Revelations

From eight o’clock in the morning until about half-past eleven Monica

Tyrell suffered from her nerves, and suffered so terribly that these

hours were—agonizing, simply. It was not as though she could control

them. “Perhaps if I were ten years younger . . .” she would say. For

now that she was thirty-three she had queer little way of referring to

her age on all occasions, of looking at her friends with grave,

childish eyes and saying: “Yes, I remember how twenty years ago . . .”

or of drawing Ralph’s attention to the girls—real girls—with lovely

youthful arms and throats and swift hesitating movements who sat near

them in restaurants. “Perhaps if I were ten years younger . . .”

“Why don’t you get Marie to sit outside your door and absolutely forbid

anybody to come near your room until you ring your bell?”

“Oh, if it were as simple as that!” She threw her little gloves down

and pressed her eyelids with her fingers in the way he knew so well.

“But in the first place I’d be so conscious of Marie sitting there,

Marie shaking her finger at Rudd and Mrs. Moon, Marie as a kind of

cross between a wardress and a nurse for mental cases! And then,

there’s the post. One can’t get over the fact that the post comes, and

once it has come, who—who—could wait until eleven for the letters?”

His eyes grew bright; he quickly, lightly clasped her. “_My_ letters,

darling?”

“Perhaps,” she drawled, softly, and she drew her hand over his reddish

hair, smiling too, but thinking: “Heavens! What a stupid thing to say!”

But this morning she had been awakened by one great slam of the front

door. Bang. The flat shook. What was it? She jerked up in bed,

clutching the eiderdown; her heart beat. What could it be? Then she

heard voices in the passage. Marie knocked, and, as the door opened,

with a sharp tearing rip out flew the blind and the curtains,

stiffening, flapping, jerking. The tassel of the blind knocked—knocked

against the window. “Eh-h, _voilà!_” cried Marie, setting down the tray

and running. “_C’est le vent, Madame. C’est un vent insupportable._”

Up rolled the blind; the window went up with a jerk; a whitey-greyish

light filled the room. Monica caught a glimpse of a huge pale sky and a

cloud like a torn shirt dragging across before she hid her eyes with

her sleeve.

“Marie! the curtains! Quick, the curtains!” Monica fell back into the

bed and then “Ring-ting-a-ping-ping, ring-ting-a-ping-ping.” It was the

telephone. The limit of her suffering was reached; she grew quite calm.

“Go and see, Marie.”

“It is Monsieur. To know if Madame will lunch at Princes’ at one-thirty

to-day.” Yes, it was Monsieur himself. Yes, he had asked that the

message be given to Madame immediately. Instead of replying, Monica put

her cup down and asked Marie in a small wondering voice what time it

was. It was half-past nine. She lay still and half closed her eyes.

“Tell Monsieur I cannot come,” she said gently. But as the door shut,

anger—anger suddenly gripped her close, close, violent, half strangling

her. How dared he? How dared Ralph do such a thing when he knew how

agonizing her nerves were in the morning! Hadn’t she explained and

described and even—though lightly, of course; she couldn’t say such a

thing directly—given him to understand that this was the one

unforgivable thing.

And then to choose this frightful windy morning. Did he think it was

just a fad of hers, a little feminine folly to be laughed at and tossed

aside? Why, only last night she had said: “Ah, but you must take me

seriously, too.” And he had replied: “My darling, you’ll not believe

me, but I know you infinitely better than you know yourself. Every

delicate thought and feeling I bow to, I treasure. Yes, laugh! I love

the way your lip lifts”—and he had leaned across the table—“I don’t

care who sees that I adore all of you. I’d be with you on mountain-top

and have all the searchlights of the world play upon us.”

“Heavens!” Monica almost clutched her head. Was it possible he had

really said that? How incredible men were! And she had loved him—how

could she have loved a man who talked like that. What had she been

doing ever since that dinner party months ago, when he had seen her

home and asked if he might come and “see again that slow Arabian

smile”? Oh, what nonsense—what utter nonsense—and yet she remembered at

the time a strange deep thrill unlike anything she had ever felt

before.

“Coal! Coal! Coal! Old iron! Old iron! Old iron!” sounded from below.

It was all over. Understand her? He had understood nothing. That

ringing her up on a windy morning was immensely significant. Would he

understand that? She could almost have laughed. “You rang me up when

the person who understood me simply couldn’t have.” It was the end. And

when Marie said: “Monsieur replied he would be in the vestibule in case

Madame changed her mind,” Monica said: “No, not verbena, Marie.

Carnations. Two handfuls.”

A wild white morning, a tearing, rocking wind. Monica sat down before

the mirror. She was pale. The maid combed back her dark hair—combed it

all back—and her face was like a mask, with pointed eyelids and dark

red lips. As she stared at herself in the blueish shadowy glass she

suddenly felt—oh, the strangest, most tremendous excitement filling her

slowly, slowly, until she wanted to fling out her arms, to laugh, to

scatter everything, to shock Marie, to cry: “I’m free. I’m free. I’m

free as the wind.” And now all this vibrating, trembling, exciting,

flying world was hers. It was her kingdom. No, no, she belonged to

nobody but Life.

“That will do, Marie,” she stammered. “My hat, my coat, my bag. And now

get me a taxi.” Where was she going? Oh, anywhere. She could not stand

this silent flat, noiseless Marie, this ghostly, quiet, feminine

interior. She must be out; she must be driving quickly—anywhere,

anywhere.

“The taxi is there, Madame.” As she pressed open the big outer doors of

the flats the wild wind caught her and floated her across the pavement.

Where to? She got in, and smiling radiantly at the cross, cold-looking

driver, she told him to take her to her hairdresser’s. What would she

have done without her hairdresser? Whenever Monica had nowhere else to

go to or nothing on earth to do she drove there. She might just have

her hair waved, and by that time she’d have thought out a plan. The

cross, cold driver drove at a tremendous pace, and she let herself be

hurled from side to side. She wished he would go faster and faster. Oh,

to be free of Princes’ at one-thirty, of being the tiny kitten in the

swansdown basket, of being the Arabian, and the grave, delighted child

and the little wild creature. . . . “Never again,” she cried aloud,

clenching her small fist. But the cab had stopped, and the driver was

standing holding the door open for her.

The hairdresser’s shop was warm and glittering. It smelled of soap and

burnt paper and wallflower brilliantine. There was Madame behind the

counter, round, fat, white, her head like a powder-puff rolling on a

black satin pin-cushion. Monica always had the feeling that they loved

her in this shop and understood her—the real her—far better than many

of her friends did. She was her real self here, and she and Madame had

often talked—quite strangely—together. Then there was George who did

her hair, young, dark, slender George. She was really fond of him.

But to-day—how curious! Madame hardly greeted her. Her face was whiter

than ever, but rims of bright red showed round her blue bead eyes, and

even the rings on her pudgy fingers did not flash. They were cold,

dead, like chips of glass. When she called through the wall-telephone

to George there was a note in her voice that had never been there

before. But Monica would not believe this. No, she refused to. It was

just her imagination. She sniffed greedily the warm, scented air, and

passed behind the velvet curtain into the small cubicle.

Her hat and jacket were off and hanging from the peg, and still George

did not come. This was the first time he had ever not been there to

hold the chair for her, to take her hat and hang up her bag, dangling

it in his fingers as though it were something he’d never seen

before—something fairy. And how quiet the shop was! There was not a

sound even from Madame. Only the wind blew, shaking the old house; the

wind hooted, and the portraits of Ladies of the Pompadour Period looked

down and smiled, cunning and sly. Monica wished she hadn’t come. Oh,

what a mistake to have come! Fatal. Fatal. Where was George? If he

didn’t appear the next moment she would go away. She took off the white

kimono. She didn’t want to look at herself any more. When she opened a

big pot of cream on the glass shelf her fingers trembled. There was a

tugging feeling at her heart as though her happiness—her marvellous

happiness—were trying to get free.

“I’ll go. I’ll not stay.” She took down her hat. But just at that

moment steps sounded, and, looking in the mirror, she saw George bowing

in the doorway. How queerly he smiled! It was the mirror of course. She

turned round quickly. His lips curled back in a sort of grin,

and—wasn’t he unshaved?—he looked almost green in the face.

“Very sorry to have kept you waiting,” he mumbled, sliding, gliding

forward.

Oh, no, she wasn’t going to stay. “I’m afraid,” she began. But he had

lighted the gas and laid the tongs across, and was holding out the

kimono.

“It’s a wind,” he said. Monica submitted. She smelled his fresh young

fingers pinning the jacket under her chin. “Yes, there is a wind,” said

she, sinking back into the chair. And silence fell. George took out the

pins in his expert way. Her hair tumbled back, but he didn’t hold it as

he usually did, as though to feel how fine and soft and heavy it was.

He didn’t say it “was in a lovely condition.” He let it fall, and,

taking a brush out of a drawer, he coughed faintly, cleared his throat

and said dully: “Yes, it’s a pretty strong one, I should say it was.”

She had no reply to make. The brush fell on her hair. Oh, oh, how

mournful, how mournful! It fell quick and light, it fell like leaves;

and then it fell heavy, tugging like the tugging at her heart. “That’s

enough,” she cried, shaking herself free.

“Did I do it too much?” asked George. He crouched over the tongs. “I’m

sorry.” There came the smell of burnt paper—the smell she loved—and he

swung the hot tongs round in his hand, staring before him. “I shouldn’t

be surprised if it rained.” He took up a piece of her hair, when—she

couldn’t bear it any longer—she stopped him. She looked at him; she saw

herself looking at him in the white kimono like a nun. “Is there

something the matter here? Has something happened?” But George gave a

half shrug and a grimace. “Oh, no, Madame. Just a little occurrence.”

And he took up the piece of hair again. But, oh, she wasn’t deceived.

That was it. Something awful had happened. The silence—really, the

silence seemed to come drifting down like flakes of snow. She shivered.

It was cold in the little cubicle, all cold and glittering. The nickel

taps and jets and sprays looked somehow almost malignant. The wind

rattled the window-frame; a piece of iron banged, and the young man

went on changing the tongs, crouching over her. Oh, how terrifying Life

was, thought Monica. How dreadful. It is the loneliness which is so

appalling. We whirl along like leaves, and nobody knows—nobody cares

where we fall, in what black river we float away. The tugging feeling

seemed to rise into her throat. It ached, ached; she longed to cry.

“That will do,” she whispered. “Give me the pins.” As he stood beside

her, so submissive, so silent, she nearly dropped her arms and sobbed.

She couldn’t bear any more. Like a wooden man the gay young George

still slid, glided, handed her her hat and veil, took the note, and

brought back the change. She stuffed it into her bag. Where was she

going now?

George took a brush. “There is a little powder on your coat,” he

murmured. He brushed it away. And then suddenly he raised himself and,

looking at Monica, gave a strange wave with the brush and said: “The

truth is, Madame, since you are an old customer—my little daughter died

this morning. A first child”—and then his white face crumpled like

paper, and he turned his back on her and began brushing the cotton

kimono. “Oh, oh,” Monica began to cry. She ran out of the shop into the

taxi. The driver, looking furious, swung off the seat and slammed the

door again. “Where to?”

“Princes’,” she sobbed. And all the way there she saw nothing but a

tiny wax doll with a feather of gold hair, lying meek, its tiny hands

and feet crossed. And then just before she came to Princes’ she saw a

flower shop full of white flowers. Oh, what a perfect thought.

Lilies-of-the-valley, and white pansies, double white violets and white

velvet ribbon. . . . From an unknown friend. . . . From one who

understands. . . . For a Little Girl. . . . She tapped against the

window, but the driver did not hear; and, anyway, they were at Princes’

already.