Philip was surprised when he saw his uncle and aunt. He had never noticed
before that they were quite old people. The Vicar received him with his
usual, not unamiable indifference. He was a little stouter, a little
balder, a little grayer. Philip saw how insignificant he was. His face was
weak and self-indulgent. Aunt Louisa took him in her arms and kissed him;
and tears of happiness flowed down her cheeks. Philip was touched and
embarrassed; he had not known with what a hungry love she cared for him.
"Oh, the time has seemed long since you've been away, Philip," she cried.
She stroked his hands and looked into his face with glad eyes.
"You've grown. You're quite a man now."
There was a very small moustache on his upper lip. He had bought a razor
and now and then with infinite care shaved the down off his smooth chin.
"We've been so lonely without you." And then shyly, with a little break in
her voice, she asked: "You are glad to come back to your home, aren't
you?"
"Yes, rather."
She was so thin that she seemed almost transparent, the arms she put round
his neck were frail bones that reminded you of chicken bones, and her
faded face was oh! so wrinkled. The gray curls which she still wore in the
fashion of her youth gave her a queer, pathetic look; and her little
withered body was like an autumn leaf, you felt it might be blown away by
the first sharp wind. Philip realised that they had done with life, these
two quiet little people: they belonged to a past generation, and they were
waiting there patiently, rather stupidly, for death; and he, in his vigour
and his youth, thirsting for excitement and adventure, was appalled at the
waste. They had done nothing, and when they went it would be just as if
they had never been. He felt a great pity for Aunt Louisa, and he loved
her suddenly because she loved him.
Then Miss Wilkinson, who had kept discreetly out of the way till the
Careys had had a chance of welcoming their nephew, came into the room.
"This is Miss Wilkinson, Philip," said Mrs. Carey.
"The prodigal has returned," she said, holding out her hand. "I have
brought a rose for the prodigal's buttonhole."
With a gay smile she pinned to Philip's coat the flower she had just
picked in the garden. He blushed and felt foolish. He knew that Miss
Wilkinson was the daughter of his Uncle William's last rector, and he had
a wide acquaintance with the daughters of clergymen. They wore ill-cut
clothes and stout boots. They were generally dressed in black, for in
Philip's early years at Blackstable homespuns had not reached East Anglia,
and the ladies of the clergy did not favour colours. Their hair was done
very untidily, and they smelt aggressively of starched linen. They
considered the feminine graces unbecoming and looked the same whether they
were old or young. They bore their religion arrogantly. The closeness of
their connection with the church made them adopt a slightly dictatorial
attitude to the rest of mankind.
Miss Wilkinson was very different. She wore a white muslin gown stamped
with gay little bunches of flowers, and pointed, high-heeled shoes, with
open-work stockings. To Philip's inexperience it seemed that she was
wonderfully dressed; he did not see that her frock was cheap and showy.
Her hair was elaborately dressed, with a neat curl in the middle of the
forehead: it was very black, shiny and hard, and it looked as though it
could never be in the least disarranged. She had large black eyes and her
nose was slightly aquiline; in profile she had somewhat the look of a bird
of prey, but full face she was prepossessing. She smiled a great deal, but
her mouth was large and when she smiled she tried to hide her teeth, which
were big and rather yellow. But what embarrassed Philip most was that she
was heavily powdered: he had very strict views on feminine behaviour and
did not think a lady ever powdered; but of course Miss Wilkinson was a
lady because she was a clergyman's daughter, and a clergyman was a
gentleman.
Philip made up his mind to dislike her thoroughly. She spoke with a slight
French accent; and he did not know why she should, since she had been born
and bred in the heart of England. He thought her smile affected, and the
coy sprightliness of her manner irritated him. For two or three days he
remained silent and hostile, but Miss Wilkinson apparently did not notice
it. She was very affable. She addressed her conversation almost
exclusively to him, and there was something flattering in the way she
appealed constantly to his sane judgment. She made him laugh too, and
Philip could never resist people who amused him: he had a gift now and
then of saying neat things; and it was pleasant to have an appreciative
listener. Neither the Vicar nor Mrs. Carey had a sense of humour, and they
never laughed at anything he said. As he grew used to Miss Wilkinson, and
his shyness left him, he began to like her better; he found the French
accent picturesque; and at a garden party which the doctor gave she was
very much better dressed than anyone else. She wore a blue foulard with
large white spots, and Philip was tickled at the sensation it caused.
"I'm certain they think you're no better than you should be," he told her,
laughing.
"It's the dream of my life to be taken for an abandoned hussy," she
answered.
One day when Miss Wilkinson was in her room he asked Aunt Louisa how old
she was.
"Oh, my dear, you should never ask a lady's age; but she's certainly too
old for you to marry."
The Vicar gave his slow, obese smile.
"She's no chicken, Louisa," he said. "She was nearly grown up when we were
in Lincolnshire, and that was twenty years ago. She wore a pigtail hanging
down her back."
"She may not have been more than ten," said Philip.
"She was older than that," said Aunt Louisa.
"I think she was near twenty," said the Vicar.
"Oh no, William. Sixteen or seventeen at the outside."
"That would make her well over thirty," said Philip.
At that moment Miss Wilkinson tripped downstairs, singing a song by
Benjamin Goddard. She had put her hat on, for she and Philip were going
for a walk, and she held out her hand for him to button her glove. He did
it awkwardly. He felt embarrassed but gallant. Conversation went easily
between them now, and as they strolled along they talked of all manner of
things. She told Philip about Berlin, and he told her of his year in
Heidelberg. As he spoke, things which had appeared of no importance gained
a new interest: he described the people at Frau Erlin's house; and to the
conversations between Hayward and Weeks, which at the time seemed so
significant, he gave a little twist, so that they looked absurd. He was
flattered at Miss Wilkinson's laughter.
"I'm quite frightened of you," she said. "You're so sarcastic."
Then she asked him playfully whether he had not had any love affairs at
Heidelberg. Without thinking, he frankly answered that he had not; but she
refused to believe him.
"How secretive you are!" she said. "At your age is it likely?"
He blushed and laughed.
"You want to know too much," he said.
"Ah, I thought so," she laughed triumphantly. "Look at him blushing."
He was pleased that she should think he had been a sad dog, and he changed
the conversation so as to make her believe he had all sorts of romantic
things to conceal. He was angry with himself that he had not. There had
been no opportunity.
Miss Wilkinson was dissatisfied with her lot. She resented having to earn
her living and told Philip a long story of an uncle of her mother's, who
had been expected to leave her a fortune but had married his cook and
changed his will. She hinted at the luxury of her home and compared her
life in Lincolnshire, with horses to ride and carriages to drive in, with
the mean dependence of her present state. Philip was a little puzzled when
he mentioned this afterwards to Aunt Louisa, and she told him that when
she knew the Wilkinsons they had never had anything more than a pony and
a dog-cart; Aunt Louisa had heard of the rich uncle, but as he was married
and had children before Emily was born she could never have had much hope
of inheriting his fortune. Miss Wilkinson had little good to say of
Berlin, where she was now in a situation. She complained of the vulgarity
of German life, and compared it bitterly with the brilliance of Paris,
where she had spent a number of years. She did not say how many. She had
been governess in the family of a fashionable portrait-painter, who had
married a Jewish wife of means, and in their house she had met many
distinguished people. She dazzled Philip with their names. Actors from the
Comedie Francaise had come to the house frequently, and Coquelin, sitting
next her at dinner, had told her he had never met a foreigner who spoke
such perfect French. Alphonse Daudet had come also, and he had given her
a copy of Sappho: he had promised to write her name in it, but she had
forgotten to remind him. She treasured the volume none the less and she
would lend it to Philip. Then there was Maupassant. Miss Wilkinson with a
rippling laugh looked at Philip knowingly. What a man, but what a writer!
Hayward had talked of Maupassant, and his reputation was not unknown to
Philip.
"Did he make love to you?" he asked.
The words seemed to stick funnily in his throat, but he asked them
nevertheless. He liked Miss Wilkinson very much now, and was thrilled by
her conversation, but he could not imagine anyone making love to her.
"What a question!" she cried. "Poor Guy, he made love to every woman he
met. It was a habit that he could not break himself of."
She sighed a little, and seemed to look back tenderly on the past.
"He was a charming man," she murmured.
A greater experience than Philip's would have guessed from these words the
probabilities of the encounter: the distinguished writer invited to
luncheon en famille, the governess coming in sedately with the two tall
girls she was teaching; the introduction:
"Notre Miss Anglaise."
"Mademoiselle."
And the luncheon during which the Miss Anglaise sat silent while the
distinguished writer talked to his host and hostess.
But to Philip her words called up much more romantic fancies.
"Do tell me all about him," he said excitedly.
"There's nothing to tell," she said truthfully, but in such a manner as to
convey that three volumes would scarcely have contained the lurid facts.
"You mustn't be curious."
She began to talk of Paris. She loved the boulevards and the Bois. There
was grace in every street, and the trees in the Champs Elysees had a
distinction which trees had not elsewhere. They were sitting on a stile
now by the high-road, and Miss Wilkinson looked with disdain upon the
stately elms in front of them. And the theatres: the plays were brilliant,
and the acting was incomparable. She often went with Madame Foyot, the
mother of the girls she was educating, when she was trying on clothes.
"Oh, what a misery to be poor!" she cried. "These beautiful things, it's
only in Paris they know how to dress, and not to be able to afford them!
Poor Madame Foyot, she had no figure. Sometimes the dressmaker used to
whisper to me: `Ah, Mademoiselle, if she only had your figure.' "
Philip noticed then that Miss Wilkinson had a robust form and was proud of
it.
"Men are so stupid in England. They only think of the face. The French,
who are a nation of lovers, know how much more important the figure is."
Philip had never thought of such things before, but he observed now that
Miss Wilkinson's ankles were thick and ungainly. He withdrew his eyes
quickly.
"You should go to France. Why don't you go to Paris for a year? You would
learn French, and it would--deniaiser you."
"What is that?" asked Philip.
She laughed slyly.
"You must look it out in the dictionary. Englishmen do not know how to
treat women. They are so shy. Shyness is ridiculous in a man. They don't
know how to make love. They can't even tell a woman she is charming
without looking foolish."
Philip felt himself absurd. Miss Wilkinson evidently expected him to
behave very differently; and he would have been delighted to say gallant
and witty things, but they never occurred to him; and when they did he was
too much afraid of making a fool of himself to say them.
"Oh, I love Paris," sighed Miss Wilkinson. "But I had to go to Berlin. I
was with the Foyots till the girls married, and then I could get nothing
to do, and I had the chance of this post in Berlin. They're relations of
Madame Foyot, and I accepted. I had a tiny apartment in the Rue Breda, on
the cinquieme: it wasn't at all respectable. You know about the Rue
Breda--ces dames, you know."
Philip nodded, not knowing at all what she meant, but vaguely suspecting,
and anxious she should not think him too ignorant.
"But I didn't care. Je suis libre, n'est-ce pas?" She was very fond of
speaking French, which indeed she spoke well. "Once I had such a curious
adventure there."
She paused a little and Philip pressed her to tell it.
"You wouldn't tell me yours in Heidelberg," she said.
"They were so unadventurous," he retorted.
"I don't know what Mrs. Carey would say if she knew the sort of things we
talk about together."
"You don't imagine I shall tell her."
"Will you promise?"
When he had done this, she told him how an art-student who had a room on
the floor above her--but she interrupted herself.
"Why don't you go in for art? You paint so prettily."
"Not well enough for that."
"That is for others to judge. Je m'y connais, and I believe you have the
making of a great artist."
"Can't you see Uncle William's face if I suddenly told him I wanted to go
to Paris and study art?"
"You're your own master, aren't you?"
"You're trying to put me off. Please go on with the story." Miss
Wilkinson, with a little laugh, went on. The art-student had passed her
several times on the stairs, and she had paid no particular attention. She
saw that he had fine eyes, and he took off his hat very politely. And one
day she found a letter slipped under her door. It was from him. He told
her that he had adored her for months, and that he waited about the stairs
for her to pass. Oh, it was a charming letter! Of course she did not
reply, but what woman could help being flattered? And next day there was
another letter! It was wonderful, passionate, and touching. When next she
met him on the stairs she did not know which way to look. And every day
the letters came, and now he begged her to see him. He said he would come
in the evening, vers neuf heures, and she did not know what to do. Of
course it was impossible, and he might ring and ring, but she would never
open the door; and then while she was waiting for the tinkling of the
bell, all nerves, suddenly he stood before her. She had forgotten to shut
the door when she came in.
"C'etait une fatalite."
"And what happened then?" asked Philip.
"That is the end of the story," she replied, with a ripple of laughter.
Philip was silent for a moment. His heart beat quickly, and strange
emotions seemed to be hustling one another in his heart. He saw the dark
staircase and the chance meetings, and he admired the boldness of the
letters--oh, he would never have dared to do that--and then the silent,
almost mysterious entrance. It seemed to him the very soul of romance.
"What was he like?"
"Oh, he was handsome. Charmant garcon."
"Do you know him still?"
Philip felt a slight feeling of irritation as he asked this.
"He treated me abominably. Men are always the same. You're heartless, all
of you."
"I don't know about that," said Philip, not without embarrassment.
"Let us go home," said Miss Wilkinson.
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