John Powys - Wood and Stone

How happy the little Dolores looked, between Lacrima and Vennie, her dark curls waving in the wind from beneath her grey cap!

All at once his mind reverted to James Andersen, lying now alone and motionless, under six feet of yellow clay. Mr. Quincunx shivered. After all it was something to be alive still, something to be still able to stroke one’s beard and stretch one’s legs, and fumble in one’s pocket for a “Three Castles” cigarette!

He wondered vaguely how and when this young St. Catharine of theirs intended to marry him to Lacrima. And then what? Would he have to work frightfully, preposterously hard?

He chuckled to himself to think how blank Mr. Romer would look, when he found that both his victims had been spirited away in one breath. What a girl this Vennie Seldom was!

He tried to imagine what it would be like, this business of being married. After all, he was very fond of Lacrima. He hoped that dusky wavy hair of hers were as long as it suggested that it was! He liked girls to have long hair.

Would she bring him his tea in the morning, sometimes, with bare arms and bare feet? Would she sit cross-legged at the foot of his bed, while he drank it, and chatter to him of what they would do when he came back from his work?

His work! That was an aspect of the affair which certainly might well be omitted.

And then, as he stared at the three girlish figures on the beach, there came over him the strange illusion that both Vennie and Lacrima were only dream-people — unreal and fantastic — and that the true living persons of his drama were himself and his little Neapolitan waif.

Suppose the three girls were to take a boat — one of those boats whose painted keels he saw glittering now so pleasantly on the beach — and row out into the water. And suppose the boat were upset and both Vennie and Lacrima drowned? Would he be so sad to have to live the rest of his life alone with the little Dolores?

Perhaps it would be better if this event occurred after Vennie had helped him to secure some work to do — some not too hard work! Well — Vennie, at any rate, was going to be drowned in a certain sense, at least she was meditating entering a convent, and that was little different from being drowned, or being buried in yellow clay, like James Andersen!

But Lacrima was not meditating entering a convent. Lacrima was meditating being married to him, and being a mother to their adopted child. He hoped she would be a gentle mother. If she were not, if she ever spoke crossly to Dolores, he would lose his temper. He would lose his temper so much that he would tremble from head to foot! He called up an imaginary scene between them, a scene so vivid that he found himself trembling now, as his hand rested upon the paper parcel.

But perhaps, if by chance they left England and went on a journey, — Witch-Bessie had found a journey, “a terrible journey,” in the lines of his hand, — Lacrima would catch a fever in some foreign city, and he and Dolores would be left alone, quite as alone as if she were drowned today!

But perhaps it would be he, Maurice Quincunx, who would catch the fever. No! He did not like these “terrible journeys.” He preferred to sit on a seat on Weymouth Esplanade and watch Dolores laughing and running into the sea and picking up shells.

The chief thing was to be alive, and not too tired, or too cold, or too hungry, or too harassed by insolent aggressive people! How delicious a thing life could be if it were only properly arranged! If cruelty, and brutality, and vulgarity, and office-work , were removed!

He could never be cruel to anyone. From that worst sin, — if one could talk of such a thing as sin in this mad world, — his temperament entirely saved him. He hoped when they were married that Lacrima would not want him to be too sentimental about her. And he rather hoped that he would still have his evenings to himself, to turn over the pages of Rabelais, when he bad kissed Dolores good night.

His meditations were interrupted at this point by the return of his companions, who came scrambling across the shingle, threading their way among the boats, laughing and talking merrily, and trailing long pieces of sea-weed in their hands.

Vennie announced that since it was nearly four o’clock it would be advisable for them to secure their lodging for the night, and when that was done she would leave them to their own devices for an hour or two, while she proceeded to the Gloucester Hotel to have her interview with Ralph Dangelis.

Their various sea-spoils being all handed over to the excited little foundling, they walked slowly along the Esplanade, still bearing to the east, while they surveyed the appearance of the various “crescents,” “terraces,” and “rows” on the opposite side of the street. It was not till they arrived at the very end of these, that Vennie, who had assumed complete responsibility for their movements, piloted them across the road.

The houses they now approached were entitled “Brunswick Terrace,” and they entirely fulfilled their title by suggesting, in the pleasant liberality of their bay-windows and the mellow dignity of their well-proportioned fronts, the sort of solid comfort which the syllables “Brunswick” seem naturally to convey. They began their enquiries for rooms, about five doors from the end of the terrace, but it was not till they reached the last house, — the last except two reddish-coloured ones of later date, — that they found what they wanted.

It was arranged that the two Italians should share a room together. Vennie elected to sleep in a small apartment adjoining theirs, while Mr. Quincunx was given a front-room, looking out on the sea, on the third floor.

Vennie smiled to herself as she thought how amazed her mother would have been could she have seen her at that moment, as she helped Lacrima to unpack their solitary piece of luggage, while Mr. Quincunx smoked cigarettes in the balcony of the window!

She left them finally in the lodging-house parlour, seated on a horse-hair sofa, watching the prim landlady preparing tea. Vennie refused to wait for this meal, being anxious — she said — to get her interview with the American well over, for until that moment had been reached, she could neither discuss their future plans calmly, nor enjoy the flavour of the adventure.

When Vennie had left them, and the three were all comfortably seated round the table, Mr. Quincunx found Lacrima in so radiant a mood that he began to feel a little ashamed of his ambiguous meditations on the Esplanade. She was, after all, quite beautiful in her way, — though, of course, not as beautiful as the young Neapolitan, whose eyes had a look in them, even when she was happy, which haunted one and filled one with vague indescribable emotions.

Mr. Quincunx himself was in the best of spirits. His beard wagged, his nostrils quivered, his wit flowed. Lacrima fixed her eyes upon him with delighted appreciation, — and led him on and on, through a thousand caprices of fancy. The poor Pariah’s heart was full of exquisite happiness. She felt like one actually liberated from the tomb. For the first time since she had known anything of England she was able to breathe freely and spontaneously and be her natural self.

For some queer reason or other, her thoughts kept reverting to James Andersen, but reverting to him with neither sadness nor pity. She felt no remorse for not having been present when he was buried that morning. She did not feel as though he were buried. She did not feel as though he were dead. She felt, in some strange way, that he had merely escaped from the evil spells of Nevilton, and that in the power of his new strength he was the cause of her own emancipation.

And what an emancipation it was! It was like suddenly becoming a child again — a child with power to enjoy the very things that children so often miss.