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Page 5
When it came to the worst of the dreadful necessary businesses that
followed, some of us somehow, managed to draw her from the
death-chamber into another room, and to keep her there, while others
of us got it over. It was snowing that afternoon, I remember, a
melancholy, hesitating snowstorm, with large moist flakes that
fluttered down irresolutely, and presently disintegrated into rain;
but we had not far to go. Then we returned to Nina, and for many days
and nights we never dared to leave her. You will guess whether the
question of her future, especially of her immediate future, weighed
heavily upon our minds. In the end, however, it appeared to have
solved itself--though I can't pretend that the solution was exactly
all we could have wished.
Her father had a half-brother (we learned this from his papers),
incumbent of rather an important living in the north of England. We
also learned that the brothers had scarcely seen each other twice in a
score of years, and had kept up only the most fitful correspondence.
Nevertheless, we wrote to the clergyman, describing the sad case of
his niece, and in reply we got a letter, addressed to Nina herself,
saying that of course she must come at once to Yorkshire, and consider
the rectory her home. I don't need to recount the difficulties we had
in explaining to her, in persuading her. I have known few more painful
moments than that when, at the Gare du Nord, half a dozen of us
established the poor, benumbed, bewildered child in her compartment,
and sent her, with our godspeed, alone upon her long journey--to her
strange kindred, and the strange conditions of life she would have to
encounter among them. From the Caf� Bleu to a Yorkshire parsonage! And
Nina's was not by any means a neutral personality, nor her mind a
blank sheet of paper. She had a will of her own; she had convictions,
aspirations, traditions, prejudices, which she would hold to with
enthusiasm because they had been her father's, because her father had
taught them to her; and she had manners, habits, tastes. She would be
sure to horrify the people she was going to; she would be sure to
resent their criticism, their slightest attempt at interference. Oh,
my heart was full of misgivings; yet--she had no money, she was
eighteen years old--what else could we advise her to do? All the same,
her face, as it looked down upon us from the window of her railway
carriage, white, with big terrified eyes fixed in a gaze of blank
uncomprehending anguish, kept rising up to reproach me for weeks
afterwards. I had her on my conscience as if I had personally wronged
her.
VI.
It was characteristic of her that, during her absence, she hardly
wrote to us. She is of far too hasty and impetuous a nature to take
kindly to the task of letter-writing; her moods are too inconstant;
her thoughts, her fancies, supersede one another too rapidly. Anyhow,
beyond the telegram we had made her promise to send, announcing her
safe arrival, the most favoured of us got nothing more than an
occasional scrappy note, if he got so much; while the greater number
of the long epistles some of us felt in duty bound to address to her,
elicited not even the semblance of an acknowledgment. Hence, about the
particulars of her experience we were quite in the dark, though of its
general features we were informed, succinctly, in a big, dashing,
uncompromising hand, that she 'hated' them.
VII.
I am not sure whether it was late in April or early in May that Nina
left us. But one day towards the middle of October, coming home from
the restaurant where I had lunched, I found in my letter box, in the
concierge's room, two half sheets of paper, folded, with the corners
turned down, and my name superscribed in pencil. The handwriting
startled me a little--and yet, no, it was impossible. Then I hastened
to unfold, and read, and of course it was the impossible which had
happened.
'Mon cher, I am sorry not to find you at home, but I'll wait at the
caf� at the corner till half-past twelve. It is now midi juste.' That
was the first. The second ran: 'I have waited till a quarter to one.
Now I am going to the Bleu for luncheon. I shall be there till three.'
And each was signed with the initials, N.C.
It was not yet two, so I had plenty of time. But you will believe that
I didn't loiter on that account. I dashed out of the _loge_--into the
street--down the Boulevard St. Michel--into the Bleu, breathlessly. At
the far end Nina was seated before a marble table, with Madame Chanve
in smiles and tears beside her. I heard a little cry; I felt myself
seized and enveloped for a moment by something like a whirlwind--oh,
but a very pleasant whirlwind, warm and fresh, and fragrant of
violets; I received two vigorous kisses, one on either cheek; and then
I was held off at arm's length, and examined by a pair of laughing
eyes.
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