The Trespasser | Page 7

_Pelléas_. When Vera had gone,
she asked, in the peculiar tone that made Siegmund shiver:
'Why do you consider the music of _Pelléas_ cold?'
Siegmund had struggled to answer. So they passed everything off,
without mention, after Helena's fashion, ignoring all that might be
humiliating; and to her much was humiliating.
For years she had come as pupil to Siegmund, first as a friend of the
household. Then she and Louisa went occasionally to whatever hall or
theatre had Siegmund in the orchestra, so that shortly the three formed
the habit of coming home together. Then Helena had invited Siegmund
to her home; then the three friends went walks together; then the two
went walks together, whilst Louisa sheltered them.
Helena had come to read his loneliness and the humiliation of his lot.
He had felt her blue eyes, heavily, steadily gazing into his soul, and he
had lost himself to her.

That day, three weeks before the end of the season, when Vera had so
insulted Helena, the latter had said, as she put on her coat, looking at
him all the while with heavy blue eyes: 'I think, Siegmund, I cannot
come here any more. Your home is not open to me any longer.' He had
writhed in confusion and humiliation. As she pressed his hand, closely
and for a long time, she said: 'I will write to you.' Then she left him.
Siegmund had hated his life that day. Soon she wrote. A week later,
when he lay resting his head on her lap in Richmond Park, she said:
'You are so tired, Siegmund.' She stroked his face, and kissed him
softly. Siegmund lay in the molten daze of love. But Helena was, if it is
not to debase the word, virtuous: an inconsistent virtue, cruel and ugly
for Siegmund.
'You are so tired, dear. You must come away with me and rest, the first
week in August.'
His blood had leapt, and whatever objections he raised, such as having
no money, he allowed to be overridden. He was going to Helena, to the
Isle of Wight, tomorrow.
Helena, with her blue eyes so full of storm, like the sea, but, also like
the sea, so eternally self-sufficient, solitary; with her thick white throat,
the strongest and most wonderful thing on earth, and her small hands,
silken and light as wind-flowers, would be his tomorrow, along with
the sea and the downs. He clung to the exquisite flame which flooded
him....
But it died out, and he thought of the return to London, to Beatrice, and
the children. How would it be? Beatrice, with her furious dark eyes,
and her black hair loosely knotted back, came to his mind as she had
been the previous day, flaring with temper when he said to her:
'I shall be going away tomorrow for a few days' holiday.'
She asked for detail, some of which he gave. Then, dissatisfied and
inflamed, she broke forth in her suspicion and her abuse, and her

contempt, while two large-eyed children stood listening by. Siegmund
hated his wife for drawing on him the grave, cold looks of
condemnation from his children.
Something he had said touched Beatrice. She came of good family, had
been brought up like a lady, educated in a convent school in France. He
evoked her old pride. She drew herself up with dignity, and called the
children away. He wondered if he could bear a repetition of that
degradation. It bled him of his courage and self-respect.
In the morning Beatrice was disturbed by the sharp sneck of the hall
door. Immediately awake, she heard his quick, firm step hastening
down the gravel path. In her impotence, discarded like a worn out
object, she lay for the moment stiff with bitterness.
'I am nothing, I am nothing,' she said to herself. She lay quite rigid for a
time.
There was no sound anywhere. The morning sunlight pierced vividly
through the slits of the blind. Beatrice lay rocking herself, breathing
hard, her finger-nails pressing into her palm. Then came the sound of a
train slowing down in the station, and directly the quick
'chuff-chuff-chuff' of its drawing out. Beatrice imagined the sunlight on
the puffs of steam, and the two lovers, her husband and Helena, rushing
through the miles of morning sunshine.
'God strike her dead! Mother of God, strike her down!' she said aloud,
in a low tone. She hated Helena.
Irene, who lay with her mother, woke up and began to question her.

_

Chapter 3_
In the miles of morning sunshine, Siegmund's shadows, his children,

Beatrice, his sorrow, dissipated like mist, and he was elated as a young
man setting forth to travel. When he had passed Portsmouth Town
everything had vanished but the old gay world of romance.