Rudd said that Miss Brandon was the same towards everyone. Profoundly indifferent, that is to say. He did not think, he was, in fact, quite certain that there was not a soul at Haréville who raised a ripple of interest on the perfectly level surface of her resigned discontent.

Then we went out into the park and listened to the music.

CHAPTER VI

The day after Rudd dined with me I was summoned by telegram to London. My favourite sister, who is married and whom I seldom see, was seriously ill. She wanted to see me. I started at once for London and found matters better than I expected, but still rather serious. I stayed with my sister nearly a month, by which time she was convalescent. Kennaway insisted on my going back to Haréville to finish my cure.

When I got back, I found all the members of the group to which I had become semi-attached still there, and I made a new acquaintance: Mrs. Summer, who had just come back from the Lakes. I know little about her. I can only guess at her appearance. I know that she is married and that she cannot be very young and that is all. On the other hand, I feel now that I know a great deal about her.

We sat after dinner in the park. She is a friend of Miss Brandon's. We talked of her. Mrs. Summer said:

"The air here has done her such a lot of good."

She meant to say: "She is looking much better than she did when she arrived," but she did not want to talk about looks to me.

I said: "She must get tired of coming here year after year."

Mrs. Summer said that Miss Brandon hated London almost as much.

I said: "You have known her a long time?"

She said: "All her life. Ever since she was tiny."

I asked what her father was like.

"He was very selfish, violent-tempered, and rather original. When he dined out he always took his champagne with him in a pail and in a four-wheeler. He lived in an old house in the south of Ireland. He was not really Irish. He had been a soldier. He played picquet with Jean every evening. He went up to London two months every year – not in the summer. He liked seeing the Christmas pantomime. He was devoted to Jean, but tyrannized over her. He never let her out of his sight.

"When he died he left nothing. The house in Ireland was sold, and the house in London, a house in Bedford Square. I think there were illegitimate children. In Ireland he entertained the neighbours, talked politics, and shouted at his guests, and quarrelled with everyone."

I presumed he was not a Radical. I was right.

I said I supposed Miss Brandon could never escape.

She had been engaged to be married once, but money – the want of it – made the marriage impossible. Even if there had been money she doubted.

"Because of the father?" I said.

"Yes, she would never have left him. She couldn't have left him."

"Did the father like the young man?"

"Yes, he liked him, but regarded him as quite impossible, quite out of the question as a husband."

I said I supposed he would have thought anyone else equally out of the question.

"Of course," she said. "It was pure selfishness – "

I asked what had happened to the young man.

He was in the army, but left it because it was too expensive. He went out to the Colonies – South Africa – as A.D.C. He was there now.

"Still unmarried?" I asked.

Mrs. Summer said he would never marry anyone else. He had never looked at anyone else. He was supposed, at one time, to have liked an Italian lady, but that was all nonsense.

She felt I did not believe this.

"You don't believe me," she said. "But I promise you it's true. He is that kind of man – terribly faithful; faithful and constant. You see, Jean isn't an ordinary girl. If one once loved her it would be difficult to love anyone else. She was just the same when he knew her as she is now."

"Except younger."

"She is just as beautiful now, at least she could be – "

"If someone told her so."

"Yes, if someone thought so. Telling wouldn't be necessary."

"Perhaps someone will."

Mrs. Summer said it was extremely unlikely she would ever meet anyone abroad who would be the kind of man.

I said I thought life was a play in which every entrance and exit was arranged beforehand, and the momentous entrance and the scène à faire might quite as well happen at Haréville as anywhere else.

Mrs. Summer made no comment. I thought to myself: "She knows about Kranitski and doesn't want to discuss it."

"The man who marries Jean would be very lucky," she said. "Jean is – well – there is no one like her. She's more than rare. She's introuvable."

I said that Rudd thought she would never marry anyone.

"Perhaps not," she said, "but if Mr. Rudd is right about her he will be right for the wrong reasons. Sometimes the people who see everything wrong are right. It is very irritating."

I asked her if she thought Rudd was always wrong.

"I don't know," she said, "but he would be wrong about Jean. Wrong about you. Wrong about me. Wrong about Princess Kouragine, and wrongest of all about Netty Lennox. Perhaps his instincts as an artist are right. I think people's books are sometimes written by someone else, a kind of planchette. All the authors I have met have been so utterly and completely wrong about everything that stared them in the face."

I asked whether she liked his books.

Yes, she liked them, but she thought they were written by a familiar spirit. She couldn't fit him into his books.

"Then," I said, "supposing he wrote a book about Miss Brandon, however wrong he might be about her, the book might turn out to be true."

She didn't agree. She thought if he wrote a book about an imaginary Miss Jones it might turn out to be right in some ways about Jean Brandon, and in some ways about a hundred other people; but if he set out to write a book about Jean it would be wrong.

"You mean," I said, "he is imaginative and not observant?"

"I mean," she said, "that he writes by instinct, as good actors act."

She said there was a Frenchman at the hotel who had told her that he had seen a rehearsal of a complicated play, in which a great actress was acting. The author was there. He explained to the actress what he wanted done. She said: "Yes, I see this, and this, and this." Everything she said was terribly wide of the mark, the opposite of what he had meant. He saw she hadn't understood a word he had said. Then the actress got on to the stage and acted it exactly as if she understood everything.

"I think," she said, "that Mr. Rudd is like that."

I asked Mrs. Summer if she knew Kranitski.

"Just a little," she said. "What do you think about him?"

I said I liked him.

"He's very quick and easy to get on with," she said.

"Like all Russians."

"Like all Russians, but I don't think he's quite like all Russians, at least not the kind of Russians one meets."

"No, more like the Russians one doesn't meet."

"Tolstoi's Russians. Yes. It's a pity they have such a genius for unhappiness."

I said I thought Kranitski did not seem unhappy.

"No, but more as if he had just recovered than if he was quite well."

I said I thought he gave one the impression that he was capable of being very happy. There was nothing gloomy about him.

"All people who are unhappy are generally very happy, too," she said, "at least they are often very…"

"Gay?" I suggested.

She agreed.

I said I thought he was more than an unhappy person with high spirits, which one saw often enough. He gave me the impression of a person capable of solid happiness, the kind of business-like happiness that comes from a fundamental goodness.

"Yes, he might, be like that," she said, "only one doesn't know quite what his life has been and is."

She meant she knew all too well that his life had not been one in which happiness was possible.

I agreed.

"One knows so little about other people."

"Nothing," I said. "Perhaps he is miserable. He ought to marry. I feel he is very domestic."

"I sometimes think," she said, "that the people who marry – the men I mean – are those who want the help and support of a woman, women are so far stronger and braver than men; and that those who don't marry are sometimes those who are strong enough to face life without this help. Of course, there are others who aren't either strong enough or weak enough to need it, but they don't matter."

I said I supposed she thought Kranitski would be strong enough to do without marriage.

"I think so," she said, "but then, I hardly know him."

"Does your theory apply to women, too?" I asked. "Are there some women who are strong enough to face life alone?"

She said women were strong enough to do either. In either case life was for them just as difficult.

I asked if she thought Miss Brandon would be happier married or not married.

"Jean would never marry unless she married the right person, the man she wanted to marry," she said.

"Would the person she wanted to marry," I said, "necessarily be the right person?"

"He would be more right for her, whatever the drawbacks, than anyone else."

I said I supposed nearly everyone thought they were marrying the right person, and yet how strangely most marriages turned out.

"Nothing better than marriage has been invented, all the same," she said, "and if people marry when they are old enough…"

"To know better," I said.

"Yes, it doesn't then turn out so very badly as a rule."

I said that as things were at present Miss Brandon's life seemed to me completely wasted.

"So it is, but it might be worse. It might be a tragedy. Supposing she married someone who became fond of someone else."

"She would mind," I said.

"She would mind terribly."

I said I thought people always got what they wanted in the long run. If she wanted a marriage of a definite kind she would probably end by getting it.

Mrs. Summer agreed in the main, but she thought that although one often did get what one wanted in the long run, it often came either too late or not quite at the moment when one wanted it, or one found when one had got it that it was after all not quite what one had wanted.

"Then," I said, "you think it is no use wanting anything?"

"No use," she said, "no use whatever."

"You are a pessimist."

"I am old enough to have no illusions."

"But you want other people to have illusions?"

"I think there is such a thing as happiness in the world, and that when you see someone who might be happy, missing the chance of it, it's a pity. That's all."

Then I said:

"You want other people to want things."

"Other people? Yes," she said. "Quite dreadfully I want it."

At that moment Mrs. Lennox came up to us and said:

"I have won five hundred francs, and I had the courage to leave the Casino. I can't think what has happened to Jean. I have been looking for her the whole evening." I left them and went into the hotel.

CHAPTER VII

It was the morning after the conversation I had with Mrs. Summer that I received a message from Miss Brandon. She wanted to speak to me. Could I be, about five o'clock, at the end of the alley? I was punctual at the rendezvous.

"I wanted to have a talk," she said, "to-day, if possible, because to-morrow Aunt Netty has organized an expedition to the lakes, and the day after we are all going to the races, so I didn't know when I should see you again."

"But you are not going away yet, are you?" I asked.

No, they were not going away, they would very likely stay on till the end of July. Then there was an idea of Switzerland; or perhaps the Mozart festival at Munich, followed by a week at Bayreuth. Mr. Rudd was going to Bayreuth, and had convinced Mrs. Lennox that she was a Wagnerite.

"I thought you couldn't be going away yet – but one never knows, here people disappear so suddenly, and I wanted to see you so particularly and at once. You are going to finish your cure?"

I said my time limit was another fortnight. After that I was going back to my villa at Cadenabbia.

"Shall you come here next year?"

I said it depended on my doctor. I asked her her plans.

"I don't think I shall come back next year."

There was a slight note of suppressed exultation in her voice. I asked whether Mrs. Lennox was tired of Haréville.

"Aunt Netty loves it, better than ever. Mr. Rudd has promised her to come too."

There was a long pause.

"I can't bear it any longer," she said at last.

"Haréville?"

"Haréville and all of it – everything."

There was another long pause. She broke it.

"You talked to Mabel Summer yesterday?"

I said we had had a long talk.

"I'm sure you liked her?"

I said I had found her delightful.

"She's my oldest friend, although she's older than I am. Poor Mabel, she's had a very unhappy life."

I said one felt in her the sympathy that came from experience.

"Oh yes, she's so brave; she's wonderful."

I said I supposed she'd had great disappointments.

"More than that. Tragedies. One thing after another."

I asked whether she had any children.

"Her two little girls both died when they were babies. But it wasn't that. She'll tell you all about it, perhaps, some day."

I said I doubted whether we would ever meet again.

"Mabel always keeps up with everybody she makes friends with. She doesn't often make new friends. She told me she had made two new friends here. You and Kranitski."

"She likes him?" I said.

"She likes him very much. She's very fastidious, very hard to please, very critical."

I said everyone seemed to like Kranitski.

"Aunt Netty says he's commonplace, but that's because Mr. Rudd said he was commonplace."

I said Rudd always had theories about people.

"You like Mr. Rudd?" she asked.

I said I did, and reminded her that she had told me she did.

"If you want to know the truth," she said, "I don't. I think he's awful." She laughed. "Isn't it funny? A week ago I would have rather died than admit this to you, but now I don't care. Of course I know he's a good writer and clever and subtle, and all that – but I've come to the conclusion – "

"To what conclusion?"

"Well, that I don't – that I like the other sort of people better."

"The stupid people?"

"No."

"The clever people?"

"No."

"What people?"

"I don't know. Nice people."

"People like – "

"People like Mabel Summer and Princess Kouragine," she interrupted.

"They are both very clever, I think," I said.

"Yes, but it's not that that matters."

I said I thought intelligence mattered a great deal.

"When it's natural," she said.

"Do you think people can become religious if they're not?" she asked suddenly.

I said that I didn't feel that I could, but it certainly did happen to some people.

"I'm afraid it will never happen to me," she said. "I used to hope it might never happen, but now I hope the opposite. Last night, after you went in, Aunt Netty took us to the café, and we all sat there: Mr. Rudd, Mabel, a Frenchman whose name I don't know, and M. Kranitski. The Frenchman was talking about China, and said he had stayed with a French priest there. The priest had asked him why he didn't go to Mass. The Frenchman said he had no faith. The priest had said it was quite simple, he had only to pray to the Sainte Vierge for faith, Mon enfant, c'est bien simple: il faut demander la foi à la Sainte Vierge. He said this, imitating the priest, in a falsetto voice. They all laughed except M. Kranitski, who said, seriously, 'Of course, you should ask the Sainte Vierge.' When the Frenchman and M. Kranitski went away, Mr. Rudd said that in matters of religion Russians were childish, and that M. Kranitski has a simpliste mind."

I said that Kranitski was obviously religious.

"Yes," she said, "but to be like that, one must be born like that."

I said that curious explosions often happened to people. I had heard people talk of divine dynamite.

"Yes, but not to the people who want them to happen."

I said perhaps the method of the French priest in China was the best.

"Yes, if only one could do it – I can't."

I said that I felt as she did about these things.

"I know so many people who are just in the same state," she said. "Perhaps it's like wishing to be musical when one isn't. But after all one does change, doesn't one?"

I said some people did, certainly. When one was in one frame of mind one couldn't imagine what it would be like to be in another.

"Yes," she said, "but I suppose there's a difference between being in one frame of mind and not wishing ever to be in another, and in being in the same frame of mind but longing to be in another."

I asked if she knew how long Kranitski was going to stay at Haréville.

"Oh, I don't know," she said, "it all depends."

"On his health?"

"I don't think so. He's quite well."

"Religion must be all or nothing," I said, going back to the topic.

"Yes, of course."

"If I was religious I should – "

She interrupted me in the middle of my sentence.

"Mr. Rudd is writing a book," she said. "Aunt Netty asked him what it was about, and he said it was going to be a private book, a book that he would only write in his holidays for his own amusement. She asked him whether he had begun it. He said he was only planning it, but he had got an idea. He doesn't like Mabel Summer. He thinks she is laughing at him. She isn't really, but she sees through him. I don't mean he pretends to be anything he isn't, but she sees all there is to see, and no more. He likes one to see more. Aunt Netty sees a great deal more. I see less probably. I'm unfair to him, I know. I know I'm very intolerant. You are so tolerant."

I said I wasn't really, but kept my intolerances to myself out of policy. It was a prudent policy for one in my position.

"Mr. Rudd adores you," she said. "He says you are so acute, so sensitive and so sensible."

I said I was a good listener.

"Has he told you about his book?"

I said that he had told me what he had told them.

"M. Kranitski has such a funny idea about it," she said.

I asked what the idea was.

"He thinks he is writing a book about all of us."

"Who is the heroine?" I asked.

"Mabel – I think," she said. "She's so pretty. Mr. Rudd admires her. He said she was like a Tanagra, and I can see she puzzles him. He's afraid of her."

"And who is the hero?" I asked.

"I can't imagine," she said. "I expect he has invented one."

"Why is the book private?"

"Because it's about real people."

"Then we may all of us be in it?"

"Yes."

"What made Kranitski think that?" I asked.

"The way he discusses all our characters. Each person who isn't there with all the others who are there. For instance, he discusses Princess Kouragine with Aunt Netty, and Mabel with Princess Kouragine, and you with all of us; and M. Kranitski says he talks about people like a stage manager settling what actors must be cast for a particular play. He checks what one person tells him with what the others say. I have noticed it myself. He talked to me for hours about Mabel one day, and after he had discussed Princess Kouragine with us, he asked Mabel what she thought of her. That is to say, he told her what he thought, and then asked her if she agreed. I don't think he listened to what she said. He hardly ever listens. He talks in monologues. But there must be someone there to listen."

"You have left out one of the characters," I said.

"Have I?"

"The most important one."

"The hero?"

"And the heroine."

"He's sure to invent those."

"I'm not so sure, I think you have left out the most important character."

"I don't think so."

"I mean yourself."

"Oh no, that's nonsense; he never pays any attention to me at all. He doesn't talk about me to Aunt Netty or to the others."

"Perhaps he has made up his mind."

"Yes," she said slowly, "that's just it. He has made up his mind. He thinks I'm a – well, just a lay figure."

I said I was certain she would not be left out if he was writing that kind of book.

She laughed happily – so happily that I imagined her looking radiant and felt that the lamp was lit. I asked her why she was laughing.

"I'm laughing," she said, "because in one sense my novel is over – with the ordinary happy, conventional ending – the reason I wanted to talk to you to-day was to tell you – "

At that moment Mrs. Lennox joined us. Miss Brandon's voice passed quite naturally into another key, as she said:

"Here is Aunt Netty."

"I have been looking for you everywhere," said Mrs. Lennox, "I've got a headache, and we've so many letters to write. When we've done them you can watch me doing my patience."

She said these last words as if she was conferring an undeserved reward on a truant child.