Friday was an intolerable day of silence, broken by little tender advances and playful, affectionate sallies on the part of the mother, all of which were rapidly repulsed. The father said nothing, and avoided his daughter with his eyes. In his humble reserve there was a dignity which made his disapproval far more difficult to bear than the repeated flagrant questionings of the mother’s eyes. But the day wore on. Helena pretended to read, and sat thinking. She played her violin a little, mechanically. She went out into the town, and wandered about.
At last the night fell.
‘Well,’ said Helena to her mother, ‘I suppose I’d better pack.’
‘Haven’t you done it?’ cried Mrs Verden, exaggerating her surprise. ‘You’ll never have it done. I’d better help you. What times does the train go?’
Helena smiled.
‘Ten minutes to ten.’
Her mother glanced at the clock. It was only half-past eight. There was ample time for everything.
‘Nevertheless, you’d better look sharp,’ Mrs Verden said.
Helena turned away, weary of this exaggeration.
‘I’ll come with you to the station,’ suggested Mrs Verden. ‘I’ll see the last of you. We shan’t see much of you just now.’
Helena turned round in surprise.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t bother,’ she said, fearing to make her disapproval too evident.
‘Yes — I will — I’ll see you off.’
Mrs Verden’s animation and indulgence were remarkable. Usually she was curt and undemonstrative. On occasions like these, however, when she was reminded of the ideal relations between mother and daughter, she played the part of the affectionate parent, much to the general distress.
Helena lit a candle and went to her bedroom. She quickly packed her dress-basket. As she stood before the mirror to put on her hat, her eyes, gazing heavily, met her heavy eyes in the mirror. She glanced away swiftly as if she had been burned.
‘How stupid I look!’ she said to herself. ‘And Siegmund, how is he, I wonder?’
She wondered how Siegmund had passed the day, what had happened to him, how he felt, how he looked. She thought of him protectively.
Having strapped her basket, she carried it downstairs. Her mother was ready, with a white lace scarf round her neck. After a short time Louisa came in. She dropped her basket in the passage, and then sank into a chair.
‘I don’t want to go, Nell,’ she said, after a few moments of silence.
‘Why, how is that?’ asked Helena, not surprised, but condescending, as to a child.
‘Oh, I don’t know; I’m tired,’ said the other petulantly.
‘Of course you are. What do you expect, after a day like this?’ said Helena.
‘And rushing about packing,’ exclaimed Mrs Verden, still in an exaggerated manner, this time scolding playfully.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think I want to go, dear,’ repeated Louisa dejectedly.
‘Well, it is time we set out,’ replied Helena, rising. ‘Will you carry the basket or the violin, Mater?’
Louisa rose, and with a forlorn expression took up her light luggage.
The west opposite the door was smouldering with sunset. Darkness is only smoke that hangs suffocatingly over the low red heat of the sunken day. Such was Helena’s longed-for night. The tramcar was crowded. In one corner Olive, the third friend, rose excitedly to greet them. Helena sat mute, while the car swung through the yellow, stale lights of a third-rate street of shops. She heard Olive remarking on her sunburned face and arms; she became aware of the renewed inflammation in her blistered arms; she heard her own curious voice answering. Everything was in a maze. To the beat of the car, while the yellow blur of the shops passed over her eyes, she repeated: ‘Two hundred and forty miles — two hundred and forty miles.’
Chapter 25
Siegmund passed the afternoon in a sort of stupor. At tea-time Beatrice, who had until then kept herself in restraint, gave way to an outburst of angry hysteria.
‘When does your engagement at the Comedy Theatre commence?’ she had asked him coldly.
He knew she was wondering about money.
‘Tomorrow — if ever,’ he had answered.
She was aware that he hated the work. For some reason or other her anger flashed out like sudden lightning at his ‘if ever’.
‘What do you think you can do?’ she cried. ‘For I think you have done enough. We can’t do as we like altogether — indeed, indeed we cannot. You have had your fling, haven’t you? You have had your fling, and you want to keep on. But there’s more than one person in the world. Remember that. But there are your children, let me remind you. Whose are they? You talk about shirking the engagement, but who is going to be responsible for your children, do you think?’
‘I said nothing about shirking the engagement,’ replied Siegmund, very coldly.
‘No, there was no need to say. I know what it means. You sit there sulking all day. What do you think I do? I have to see to the children, I have to work and slave, I go on from day to day. I tell you I’ll stop, I tell you I’ll do as I like. I’ll go as well. No, I wouldn’t be such a coward, you know that. You know I wouldn’t leave little children — to the workhouse or anything. They’re my children; they mightn’t be yours.’
‘There is no need for this,’ said Siegmund contemptuously.
The pressure in his temples was excruciating, and he felt loathsomely sick.
Beatrice’s dark eyes flashed with rage.
‘Isn’t there!’ she cried. ‘Oh, isn’t there? No, there is need for a great deal more. I don’t know what you think I am. How much farther do you’ think you can go? No, you don’t like reminding of us. You sit moping, sulking, because you have to come back to your own children. I wonder how much you think I shall stand? What do you think I am, to put up with it? What do you think I am? Am I a servant to eat out of your hand?’
‘Be quiet!’ shouted Siegmund. ‘Don’t I know what you are? Listen to yourself!’
Beatrice was suddenly silenced. It was the stillness of white-hot wrath. Even Siegmund was glad to hear her voice again. She spoke low and trembling.
‘You coward — you miserable coward! It is I, is it, who am wrong? It is I who am to blame, is it? You miserable thing! I have no doubt you know what I am.’
Siegmund looked up at her as her words died off. She looked back at him with dark eyes loathing his cowed, wretched animosity. His eyes were bloodshot and furtive, his mouth was drawn back in a half-grin of hate and misery. She was goading him, in his darkness whither he had withdrawn himself like a sick dog, to die or recover as his strength should prove. She tortured him till his sickness was swallowed by anger, which glared redly at her as he pushed back his chair to rise. He trembled too much, however. His chin dropped again on his chest. Beatrice sat down in her place, hearing footsteps. She was shuddering slightly, and her eyes were fixed.
Vera entered with the two children. All three immediately, as if they found themselves confronted by something threatening, stood arrested. Vera tackled the situation.
‘Is the