will you come for a walk this beautiful morning, miss graves?” asked frau schultz.
felicia had intended to pursue her study of scientific dressmaking under mrs. stapleton’s tuition, but she acceded graciously enough. she had considered it her duty to like frau schultz; yet frau schultz remained her pet aversion. although she still winced under mme. popea’s innuendoes and fraulein klinkhardt’s pretty free theories of life, yet she managed to find something likeable in each. but frau schultz’s red, weather-beaten face, coarse habits and spiteful tongue, jarred upon her. she smiled pleasantly, however, when she came down in her fur-trimmed jacket, hat and muff, and met frau schultz on the landing outside the salon.
“it will do you good. you sit too much in the house,” said frau schultz magisterially.
it seemed a lovely day when the sunshine was looked at from the windows of a warm room, but outside, the bise was blowing, and caught the face like a million razor-edges. felicia put up her muff with a little cry, as soon as they emerged into the open air. “oh! this dreadful bise!”
“ach! it is nothing,” said the other, who prided herself on her pachydermaty. “you english girls would sacrifice everything to your complexions. if your skin cracks you can put on some cold cream. but you will have had your exercise.”
frau schultz wore an imitation sealskin jacket, a new crape hat with broad strings tied under her chin, and thick grey woollen gloves. felicia wondered, with not unpardonable vindictiveness, how many cracks would do her appreciable damage.
“i don’t care a little bit about my complexion,” she replied stoutly, resolved, for the honour of her countrywomen, to face a blizzard, if called upon. “i have felt worse east winds than this in england.”
“ah, your england! it is a wonderful place,” said erau schultz.
they walked along by the end of the jardin anglais, crossed the bridge and proceeded by the quai du mont blanc in the direction of the kursaal. erau schultz was evidently in an atrabiliar mood. felicia began to be rather grateful to the bise, which does not favour conversation. but she had not reckoned with frau schultz’s voice. as soon as it had found the right pitch, by means of desultory remarks, it triumphed over mere wind, and shrieked continuously.
“i asked you to come out because i wanted to talk to you.”
“perhaps she prefers talking in a hurricane,” thought felicia in comic desperation. but all she said was,—
“oh?”
“yes. you are so young and inexperienced that i have thought it my duty to advise you. mme. boccard is too busy. i am a mother. i brought up my lottchen excellently, and she married last year. i am clearly the only one in the pension who knows what is suitable for a young girl and what isn’t.”
felicia looked at her in some astonishment from under the wind depressed hat brim.
“i am sure i am getting on very well.”
“ah, you think so. but you are wrong. you cannot touch pitch without stinking.” frau schultz’s english was apt to fail her now and then.
“really, i don’t understand at all, frau schultz.”
“i will make myself quite plain. you have become too great a friend with mrs. stapleton. she is the pitch.”
felicia stopped short, her eyes watering with wind and indignation.
“if you say such things of my friends, frau schultz, i shall go home again.”
“i did not hear,” said frau schultz coming closer.
felicia repeated her observation, with an irritated little patting of her foot.
“ach!” cried the other impatiently, “i come to talk with you out of motherly kindness, for your own good, and you get angry. it is not polite either, as i am so much older than you. i repeat that mrs. stapleton is a bad woman. if you do not like to walk with me, i will walk with myself. but i have done my duty. are you going to stand, miss graves, or will you proceed?”
felicia, in spite of her indignant resentment of frau schultz’s tone, hesitated for a moment. she had seen too many sordid squabbles in the pension, in consequence of which women would not speak to each other for a week, and asked each other vicariously to pass the salt, not to feel a wholesome horror at the prospect of finding herself involved in one. hitherto she had escaped. so she checked her outburst of wrath.
“i shall be happy to go on, frau schultz, if you will drop the subject,” she said.
“ach, so!” replied frau schultz, enigmatically, and they continued their walk. but after this, conversation was not cordial. at the kursaal they turned and retraced their steps.
on the quai du mont blanc, where the steamers lay at their moorings, frau schultz stopped and looked at the view. things were vivid in their spring freshness, and stood out clear in the wind-swept air. the larches in rousseau’s island had put on their green, and so had the clustering limes in the jardin anglais, at the other end of the bridge. above the white, tree-hidden shops and cafés on the grand quai, the old town rose sharply defined, around the grim cathedral. straight in front was the ever sea-blue lake, its fringe of trees on the other side, just hiding the villas at the foot of the hills; and away in the intense distance behind them rose the crest of mont blanc, shimmering like frosted silver against the blue sky.
at the sight of the latter, frau schultz drew a long, rapt breath.
“wunderschon!”
she would not trust herself to speak english. she looked at felicia for responsive enthusiasm. but felicia was angry, and she could not help feeling a little resentment against mont blanc, for affording frau schultz pleasurable sensations. but she replied politely that it was very pretty.
“how few of you english have any soul!” said frau schultz, as they went on again.
“i think it is that we are not sentimental,” said felicia.
“i never could quite understand what that ‘sentimental’ is, that you are all so afraid of.”
“it is making the same fuss about little emotions as one only could about big ones.”
“so you think i am sentimental because i admire the glorious nature?”
“i did not say so, frau schultz.”
“ah, but you thought so. it is the way you all have. nothing is good but what you put your seal to.”
it was decidedly not a pleasant walk. frau schultz took up the parable of the narrow-minded englishman, and expounded it through the bise. felicia longed for home. to try to turn the conversation into a calmer channel, she took advantage of a lull, and inquired after frau schultz’s daughter. the ingenious device succeeded.
lottchen’s early history lasted until they reached their own street. felicia did not know whether to hate lottchen for being such a paragon, or to pity her for being so parented. at last she made a rash remark.
“i don’t think you gave fraulein schultz much chance of doing anything wrong.”
“i was her mother,” replied frau schultz with dignity, “and in germany young girls obey their mothers and respect the mothers of other young girls. if i had spoken to a german girl as i did to you this morning, she would have been grateful.”
“i am very sorry, frau schultz, but i don’t like to hear my friends spoken ill of.”
“i wanted to save you from those friends. i say again, mrs. stapleton is not the person i should let my innocent daughter associate with.”
felicia fired up. they were within a few yards of the entrance to the pension. “you know nothing whatever against mrs. stapleton. i think it very unkind of you.”
“so! ask her where her husband is.”
“she is a widow.”
frau schultz looked at her and broke into derisive laughter. it jarred through the girl as if she had trodden upon an electric eel. she left frau schultz at the foot of the staircase, and ran up by herself, tingling with anger and disgust.
six months ago she would scarcely have divined frau schultz’s insinuations. now she did. her mental range had widened considerably since she had lived in the pension. a less refined nature might have been to some extent coarsened by the experience, but her knowledge only brought her keener repugnance. she was no longer puzzled or frightened, but disgusted—sometimes revolted. it seemed as if she could never get free from the taint. even katherine, whose society, since they had grown more intimate, she had sought more and more, and to whom she had gone for comfort and pure breath, when the air had been close with lax talk or unsavoury recrimination—even katherine was now declared by this vulgar, domineering woman to be infected by what, in the girl’s eyes, was the same leprosy. she did not believe it. in other matters felicia had seen frau schultz convicted as a liar. but the imputation seemed like a foul hand laid upon their friendship.
it was a relief when, she went into katherine’s room and saw the welcome on the quiet, delicate face that looked up from the needlework. katherine’s room, too, always cheered her. like katherine herself, it was different from the others. mme. popea’s, for instance, struck one with a pervading sense of soiled dressing-gowns; miss bunter’s was all primness, looking as if made to match the stiff wires of her canary cages. but this sunny little retreat, with all its bedroom suggestions curtained off, and cosy with piano and comfortable easy chairs and rugs, was essentially a lady’s room that had assimilated some of the charm of its owner. by the time the gong went for déjeuner, felicia was cheered and comforted, and she entered the diningroom, her arm around katherine’s waist, darting a rebellious glance at frau schultz.
the days went on uneventfully. the only incident was the return of old mr. chetwynd from a month’s holiday in italy, when the whole pension united to do him honour and welcome him. on the day of his arrival felicia laid a pair of slippers she had worked for him in his room, which delighted the old man so much that he came down to the salon in the evening to offer them for general admiration. but otherwise there was no departure, no arrival all the spring. every one sighed for the summer and fresh faces. they looked forward with the longing that chrysalises must have for butterflydom. felicia joined in the general anticipation. she had not forgotten raine, though he gradually grew to be but a wistful memory. but she felt convinced, with the fervid conviction of twenty, that she could never love any man again.
the whole course of her thoughts was altered on one morning in may. the hour for dejeuner had been put earlier than usual, for some domestic reason, and the english post arrived during the meal. mr. chetwynd glanced over his envelopes, selected one, and courteously asked katherine and felicia permission to open it. his eyes sparkled as he read.
“i have had pleasant news,” he said radiantly, laying down the letter and addressing mme. boccard at the other end of the table. “my son is coming here for the first part of the long vacation.”
there was a general chorus of satisfaction. tongues were set on the wag. mme. popea and frau schultz conversed with simultaneous unmodulation. mme. boccard explained volubly to mr. chetwynd the pleasure he would derive from his son’s visit. but all was a distant buzz in felicia’s ears. the announcement was like an electric shock, vivifying the fading love into instant life. her heart gave a great leap, and things swam before her eyes, causing her to close them for a second. she opened them to a revelation—katherine’s face, which was as white as paper, and katherine’s eyes fixed upon her with an almost terrified intelligence. the exchanged glance told each the other’s secret. but all was so sudden that only they two knew.
katherine recovered her composure instantly, and the reaction brought the blood back into her cheeks. she said with a smile to the old man,—“it will be charming to see mr. chetwynd again.”
felicia envied her. she could not have trusted her voice whatever had been at stake.
when they rose from the table, the old man motioned to felicia to come with him on to the balcony, which ran continuously past the dining-room and salon windows.
“is it not good news?”
she hung her head, and faltered out,—
“yes.”
“will you still be glad to see raine again?”
“you know—how can i tell you?”
“my dear child,” he said, laying his hand on hers, as it rested on the iron balustrade, “do you know what i hope raine is coming for?”
felicia shook her head.
“oh, i dare not think it—we must not speak of it. i don’t think i shall be able to meet him.”
“can i help you?” asked the old man, tenderly. “you can tell an old man things without shame that you cannot tell a young one. i have grown very fond of you, my child. to part with you would be a great wrench. and that this other should be has become one of the dearest wishes of my life.”
“ah! you are good—dear, and good, and kind,” replied the girl; “but—”
“well, perhaps you can explain a little enigma in raine’s letter!”
she looked up at him quickly. for the first time, her cheek flushed with a ray of hope.
“can you explain this?” he asked, taking the letter from his pocket, and placing it so that they both could read as they leant over the balcony.
he pointed to a sentence.
“i am coming on my own account as well as yours. this, so that you should not be conceited, and think you are the only magnet in geneva that draws
your loving
“raine.”
“there!” he said, hastily withdrawing it. “perhaps i ought not to have shown it to you. but raine never talks idly; and i have ventured to believe that miss felicia graves is the magnet in question. goodbye, my dear. i think i have committed enough indiscretion for one day.”
she gave his hand a little caressing squeeze, and, when he had gone, remained a long time on the balcony, deep in troubled thoughts. who was the magnet—she or katherine?
she strove not to think of it, to busy herself with whatever interests she could find to hand. with this end in view, she took out for a long walk little miss bunter, who had been in low spirits for some days. she strove to cheer her. but miss bunter folded her drapery of depression all the more closely around her, and poured into felicia’s ears the history of her engagement with the man in burmah.
“our marriage has just been put off for another year,” she said. “i thought i had come to the end of my waiting. but he can’t afford it yet; and you have no idea how expensive living is there.”
“oh! i shouldn’t have thought so,” said felicia.
“my dear!” said miss bunter, straightening her thin shoulders reproachfully, “mr. dotterel says so, and he has been living there fifteen years.”
“it is strange that you have remained so fond of one another all this long time.”
“do you think so? oh, no!” replied miss bunter, with a convinced shake of her head. “when one loves really, it lasts for ever. but,” she added, sighing, “it has been a long engagement.”
so felicia parted with miss bunter rather more depressed than before. she had thought to get outside the range of such things, but she had been brought only the closer within it.
she could not sleep that night. many things troubled her, causing her cheek to burn in the darkness—the sudden rekindling within her of feelings against which her young maiden pride had ever revolted; the shame at having revealed them for the second time; the hope suggested by raine’s letter, to which it seemed a joy and a humiliation to cling; the discovery of katherine’s love.
she buried her face in her pillow, trying to hide from herself her self-abasement. so does it happen to many women, when their sudden investiture of womanhood comes to them, with its thoughts and sorrows, and, unaware, they still regard it with the eyes of a young girl.
