Volume I Part 39 (1/2)
”Oh, Michael,” she cried, ”I'm most frightfully glad to see you, you darling old Michael.”
Michael looked much alarmed at the amazing facility of her affectionate greeting, and vaguely thought how much easier existence must be to a girl who never seemed to be hampered by any feeling of what people within earshot would think of her. Yet almost immediately Stella herself relapsed into shyness at the prospect of introducing Michael to the family, and it was only the perfectly accomplished courtesy of Madame Regnier which saved Michael from summarily making up his mind that these holidays were going to be a most ghastly failure.
The business of unpacking composed his feelings slightly, and a tap at his door, followed by Stella's silvery demand to come in, gave him a thrill of companions.h.i.+p. He suddenly realized, too, that he and his sister had corresponded frequently during their absence, and that this queer shyness at meeting her in person was really absurd. Stella, wandering round the room with his ties on her arm, gave Michael real pleasure, and she for her part seemed highly delighted at the privilege of superintending his unpacking.
He noted with a sentimental fondness that she still hummed, and he was very much impressed by the flowers which she had arranged in the cool corners of the pleasant room. On her appearance, too, as she hung over the rail of his bed chatting to him gaily, he congratulated himself. He liked the big apple-green bows in her chestnut hair; he liked her slim white hands and large eyes; and he wondered if her smile were like his, and hoped it was, since it was certainly very subtle and attractive.
”What sort of people hang out in this place?” he asked.
”Oh, nice people,” Stella a.s.sured him. ”Madame Regnier is a darling, and she loves my playing, and Monsieur is fearfully nice, with a grey beard.
We always play billiards in the evening, and drink ca.s.sis. It's lovely.
There are three darling old ladies, widows I think. They sit and listen to me playing, and when I've finished pay me all sorts of compliments, which sound so pretty in French. One of them said I was 'ravissante.'”
”Are there any kids?” asked Michael.
Stella said there were no kids, and Michael sighed his relief.
”Do you practise much?”
”Oh, no, I'm having a holiday, I only practise three hours a day.”
”How much?” asked Michael. ”Good Lord, do you call that a holiday?”
”Why, you silly old thing, of course it is,” rippled Stella.
Presently it was time for dejeuner, and they sat down to eat in a room, of shaded sunlight, watching the green jalousies that glowed like beryls, and listening to a canary's song. Michael was introduced to Madame Graves, Madame Lamarque and Madame Charpentier, the three old widows who lived at the Pension, and who all looked strangely alike, with their faces and hands of aged ivory and their ruffles and wristbands starched to the semblance of fretted white coral. They ate mincingly in contrast to M. Regnier who, guarded by a very large napkin, pitchforked his food into his mouth with noisy recklessness. Later in the mellow August afternoon Michael and he walked solemnly round the town together, and Michael wondered if he had ever before raised his hat so many times.
After dinner, when the coffee and ca.s.sis had been drunk, Madame Regnier invited Stella to play to them. Dusk was falling in the florid French drawing-room, but so rich was the approach of darkness that no lamps brooded with rosy orbs, and only a lighted candle on either side of Stella stabbed the gloom in which the listeners leaned quietly back against the tropic tapestries of their chairs, without trying to occupy themselves with books or crochet-work.
Michael sat by the scented window, watching the stars twinkle, it almost seemed, in tune with the vibrant melodies that Stella rang out. In the bewitching candlelight the keyboard trembled and s.h.i.+mmered like water to a low wind. Deep in the shadow the three old ladies sat in a waxen ecstasy, so still that Michael wondered whether they were alive. He did not know whose tunes they were that Stella played; he did not know what dreams they wove for the old ladies, whether of spangled opera-house or ball; he did not care, being content to watch the lissome hands that from time to time went dancing away on either side from the curve of Stella's straight back, whether to play with raindrops in the treble or marshal thunders from the ba.s.s. The candlelight sprayed her flowing chestnut hair with a golden mist that might have been an aureole over which the apple-green bows floated unsubstantial like amazing moths.
Michael continually tried to shape his ideas to the inspiration of the music, but every image that rose battling for expression lost itself in a peerless stupefaction.
Then suddenly Stella stopped playing, and the enchantment was dispelled by murmurous praise and entering lamplight. Stella, slim as a fountain, stood upright in the centre of the drawing-room and, like a fountain, swayed now this way, now that, to catch the compliments so dear to her.
Michael wished the three old ladies would not appeal to him to endorse their so perfectly phrased enthusiasm, and grew very conscious of the gradual decline of 'oui' into 'wee' as he supported their laudation. He was glad when M. Regnier proposed a game of billiards, and glad to see that Stella could romp, romp so heartily indeed that once or twice he had to check a whispered rebuke.
But later on when he said good night to her outside his bedroom, he had an impulse to hug her close for the unimaginable artistry of this little sister.
Michael and Stella went out next day to explore the forest of Compiegne.
They wandered away from the geometrical forest roads into high glades and n.o.ble chases; they speculated upon the whereabouts of the wild-boars that were hunted often, and therefore really did exist; they lay deep in the bracken utterly remote in the ardent emerald light, utterly quiet save for the thrum of insects rising and falling. In this intimate seclusion Michael found it easy enough to talk to Stella. Somehow her face, magnified by the proportions of the surrounding vegetation, scarcely seemed to belong to her, and Michael had a sensation of a fairy fellows.h.i.+p, as he felt himself being absorbed into her wide and strangely magical eyes. Seen like this they were as overwhelmingly beautiful as two flowers, holding mysteries of colour and form that could never be revealed save thus in an abandonment of contemplation.
”Why do you stare at me, Michael?” she asked.
”Because I think it's funny to realize that you and I are as nearly as it's possible to be the same person, and yet we're as different from each other as we are from the rest of people. I wonder, if you didn't know I was your brother, and I didn't know you were my sister, if we should have a sort of--what's the word?--intuition about it? For instance, you can play the piano, and I can't even understand the feeling of being able to play the piano. I wish we knew our father. It must be interesting to have a father and a mother, and see what part of one comes from each.”
”I always think father and mother weren't married,” said Stella.
Michael blushed hotly, taken utterly aback.