?” exclaimed my father.
“No,” grunted old Teidelmann, “but my widow will.” There came a soft, low laugh from a corner of the table I could not see.
“It’s Anderson’s great disappointment,” followed a languid, caressing voice (the musical laugh translated into prose, it seemed), “that he has never been able to educate me to a proper appreciation of art. He’ll pay thousands of pounds for a child in rags or a badly dressed Madonna. Such a waste of money, it appears to me.”
“But you would pay thousands for a diamond to hang upon your neck,” argued my father’s voice.
“It would enhance the beauty of my neck,” replied the musical voice.
“An even more absolute waste of money,” was my father’s answer, spoken low. And I heard again the musical, soft laugh.
“Who is she?” I asked Barbara.
“The second Mrs. Teidelmann,” whispered Barbara. “She is quite a swell. Married him for his money – I don’t like her myself, but she’s very beautiful.”
“As beautiful as you?” I asked incredulously. We were sitting on the stairs, sharing a jelly.
“Oh, me!” answered Barbara. “I’m only a child. Nobody takes any notice of me – except other kids, like you.” For some reason she appeared out of conceit with herself, which was not her usual state of mind.
“But everybody thinks you beautiful,” I maintained.
“Who?”