CHAPTER XX
Lucia came out into the sun-baked garden, and even as she stood for a moment in the little veranda a train shrieked by over the embankment at the end of it. For six months now the garden, the varying conditions of its flower-beds, the degrees of chilliness, of moisture, or of sultry heat had been familiar to her; familiar, too, was the sight and sound of the rushing train that took the happier folk from one place to another, whore joy or pain or something, anyhow, awaited them. She had planted bulbs last November in the flower-beds, and in April had seen them flame into trumpets of daffodils, or a little later into the pure chalices of tulips. But now in June there was no sign left of these fiery presences in the beds, nor in her heart was any comfort from the sight of the spring garden. She had planted roses also, which were in bud to-day; she had planted clematis, that was beginning to put forth its purple stars in a night of green leaves; she had planted pyramids of sweet-peas, which were twining juicy stalks about the brushwood that supported them. All this she had done in hope, but the hope that she had dug into the soil was now known by her to be barren. It would never spring up; it was dead; there was no hope any more.
She had scarcely set foot during all these six months outside the house and the garden. Once or twice she had gone into Brixham, but on each of these occasions someone, whose face she just remembered, but no more, had crossed the road when she came near, or had gone by her with quick step and a set, wooden smile, and eyes that did not see her. A very little of that was enough for Lucia, and she had her remedy easy to take; there was no need that she should go into the town at all. Miss Lucia Grimson was her name—was it?—she looked after Aunt Cathie. Once a young woman, with a child toddling beside her, came out of the shop which she was passing. Lucia could not remember her name, nor had she heard that she was married. But without doubt she was the girl who had given her the orange-coloured salvia that still flourished in the garden, and had planted it with her, while Aunt Cathie watered freely. But to-day this young mother, on seeing Lucia, had turned quickly to her child.
"Oh, take care, my darling!" she had said; "there is a step."
But there was no step, and Lucia quite understood. And when she got home that day she plucked up every one of the orange salvias.
She had not written to Maud; she had not written to anybody. All that could be offered to her, she felt, must be offered out of pity, and the gift, made in pity, was impossible to accept. But through all these six months she had kept alive a little flame of hope, though all the time she believed that she cherished and blew on a wick that had long ago been quenched. Charlie, as had been arranged, was to go away for six months, and communicate neither with her nor Maud; and during those six months Lucia had deliberately cut herself off from Maud also. Maud could do nothing for her; it was not Maud she wanted. By the arrangement that had been made, Charlie would choose between them—that was what it amounted to. It was, therefore, little wonder that in the interval Lucia found it impossible to be in correspondence with her friend. Nor could she see her; the room that was always ready for Maud was always empty.
This afternoon, when she came into the hot, familiar restrictedness of the garden, she knew her fate. She had seen in the Morning Post, which Aunt Cathie still took in for the sake of its small paragraphs, that Mr. and Mrs. Charles Lindsay had arrived in town for the remainder of the season. That was quite enough; Maud's letter, which arrived by the second post, could tell her no more than that. So that was settled; it was all over, and for her there would never be anything more than she had now.
And then she knew how she had built upon the hope, even though she had told Maud she knew to which of them Charlie would go; she knew that in her heart she had never accepted that which now she was bound to accept. And therefore hitherto she had looked on this dreadful nightmare of a garden as a hotel garden, from which she would move to go elsewhere. But now it was no hotel garden; such as it was, it was the garden of her home. There was, at least, no other home.
No; that which had been familiar but temporary had to take another aspect. It was permanent. Had it proved that Charlie would join her, she would have gone away, lived the pleasant Bohemian life which was possible to people in their position, with the gaiety that she had taken the trouble to keep alive in her nature. London, even London, was not impossible. She felt sure that she could have managed to collect round her a set who would have been as infected with her supreme vitality and with her happiness, as were the people she had moved among before. Many of these, too, would have come quietly. She could have made without effort an amusing home, for her spring, her enjoyment of things, was not impaired. She could have climbed to another tree, and been at the top of that. Of course, it would have been annoying to know that she could not go to many houses where her presence before had been so much desired—the making of the evening. But plenty of those people such was the innate hypocrisy of the English—would have come quietly to her house. She would have gone quietly to theirs.
But now all that was over; she was left lonely and bitter. She had read Maud's letter, and though it was Maud all through, she had no use for it. It was just such a letter as Maud would have written if Charlie had decided otherwise. But he had not decided otherwise. Therefore a heel and a garden bed were sufficient for it.
So all this feverish employment to pass away the weeks till Charlie decided was over. There was nothing to be done, except to use up the time of the years. There were many of them. There was much time in each, and she was young and strong and healthy. Years ago she had grudged other people the time that they did not coin into enjoyment. Now she was on the other side. She, too, had time for which she had no use, and she would have sold it very cheap.
It was impossible to go into the garden, so fiercely did the heat reverberate from the baking walls. Aunt Cathie, as usual, had gone upstairs to rest after lunch; she would not appear till four. Then they would walk down to the kitchen-garden and see how the artichokes were doing. They might even find enough strawberries to make their dessert in the evening, but Aunt Cathie always said she would rather have none at all than not have a "dish" of them. Raspberries promised well also, for Lucia had sewed up the holes in the nets that defended them from the birds.
She went into the drawing-room, and sat there a little. It was not worth while reading; it was not worth while playing the piano; it was decidedly not worth while doing nothing. But there was a cupboard underneath the front stairs, which Aunt Cathie had said "wanted" cleaning out. Lucia had deliberately hoarded up that piece of employment, but she thought she might as well use it now.
The cupboard certainly did "want" to be cleaned out. A net of spider's web had been spun over the door, and from inside came a damp, mildewy odour. On the top of a miscellaneous heap of papers and débris was a cardboard box, oblong; and, opening it, Lucia found it to contain a dozen lawn-tennis balls. Moths had eaten into their covers, but beyond doubt it was the box of balls that Aunt Cathie had once bought for her birthday present.
Lucia remembered it all—remembered, too, the games of lawn-tennis, how Aunt Cathie used to throw up ball after ball, and fail to hit them altogether. These were they—moth-eaten now, mouldy.
THE END