Bliss, Katherine Mansfield [new books to read TXT] 📗

“Ah, then you have a great deal to see.”

And I was just going to touch lightly upon the objects of interest and the museums when we wrenched to a stop.

Do you know—it’s very absurd—but as I pushed open the door for them and followed up the stairs to the bureau on the landing I felt somehow that this hotel was mine.

There was a vase of flowers on the window sill of the bureau and I even went so far as to re-arrange a bud or two and to stand off and note the effect while the manageress welcomed them. And when she turned to me and handed me the keys (the garcon was hauling up the boxes) and said: “Monsieur Duquette will show you your rooms”—I had a longing to tap Dick on the arm with a key and say, very confidentially: “Look here, old chap. As a friend of mine I’ll be only too willing to make a slight reduction… “

Up and up we climbed. Round and round. Past an occasional pair of boots (why is it one never sees an attractive pair of boots outside a door?). Higher and higher.

“I’m afraid they’re rather high up,” I murmured idiotically. “But I chose them because… “

They so obviously did not care why I chose them that I went no further. They accepted everything. They did not expect anything to be different. This was just part of what they were going through—that was how I analysed it.

“Arrived at last.” I ran from one side of the passage to the other, turning on the lights, explaining.

“This one I thought for you, Dick. The other is larger and it has a little dressing-room in the alcove.”

My “proprietary” eye noted the clean towels and covers, and the bed linen embroidered in red cotton. I thought them rather charming rooms, sloping, full of angles, just the sort of rooms one would expect to find if one had not been to Paris before.

Dick dashed his hat down on the bed.

“Oughtn’t I to help that chap with the boxes?” he asked—nobody.

“Yes, you ought,” replied Mouse, “they’re dreadfully heavy.”

And she turned to me with the first glimmer of a smile: “Books, you know.” Oh, he darted such a strange look at her before he rushed out. And he not only helped, he must have torn the box off the garcon’s back, for he staggered back, carrying one, dumped it down, and then fetched in the other.

“That’s yours, Dick,” said she.

“Well, you don’t mind it standing here for the present, do you?” he asked, breathless, breathing hard (the box must have been tremendously heavy). He pulled out a handful of money. “I suppose I ought to pay this chap.”

The garcon, standing by, seemed to think so too.

“And will you require anything further, Monsieur?”

“No! No! ” said Dick impatiently.

But at that Mouse stepped forward. She said, too deliberately, not looking at Dick, with her quaint clipped English, accent: “Yes, I’d like some tea. Tea for three.”

And suddenly she raised her muff as though her hands were clasped inside it, and she was telling the pale, sweaty garcon by that action that she was at the end of her resources, that she cried out to him to save her with “Tea. Immediately!”

This seemed to me so amazingly in the picture, so exactly the gesture and cry that one would expect (though I couldn’t have imagined it) to be wrung out of an Englishwoman faced with a great crisis, that I was almost tempted to hold up my hand and protest.

“No! No! Enough. Enough. Let us leave off there. At the word—tea. For really, really, you’ve filled your greediest subscriber so full that he will burst if he has to swallow another word.”

It even pulled Dick up. Like someone who has been unconscious for a long long time he turned slowly to Mouse and slowly looked at her with his tired, haggard eyes, and murmured with the echo of his dreamy voice: “Yes. That’s a good idea.” And then: “You must be tired, Mouse. Sit down.”

She sat down in a chair with lace tabs on the arms; he leaned against the bed, and I established myself on a straight-backed chair, crossed my legs, and brushed some imaginary dust off the knees of my trousers. (The Parisian at his ease.)

There came a tiny pause. Then he said: “Won’t you take off your coat, Mouse?”

“No, thanks. Not just now.”

Were they going to ask me? Or should I hold up my hand and call out in a baby voice: “It’s my turn to be asked.”

No, I shouldn’t. They didn’t ask me.

The pause became a silence. A real silence.

“… Come, my Parisian fox-terrier! Amuse these sad English! It’s no wonder they are such a nation for dogs.”

But, after all—why should I? It was not my “job,” as they would say. Nevertheless, I made a vivacious little bound at Mouse.

“What a pity it is that you did not arrive by daylight. There is such a charming view from these two windows. You know, the hotel is on a corner and each window looks down an immensely long, straight street.”

“Yes,” said she.

“Not that that sounds very charming,” I laughed. “But there is so much animation—so many absurd little boys on bicycles and people hanging out of windows and—oh, well, you’ll see for yourself in the morning…. Very amusing. Very animated.”

“Oh, yes,” said she.

If the pale, sweaty garcon had not come in at that moment, carrying the tea-tray high on one hand as if the cups were cannon-balls and he a heavy weight lifter on the cinema….

He managed to lower it on to a round table.

“Bring the table over here,” said Mouse. The waiter seemed to be the only person she cared to speak to. She took her hands out of her muff, drew off her gloves, and flung back the old-fashioned cape.

“Do you take milk and sugar?”

“No milk, thank you, and no sugar.”

I went over for mine like a little gentleman. She poured out another cup.

“That’s for Dick.”

And the faithful fox-terrier carried it across to him and laid it at his feet, as it were.

“Oh, thanks,” said Dick.

And then I went back to my chair and she sank back in hers.

But Dick was off again. He stared wildly at the cup of tea for a moment, glanced round him, put it down on the bed-table, caught up his hat, and stammered at full gallop: “Oh, by the way, do you mind posting a letter for me? I want to get it off by tonight’s post. I must. It’s very urgent….” Feeling her eyes on him, he flung: “It’s to my mother.” To me: “I won’t be long. I’ve got everything I want. But it must go off tonight. You don’t mind? It … it won’t take any time.”

“Of course I’ll post it. Delighted.”

“Won’t you drink your tea first?” suggested Mouse softly.

… Tea? Tea? Yes, of course. Tea…. A cup of tea on the bed-table… . In his racing dream he flashed the brightest, most charming smile at his little hostess.

“No, thanks. Not just now.”

And still hoping it would not be any trouble to me he went out of the room and closed the door, and we heard him cross the passage.

I scalded myself with mine in my hurry to take the cup back to the table and to say as I stood there: “You must forgive me if I am impertinent … if I am too frank. But Dick hasn’t tried to disguise it—has he? There is something the matter. Can I help?”

(Soft music. Mouse gets up, walks the stage for a moment or so before she returns to her chair and pours him out, oh, such a brimming, such a burning cup that the tears come into the friend’s eyes while he sips—while he drains it to the bitter dregs…. )

I had time to do all this before she replied. First she looked in the teapot, filled it with hot water, and stirred it with a spoon.

“Yes, there is something the matter. No, I’m afraid you can’t help, thank you.” Again I got that glimmer of a smile. “I’m awfully sorry. It must be horrid for you.”

Horrid, indeed! Ah, why couldn’t I tell her that it was months and months since I had been so entertained?

“But you are suffering,” I ventured softly, as though that was what I could not bear to see.

She didn’t deny it. She nodded and bit her underlip and I thought I saw her chin tremble.

“And there is really nothing I can do?” More softly still.

She shook her head, pushing back the table, and jumped up.

“Oh, it will be all right soon,” she breathed, walking over to the dressing-table and standing with her back towards me. “It will be all right. It can’t go on like this.”

“But of course it can’t,” I agreed, wondering whether it would look heartless if I lit a cigarette; I had a sudden longing to smoke.

In some way she saw my hand move to my breast pocket, half draw out my cigarette case, and put it back again, for the next thing she said was: “Matches … in … candestick. I noticed them.”

And I heard from her voice that she was crying.

“Ah! thank you. Yes. Yes. I’ve found them.” I lighted my cigarette and walked up and down, smoking.

It was so quiet it might have been two o’clock in the morning. It was so quiet you heard the boards creak and pop as one does in a house in the country. I smoked the whole cigarette and stabbed the end into my saucer before Mouse turned round and came back to the table.

“Isn’t Dick being rather a long time?”

“You are very tired. I expect you want to go to bed,” I said kindly. (And pray don’t mind me if you do, said my mind.)

“But isn’t he being a very long time?” she insisted.

I shrugged. “He is, rather.”

Then I saw she looked at me strangely. She was listening.

“He’s been gone ages,” she said, and she went with little light steps to the door, opened it, and crossed the passage into his room.

I waited. I listened too, now. I couldn’t have borne to miss a word. She had left the door open. I stole across the room and looked after her. Dick’s door was open, too. But—there wasn’t a word to miss.

You know I had the mad idea that they were kissing in that quiet room—a long comfortable kiss. One of those kisses that not only puts one’s grief to bed, but nurses it and warms it and tucks it up and keeps it fast enfolded until it is sleeping sound. Ah! how good that is.

It was over at last. I heard someone move and tiptoed away.

It was Mouse. She came back. She felt her way into the room carrying a letter for me. But it wasn’t in an envelope; it was just a sheet of paper and she held it by the corner as though it was still wet.

Her head was bent so low—so tucked in her furry collar that I hadn’t a notion—until she let the paper fall and almost fell herself on to the floor by the side of the bed, leaned her cheek against it, flung out her hands as though the last of her poor little weapons was gone and now she let herself be carried away, washed out into the deep water.

Flash! went my mind. Dick has shot himself, and then a succession of flashes while I rushed