Fraternity. Galsworthy John
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figure rather fuller and more graceful, her hair darker, her eyes, too, darker and more deeply set, her cheek-bones higher, her colouring richer. That spirit of the age, Disharmony, must have presided when a child so vivid and dark-coloured was christened Bianca.
Mr. Purcey, however, was not a man who allowed the finest shades of feeling to interfere with his enjoyments. She was a “strikin’-lookin’ woman,” and there was, thanks to Harpignies, a link between them.
“Your father and I, Mrs. Dallison, can’t quite understand each other,” he began. “Our views of life don’t seem to hit it off exactly.”
“Really,” murmured Bianca; “I should have thought that you’d have got on so well.”
“He’s a little bit too – er – scriptural for me, perhaps,” said Mr. Purcey, with some delicacy.
“Did we never tell you,” Bianca answered softly, “that my father was a rather well – known man of science before his illness?”
“Ah!” replied Mr. Purcey, a little puzzled; “that, of course. D’you know, of all your pictures, Mrs. Dallison, I think that one you call ‘The Shadow’ is the most rippin’. There’s a something about it that gets hold of you. That was the original, wasn’t it, at your Christmas party – attractive girl – it’s an awf’ly good likeness.”
Bianca’s face had changed, but Mr. Purcey was not a man to notice a little thing like that.
“If ever you want to part with it,” he said, “I hope you’ll give me a chance. I mean it’d be a pleasure to me to have it. I think it’ll be worth a lot of money some day.”
Bianca did not answer, and Mr. Purcey, feeling suddenly a little awkward, said: “I’ve got my car waiting. I must be off – really.” Shaking hands with all of them, he went away.
When the door had closed behind his back, a universal sigh went up. It was followed by a silence, which Hilary broke.
“We’ll smoke, Stevie, if Cis doesn’t mind.”
Stephen Dallison placed a cigarette between his moustacheless lips, always rather screwed up, and ready to nip with a smile anything that might make him feel ridiculous.
“Phew!” he said. “Our friend Purcey becomes a little tedious. He seems to take the whole of Philistia about with him.”
“He’s a very decent fellow,” murmured Hilary.
“A bit heavy, surely!” Stephen Dallison’s face, though also long and narrow, was not much like his brother’s. His eyes, though not unkind, were far more scrutinising, inquisitive, and practical; his hair darker, smoother.
Letting a puff of smoke escape, he added:
“Now, that’s the sort of man to give you a good sound opinion. You should have asked him, Cis.”
Cecilia answered with a frown:
“Don’t chaff, Stephen; I’m perfectly serious about Mrs. Hughs.”
“Well, I don’t see what I can do for the good woman, my dear. One can’t interfere in these domestic matters.”
“But it seems dreadful that we who employ her should be able to do nothing for her. Don’t you think so, B.?”
“I suppose we could do something for her if we wanted to badly enough.”
Bianca’s voice, which had the self-distrustful ring of modern music, suited her personality.
A glance passed between Stephen and his wife.
“That’s B. all over!” it seemed to say…
“Hound Street, where they live, is a horrid place.”
It was Thyme who spoke, and everybody looked round at her.
“How do you know that?” asked Cecilia.
“I went to see.”
“With whom?”
“Martin.”
The lips of the young man whose name she mentioned curled sarcastically.
Hilary asked gently:
“Well, my dear, what did you see?”
“Most of the doors are open – ”
Bianca murmured: “That doesn’t tell us much.”
“On the contrary,” said Martin suddenly, in a deep bass voice, “it tells you everything. Go on.”
“The Hughs live on the top floor at No. 1. It’s the best house in the street. On the ground-floor are some people called Budgen; he’s a labourer, and she’s lame. They’ve got one son. The Hughs have let off the first-floor front-room to an old man named Creed – ”
“Yes, I know,” Cecilia muttered.
“He makes about one and tenpence a day by selling papers. The back-room on that floor they let, of course, to your little model, Aunt B.”
“She is not my model now.”
There was a silence such as falls when no one knows how far the matter mentioned is safe to, touch on. Thyme proceeded with her report.
“Her room’s much the best in the house; it’s airy, and it looks out over someone’s garden. I suppose she stays there because it’s so cheap. The Hughs’ rooms are – ” She stopped, wrinkling her straight nose.
“So that’s the household,” said Hilary. “Two married couples, one young man, one young girl” – his eyes travelled from one to another of the two married couples, the young man, and the young girl, collected in this room – “and one old man,” he added softly.
“Not quite the sort of place for you to go poking about in, Thyme,” Stephen said ironically. “Do you think so, Martin?”
“Why not?”
Stephen raised his brows, and glanced towards his wife. Her face was dubious, a little scared. There was a silence. Then Bianca spoke:
“Well?” That word, like nearly all her speeches, seemed rather to disconcert her hearers.
“So Hughs ill-treats her?” said Hilary.
“She says so,” replied Cecilia – “at least, that’s what I understood. Of course, I don’t know any details.”
“She had better get rid of him, I should think,” Bianca murmured.
Out of the silence that followed Thyme’s clear voice was heard saying:
“She can’t get a divorce; she could get a separation.”
Cecilia rose uneasily. These words concreted suddenly a wealth of half-acknowledged doubts about her little daughter. This came of letting her hear people talk, and go about with Martin! She might even have been listening to her grandfather – such a thought was most disturbing. And, afraid, on the one hand, of gainsaying the liberty of speech, and, on the other, of seeming to approve her daughter’s knowledge of the world, she looked at her husband.
But Stephen did not speak, feeling, no doubt, that to pursue the subject would be either to court an ethical, even an abstract, disquisition, and this one did not do in anybody’s presence, much less one’s wife’s or daughter’s; or to touch on sordid facts of doubtful character, which was equally distasteful in the circumstances. He, too, however, was uneasy that Thyme should know so much.
The dusk was gathering outside; the fire threw a flickering light, fitfully outlining their figures, making those faces, so familiar to each other, a little mysterious.
At last Stephen broke the silence. “Of course, I’m very sorry for her, but you’d better let it alone – you can’t tell with that sort of people; you never can make out what they want – it’s safer not to meddle. At all events, it’s a matter for a Society to look into first!”
Cecilia answered: “But she’s, on my conscience, Stephen.”
“They’re all on my conscience,”