Part 19 (1/2)

”One always feels a stranger, in a way, if one was born and brought up in the country, doesn't one? I feel that every day. I've never got over expecting to see the big elm outside my window when I wake, and instead I see the chimney-pots. And then I may just be getting used to it when there arrives a letter from Papa telling me how it all looks at home--all the silly little things about the flowers and the chickens and the old people in the parish, and then I have to start all over again.”

There was a strain of wistfulness in her full voice, but her eyes were limpidly unconscious of it, with their candid glance that suggested courage and even a certain gaiety. If it had not been for that look in her eyes she would have seemed doll-like; even as it was in the purely physical aspect of her there was a waxen dollishness which was at once disconcerting and attractive. It was obvious that Carminow, who presumably knew her, was pa.s.sionately convinced that she was what he would have called ”all right”; that he was considerably more fond of her than he would have admitted was equally obvious. To him that odd dollishness of aspect was just the sweet pink and white of a nave young girl, but to Killigrew it gave, by its very completeness, a hint as of something oddly inhuman, or at least unawakened, as though she had been a puppet, a pretty puppet that walked and spoke and said the right things. It was not so much any lack of intelligence in what she said as in her slow speech and her whole look. Her skin was so white--and Killigrew thought he knew if Ishmael did not how that whiteness was attained--except for a slight pink flush below extravagantly calm eyes of a clear pale grey; the modelling of the face was wide across brow and cheekbones and across the jaw on the level of the too-small mouth; then came a dimpled chin, short and childish, as was the tip-tilted nose. It was the type of face which, in its broad modelling of planes and petal-fineness of edges, suggests a pansy. The blondness of her--ashen-dead fairness of hair and pale skin with those pellucid eyes beneath dust-brown brows--all united in an effort of innocence that surpa.s.sed itself and became the blandness of a doll. She was curiously immobile, sat very quietly, and moved slowly, graceful in the way that a heavily-built puma is graceful, because of the thoroughly sound construction of her bones and muscles. Killigrew, as he watched her, was vastly intrigued by what he phrased to himself as the ”innocent sweet corruption of her look.” For with all that dollish look, perhaps because of it, it was possible, so Killigrew thought, to imagine her being very bad with the help of that protective mask. It was also compatible with an Undine-like soullessness, a cold clearness of outlook, or a slightly heavy if sweet stupidity. He thought it quite likely she might have all the virtues except a naturally good complexion, but he wondered about her, seeing her charm without feeling it.

The lamp was ready all too soon, and the lucky Carminow had the best right to carry it upstairs for her. She shook hands with both his friends as she said good-night, and Ishmael noticed how straightly she looked from her equal height into his eyes as her hand lay in his. Then the door swung to, but without closing, and in a moment there came the low sound of her voice from the landing above.

”Mr. Carminow....” she was saying--and the words, excepting just now and again, were audible to the two in the sitting-room--”I hope--I don't know what your friends must think. Do tell them, will you, that I'm not in the habit of running down to your room like that? Mr. Ruan looks so good. I wouldn't like him to think--”

”No one thinks anything like that; they couldn't, I a.s.sure you. Do believe me, Miss Grey. You won't sleep if you worry, you know. Promise me to believe me. I'll say something to them if it'll make you any happier.”

”Will you? Then I'll promise too. I can take the lamp now. And--thank you, Mr. Carminow.”

Down in the sitting-room when Carminow entered it again there was a moment or two of silence.

”Look here, you two fellows!” said Carminow; then, ”You see for yourselves that Miss Grey is a perfect lady....”

”Exactly how I should have described her,” interjected Killigrew.

”What I mean to say is that of course Miss Grey would not have dweamt of coming down if she had known you two were here....”

”Should have thought we made enough noise coming in. But I suppose what you're driving at is that she only comes when you're alone; is that it?”

asked Killigrew wickedly.

”d.a.m.n it all! you know it's not what I mean at all, only you twist everything a fellow says so. Anyway, I'd hate anyone to go and make a mistake about her.”

”I won't,” said Killigrew.

”It wouldn't be possible, I think,” said Ishmael; ”she's got that sort of clear look, you couldn't.”

”Yes, that's just it,” agreed Carminow gratefully. ”Sometimes she even does things that might seem a little odd or rash, and it's all because she is such a child of nature she doesn't understand. A sort of Miwanda.”

”What is her name, by the way?” asked Killigrew idly.

”Blanche, I believe.”

”Blanche Grey ... a rather humorous combination. Well, we must go or we shall be keeping you from your beastly legalised murder at eight. Come on, Ishmael!”

”I'll come up to the Strand with you,” said Carminow. ”I have to be early at the prison, or one doesn't get through the crowd, not with a single valuable left on you anyway, and lucky to keep your s.h.i.+rt and trousers. You're sure you won't come? I could manage something for you.”

Neither felt disposed--Ishmael not only because he knew it would make him deadly sick, but because the mere though of it had somehow become horrible, and Killigrew because he was rather glad to make Ishmael an excuse for not going himself. They all strode along the dim, quiet street, empty except for a dweller of the night who slunk into deeper shadows on seeing that there were three of them.

”She's an interesting-looking girl, that Miss Grey,” observed Killigrew, more to try and draw Carminow than because he was really interested in the subject himself.

”She reminded me of someone, and at first I couldn't think who,” said Ishmael, feeling a queer little pleasure at talking of her thus casually; ”and then I remembered Hilaria--you remember little Hilaria Eliot, who used to be so jolly to us all at St. Renny?”

”She is the last person I should have compared with Miss Grey,” said Killigrew decidedly. ”I should say they were as different as it is possible for two persons of the same s.e.x to be. Hilaria was like a boy; Miss Grey is most feminine.”

”Yes, she is,” said Ishmael eagerly; ”but there's the same frankness, that way of meeting you that other girls don't have.”

”I know what you mean,” agreed Carminow, ”though I don't think one notices it when one sees more of Miss Grey. As Killigrew says, she is so essentially feminine--she is always gwateful for support in a way that is really very sad in one who has to battle with the world. It is a hard life for a refined gentlewoman, I fear.”

”Dear old chap, with his 'battling with the world' and all the rest of his really highly moral conventional views!” exclaimed Killigrew. ”He's a fraud, isn't he, Ishmael, who pretends to love to wallow in blug just to hide his lamblike disposition.”