Part 2 (1/2)
Paul had seldom felt so many emotions at one time. Added to his surprise at the expected Mrs. Brooke changing at the last moment into a Mrs.
Potter, and to his bewilderment at being received in a bedroom, was a thrill of pleasure at Miss Brooke's reference to him as ”my friend.” He had, too, a sense of gratified curiosity at learning the next moment that the man's name was Pemberton; it was convenient, moreover, to have a definite symbol by which to refer to him in thought.
”I think the water's boiling, dear,” said Mrs. Potter. ”Doesn't it mean 'boiling' when steam comes out of the spout like that?”
”Not yet, Katharine. Half a minute more. You are just in nice time, Mr.
Middleton, to get your cup of tea at its best.” And Miss Brooke busied herself cutting up a big lemon into thin slices at a little table that was laid with a pretty j.a.panese tea-set.
”Lisa's tea is quite wonderful,” chimed in Mrs. Potter. ”I always spoil mine--I can never quite tell when the water boils. That's my pet stupidity.”
For a moment Paul watched the artistic copper kettle as it sang its pleasant song. Mrs. Potter already struck him as an obviously cheerful personality, and he felt absurdly grateful to her for mentioning Miss Brooke's first name. He had not yet given up Mrs. Brooke, expecting her to enter the room very soon now; and he found it hard not to fix his gaze noticeably on the bed, half-surprised that everybody else ignored it, seeming totally unconscious that any such piece of furniture was there at all.
Mr. Pemberton took little part in the somewhat ba.n.a.l but good-humoured conversation that now sprang up, but drummed idly with his fingers on the settee on which he was lounging. Now and again a monosyllabic drawl fell languidly from him, and Paul read into this demeanour annoyance at his presence.
Mrs. Potter, he soon learnt--for the lady was loquacious--was a widow and a journalist on a three months' stay in Europe, of which she was pa.s.sing a month in London, endeavouring to make as much copy out of it as possible. She related with glee, and without any apparent qualms of conscience, how she had ”fixed up” accounts of various great society functions, writing her copy in the first person.
”Lisa is so good and helpful to me. I impose on her dreadfully. I should never have been able to get them fixed up without her. And then her spelling is so perfect--she runs over my copy and puts it right in a jiffy.”
”Lemon or cream, Mr. Middleton, please?” asked Miss Brooke. ”Two lumps of sugar or one? What, none at all! Oh, yes, everybody thinks these cups sweetly pretty. I'm taking them home with me as a souvenir.”
”What shall I do without you in Paris?” broke in Mrs. Potter again. ”I shall be lost there. Can't I coax you to come back with me, Lisa dear?”
”Can't disappoint poppa,” said Miss Brooke laconically.
”You'll have me to come to,” drawled Mr. Pemberton.
”You'll be handy for some things, but your spelling's worse than mine,”
said Mrs. Potter; and somewhat irrelevantly went on to suppose that Paul must know Paris well.
Paul, alas! had only two visits to boast of, one of a week's, the other of two weeks' duration, both in the company of his mother. Whereupon a sound, as of a suppressed sn.i.g.g.e.r, came from the direction of Pemberton.
Something like the truth had begun to dawn on Paul's mind, and he knew better now than to continue to expect Mrs. Brooke to appear. He had sufficiently gathered from the conversation that Miss Brooke was on her way home from Paris to America, and that she was going to travel alone, and had taken London _en route_, probably armed with letters of introduction. Most likely, he argued, she must have considered the one room sufficient for her needs, and had not antic.i.p.ated callers. Or perhaps Americans, for all he knew, did not mind receiving callers in a bedroom. This, he concluded, was probably the case, as no one seemed in the least _gene_, despite that the bed was such a palpable fact, and stood there in ma.s.sive unblus.h.i.+ngness. Otherwise an atmosphere of feminine daintiness seemed to surround Miss Brooke, transforming even this lodging-house bedroom.
However, he did not grasp the facts without an almost overwhelming sense of pain.
His romance had been rudely shattered at one blast, and he felt his breath draw heavily when he first comprehended Miss Brooke was on the point of leaving London. A sense of helplessness came upon him as he realised he could do nothing but just get through with his call. There seemed not the slightest chance now of his telling her about the career he purposed for himself. He had dreamed, too, of her showing him her verses, perhaps some of her sketches. But the presence of the others stood in the way. He would have liked to hate them both, but being forced to like Mrs. Potter, he had to bestow a double amount of dislike on Mr. Pemberton, which he was very glad to do. And then he wanted to know the exact relation between Mr. Pemberton and Miss Brooke. From a hint the ”fellow” had dropped, it was clear he lived in Paris--where Miss Brooke had been living. Was he a relative? Who was he? Why was he in London? How came he to be at Mrs. Saxon's dance? For a moment Paul thought of asking Mrs. Saxon about him, and also about Miss Brooke, but he put the idea from him as underhand and unworthy.
Meanwhile the conversation went on, pleasant and ba.n.a.l. Mrs. Potter deluged Paul with questions about the London season and English painters and the Academy. She narrated the comicalities of her shopping expeditions, various little misadventures that had arisen from the different usage of everyday words by the two nations. By imperceptible stages along a tortuous and varied route they drifted on to the subject of love, and Mrs. Potter, still keeping the talk almost all to herself, related several touching romances of her friends' lives. Once or twice Paul's gloom was lightened by the smile of Miss Brooke that met his look each time he turned his face towards her. A lien, invisible to the others, seemed to be established between them.
At length Mrs. Potter, drawing Mr. Pemberton's attention to the hour, rose to go, and the two left together. Despite some mad idea of declaring himself to Miss Brooke there and then, which had occurred to him, Paul had also risen, but to his astonishment Miss Brooke drew her chair closer to the fire, and motioned him to take a seat in the opposite chimney corner. He obeyed as if hypnotised. ”What would my mother think of this?” he asked himself, and awaited developments. As for Miss Brooke, at no moment did she seem aware of the slightest unconventionality in the situation.
”Katharine is so sweet,” she began thoughtfully. ”You can't imagine how pleased I was when she wrote she was coming. Charlie is piloting her about a little. He is so good-natured.”
”Charlie is, I presume, Mr. Pemberton.”
”Why, of course. And he'll be of so much use to her in Paris. He has a studio there. But I hope she won't fall in love with him,” she added laughingly. ”Katharine is so romantic; she is always in love with some man or other.”
Though he knew as a general biological fact that women fall in love with men, Paul, despite all the love-stories he had read, had never yet been able to grasp it and admit it to himself as a fact of actual life.
Somehow, he had always felt that the onus of falling in love and of courts.h.i.+p rested on men, and that it was very good and condescending of women to allow themselves to be loved at all. But Miss Brooke's way of talking seemed to take it for granted that it was a perfectly natural and proper thing for a woman to be in love, that romance was a thing a woman might own to without any shame; making him realise more distinctly than ever before that women were not so entirely pa.s.sive and pa.s.sionless. But all this he rather felt than thought, and it did not interfere with the sentence that was on the tip of his tongue; the outcome of his sense of disappointment and desolation at her threatened departure out of his life, which was only mitigated by the reflection that Pemberton was being left behind.