Cynthia Stockley

MRS. PORTAL knew that Poppy was working as for her life, but she did not know why. Only, sometimes, out of the deep love and sympathy she felt for the girl, she longed to know the truth. The truth was far even from her far-seeing eyes.

She believed that there must be a man somewhere in the world whom Poppy loved, for well she knew that such a wound as Poppy hid could only have been dealt by a man's unerring hand—and none but a loved hand could strike so deep! With all the mystical-religious, loving side of her nature, Clem prayed that life might yet do well by her friend and give her her heart's desire; but hope did not rise very high. She was fond of quoting that saying:

"The things that are really for thee gravitate to thee. Everything that belongs to thee for aid or comfort shall surely come home through open or winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace."

—and she would have liked to believe it, but Life had taught her differently. In the meantime, in so far as she was able, she watched faithfully and anxiously over Poppy's destiny, dragging her from her desk when the lilac eyes grew heavy and the tinted face too pale for health; making up gay little parties to drive or walk or go to the theatre, arranging merry dinners and excursions—anything that would distract, and presently bring back vivacity and strength, and renew courage.

If it had not been for these things it is very certain that Poppy, with all her resolution and purpose, must have broken down from overwork and the strain of seeing the man she loved turn his eyes from her perpetually. For there were desperate hours when she obliged herself to face the fact that Evelyn Carson gave no sign of any feeling for her but a certain polite curiosity. In the black, despairing days that never fail to come to highly-strung, temperamental people, she bitterly derided herself, her work, her cause, asking what it was all for?

To win freedom from Luce Abinger and cast herself into the arms of Eve Carson? But were his arms open to her? Plainly not. Plainly here was another of the "little songs they sing in hell"—of the woman who loves, but is beloved not by the beloved.

Oh! she had her black and desperate days—

"And the half of a broken hope for a pillow at night."

But afterwards Hope played for her on the one brave string—and she took up her pen and worked on.

On a stormy, sullen day towards the end of April she wrote the concluding words of the two things she had been working on at the same time—a play and a novel. They contained the best work she had ever done, for though they were begun for the love of a man, they were gone forward with, for the love of her craft, and, as all good craftsmen know, it is only in such spirit that the best work is achieved. All that remained to do was to go over and through the manuscripts once more, when they had been typed, to polish here and re-phrase there; and just to linger over all for a day in sheer delight and surprise. She was not peculiar among writers, in that, apart from the plan and construction of a thing, she never remembered from day to day what she had written, and always felt the greatest surprise and freshness in re-reading passages which had sped from her mind to paper in inspired moments, and which, if not written at those moments, would have been lost for ever.

Schopenhauer was not the only person in the world to discover that a beautiful thought is like a beautiful woman. If you want to keep the one always you must tie her to you by marriage, if the other, you must tie it to you with pen and paper or it will leave you and never return.

On that morning when she made her finished work into two tall piles of exercise-books before her on her table, the measure of content was hers that is felt by even the heaviest-hearted when they look upon good work done.

She laid her head on the books and tears fell softly down, and her heart sang a little song that was pure thankfulness and praise for the goodness of God.

And while she sat, there came a little tap at the door.

Miss Allendner entered with a letter, and Poppy, taking it from her, saw that it was addressed in the small, strong writing she had not seen for years, but which she instantly recognised as Luce Abinger's. She laid it down mechanically on the table.

"Mr. Abinger brought it himself," said Miss Allendner, "and would not leave it until he heard that you were here and would receive it at once. He said it was very important."

"Thank you," said Poppy quietly, and sat staring at the letter long after her companion had left the room.

Afterwards, she laid her head on the books again, but wearily now, and the tears of her eyes were dried up and so was the little chant of praise in her heart. She was afraid—afraid of the letter; of the look she had seen in Luce Abinger's eyes of late—the old, hateful look—and of the fight before her. Now that she had done the work and would have the money to fight with, she was afraid. But only for a time. Those who have fought with any of the grim forces of life—sorrow, pain, poverty, despair—and defeated even the least of these in battle, have strength to fight again, and secret springs of courage to drink from in the hour of need. Poppy rose from her table at last with such new courage in her, that she could laugh disdainfully at the sealed letter and all it contained of threats, or commands. She left it sealed and lying there for some other hour's perusal. It should not spoil this her glad day of finished tasks.

She locked the door upon it and her work, and went to her room to change her gown and get ready to spend the rest of the day with Clem Portal. She would probably stay the night, but she took nothing with her, for she had now quite a collection of clothes at Clem's for emergencies.

---

On the afternoon of the same day she sat dreaming in a Madeira-chair in Clem's drawing-room, while the latter meditated on the piano, trying to compose an air sufficiently mournful to set to the words of a little song of Poppy's called "In Exile." Softly, she sang it over and over to long slurring chords—curiously sweet and strange.

I.

Across the purple heather
The winds of God blow sweet.
But it's O for the smell of London
And the roar of a London street!

II.

Upon the wine-dark waters
The sun strikes clean and hot.
But it's O for a London garden
And the woman who loves me not!

"You say you are no musician, Clem, but I never knew anyone who could make lovelier sounds come out of a piano," Poppy said.

Clem laughed.

"Dear, I can't play at all: it is this little song that sets chords singing in my head. What were you thinking of when you wrote it?"

"Of Dr. Ferrand, I think, that first Sunday I came here. You remember how he talked of London?—and you said that he had 'his own box of matches and could make his own hell any day in the week,' like poor Dick Heldar. The circumstances seemed to indicate that there was some woman in England who didn't love him—but I daresay that applies to a good many men out here."

"The most usual circumstance," said Clem laughing, "is that the woman loves too well. Some men find that hardest of all to bear."

Poppy reflected on this for a while.

"I suppose you mean wives! It is curious how many people seem to marry to live apart, isn't it, Clem?"

"Yes; I call it the cat-and-reptile game," said Clem, swinging round on the music-stool and beginning to run her hands through her crinkly, curly, fuzzy dark hair with seven red lights in it. "The cat catches the reptile, scratches him, bites him, wounds him, puts her mark on him for good, and as soon as he has no more kick left in him, off she goes and leaves him alone."

Poppy was laughing.

"Well, some of the reptiles make marvellous recoveries," said she, remembering one, at least, whom she had known.

"You can't blame them for that—it isn't very interesting to be dead, I suppose."

"As for the cats who don't leave their reptiles," continued Poppy, thinking of some of the dull people she had recently met, "nothing could be deader than the pair of them. And then they label themselves 'happily married.'"

"Now, Poppy, I won't have you walking over my cabbages and onions."

"I'm not, Clem—but they don't make marriage look alluring to anyone with an imagination, do they? Of course, it is wonderful to see your happiness——"

"Yes; Bill and I are rather wonderful"—Clem jumped up in a hurry—"I must absolutely go and get some socks and stockings to mend. There is a pile as big as a house waiting—" She flashed out of the room.

"She won't discuss her happiness with me," thought Poppy. "It is too sacred!"

By the time Clem came back a settled gloom was over everything; the rain was heavily pelting against the windows; occasionally a bright beam of light shot through the room, leaving it as grey as a witch; afterwards the thunder groaned like some god in agony.

"You won't be able to see to darn holes," said Poppy.

"Ah! you don't know Billy's holes," Clem answered sadly. "And Cinthie inherits the gentle trait. It is too bad, for I hate darning."

She settled as near the window as she dared, and sat peering her glimmering head over her work, while they talked in desultory fashion: but the storm got worse, the thunder groaned more terribly.

"God sounds as though He is tearing His heart out to throw it under the feet of dancing women and men," said Poppy, in a voice that rang with some unusual emotion.

Clem Portal looked at her in astonishment.

"Darling, I ought to rebuke you for blasphemy."

To her astonishment the girl burst into wild weeping.

"No ... it isn't blasphemy ... I am in pain, Clem ... these storms ... a storm like this reminds me of when I was a child ... I was once out in a storm like this."

"You?"

"Yes ... once ... on the veldt ... for three days."

"On the veldt!" repeated Clem; a streak of lightning tore through the room, showing her for an instant a tortured face. She reached out and took the girl's hands in hers, gripping them tight. Dimly, through the rumble of the thunder, she heard Poppy's voice.

"Yes ... out on the veldt ... I, whom you think have only been in Africa for a few months at a time ... I, the gently-nurtured English girl! ... educated at Cheltenham College! ... I did not actually tell you these things, Clem, but I let you believe them ... they are all lies ... I was born in Africa ... I have roamed the veldt lean and hungry ... been a little beaten vagabond in the streets."

"Dear," said Clem, with the utmost tenderness and gentleness; "what do these things matter—except that they have made you suffer? ... they have made you the woman you are, and that is all I care to know.... I have always known that there was a wound ... don't make it bleed afresh ... I love you too well to want to hear anything that it hurts to tell ... always believe this, Poppy ... I love and trust you above any woman I have ever known."

"Clem, you are too kind and good to me.... I am not worthy even to speak to you, to touch you.... It is nothing when I say I love you ... I bless you ... I think there is nothing in the world I would not do for you.... I did not know one woman could be so sweet to another as you have been to me ... you are like the priceless box of sweet-smelling nard that the harlot broke over the feet of Christ ... and I ... Ah! Christ! What am I?"

Dense blackness filled the room. In it nothing was heard but the sound of deep weeping. Outside the storm raged on. But when next a gleam of light flashed through the windows, the figure of a kneeling woman was revealed clasped in another woman's arms.

"I am weary of falseness, Clem ... weary of my lips' false tales ... since I have been near you and seen your true unafraid eyes ... the frank clear turn of your mouth that has never lied to anyone ... I have died many deaths ... you can never know how I have suffered ... pure women don't know what suffering there is in the world, it is no use pretending they do ... they are wonderful, they shine.... O! what wouldn't we give to shine with that lovely cold, pure glow ... but they can't take from us what our misery has bought."

"Poppy, don't tell me anything," the older woman said steadily. "I don't want to know ... whatever Life has made you do, or think, or say ... I don't care! I love you. I am your friend. I know that the root of you is sound. Who am I that I should sit in judgment? It is all a matter of luck ... God was good to me ... I had a good mother and a fleet foot ... when I smelt danger I ran ... I had been trained to run ... you had not, perhaps, and you stayed ... that's the only difference——"

Poppy laughed bitterly at the lame ending.

"The difference lies deeper than that ... you are generous, Clem, but truth is truth, and I should like to speak it to you now and always ... confession has no attractions for me, and I once told a man I should never confess to a woman——"

"Silence is always best, dear," Clem said. "When a woman learns to be silent about herself, she gains power that nothing else can give her. And words can forge themselves into such terrible weapons to be used against one—sometimes by hands we love."

"It would be a relief to clean my heart and lips to you, dear, once and for all. Let me tell you—even the name I use is not my own!"

"I don't care. What does a name matter?"

"Well, my name is not Rosalind Chard, nor Lucy Grey, nor Eve Destiny, nor Anne Latimer, nor Helen Chester, though I have called myself by all of these at some time in my life. My real name is Poppy Destin ... 'an Irish vagabond born in Africa.'"

"What do these things matter?"

"My life, for the last three years, has been a struggle in deep waters to keep myself from I know not what deeper deeps——"

"I have always maintained that a woman has a right to use whatever weapons come to hand in the fight with life, Poppy."

"So have I," Poppy laughed discordantly, "and my weapons have been—lies. Oh, how I have lied, Clem! All the tears of all the years cannot wash me clean of the lies I've told ... I feel you shivering ... you hate me!"

"No, Poppy—only I can't understand why! What could have been worth it?"

"Ah! you think nothing is worth blackening your soul for, Clem! That is where you will not understand."

"I will try to understand, dear one ... tell me. One thing I am sure of, it was never wanton. You had some miserable reason."

"Miserable! I am misery's own!" she cried passionately. "She marked me with a red cross before I was born.... Well! let me tell you ... have you ever noticed the look of candour and innocence about my face, Clem? More especially my eyes?... all lies! I am not candid; I am not innocent ... I never was ... even when I was twelve I could understand the untold tale of passion in an old black woman's eyes ... she had only one breast, and she showed me that as a reason for having no home and children of her own.... I understood without being told, that in the sweet hour of her life the cup was dashed from her lips ... her lover left her when he found her malformed.... Immediately I began to sing a pÆan of praise to the gods that my lover would never go lacking the gift of my breasts. I made a song—all Africa knows it now:

"'I thank thee, Love, for two round breasts——'"

"And what harm in that?" cried Clem, staunchly. "When Cinthie is twelve, will you want her to be thinking of lover's caresses?"

"You would not have been, either, if you'd had a mother's caresses. Your nature was starving for love, poor child!"

"You have a tender heart for sinners."

"I don't consider you a very bad sinner, darling."

"You don't know all the lies yet.... I am going to tell you something of what the last three years have been ... three years of lying to get a living ... lying to get money: the stage, governessing, serving in shops, nursing invalids, reading to old women ... there was a great variety about my rÔles in life, Clem, except for one faithful detail.... Everywhere I went and in everything I undertook, a man cropped up and stood in the path. There was something special about me, it seemed, that brought them unerringly my way—nothing less than my wonderful innocence. That drew them as the magnet draws steel ... lured them like a new gold-diggings.... And they all wanted to open the portals of knowledge for me ... to show me the golden way into the wondrous city of Love. And I?... I had the mouth and eyes of a saint! Sin was not for me.... I was pure as the untrodden snow! I looked into their eyes and asked them to spare me ... I told them I was good and adjured them by their mothers to leave me so. At first they were always deeply impressed, but later they became slightly bored.... The affair nearly always ended in weariness and a promise on my part never to forget that I had a real friend if I should ever want one, and I understood very well what that meant, but invariably I pretended that I did not, and went my way innocent-eyed.... But there were variations on this ... sometimes they insisted on showing me devoted friendship in the meantime ... and their purses were to hand. In such cases I always helped myself liberally ... I had an unerring instinct that I should shortly be seeking a new home—a new friend ... and that instinct never played me false ... soon I was on the 'out trail' once more, looking for a way to earn a living and stay pure and innocent. Once I was almost content with an old woman. I washed her and dressed her, and, incidentally, was sworn at by her ... but the salary was high.... Alas! like the widow of Nain she had an only son ... a decent boy, too ... but when he had looked into my eyes and found me good, there was the old tale to tell.... He used to give me lovely presents ... I was never too good to take presents, Clem—under protest.... He wanted to marry me, but marriage was not in my plan ... then the old mother found out, and I had to go. Another man in Birmingham, whose children I taught, gave me hundreds—just for being good! would have given me thousands only that his wife read memoranda of some sum once and flew to the worst conclusions ... she believed I had stolen her husband and was as bad as I could be ... no one could be surprised at what she called me ... but it was quite untrue in its literal meaning. I had to go back to London, and there was nothing at first to go back to but the stage.... I did not stay there long ... innocence is not very valuable on the stage—except in the play!... and though I have a special talent for acting off the stage, I am too nervous on it to open my lips ... so there was no hope for advancement that way ... I had to begin again on the old round."

"But, Poppy, dear, forgive me, I can't understand—why? why?... what was it all for?"

"For money, Clem. I wanted money."

"I can't believe it!—Oh! not for money!"

"Yes; for money. Some women are bad for money; there is nothing they will not do to get gold in their hands. I was good for money ... a saint, an angel, a virgin—most especially a virgin."

"Don't hurt me like this," Clem said. "Whatever you say can make no difference to me. I will love you. I will be your friend. But—is there anything in the world that money can get that was worth it all? I ask out of sheer curiosity—is there?"

Poppy answered her "Yes!" And after a long time a few words dropped into the silence of the room.

"I wanted the money for my child."

The storm had died away at last, leaving a terrible peace behind it. The colour of the evening sky was sard-green, than which nothing can be more despairing.

Mrs. Portal sat with her head drooped forward a little as if very tired, and Poppy arose from her seat, pushed open a window, and stood looking out. The smell of wet steaming earth came into the room. Presently, speaking very softly, she continued her narrative:

"I wanted all the money I could get for my son. He had no name, no heritage ... his father ... had, I believed, married another woman. I was resolved that he should at least have all money could give him.... I thought that when he grew up he would turn from me in any case as a woman who had shamed him and robbed him of his birthright, so that it did not matter what I did while he was yet young, and yet loved me, to insure him health, a fine education, and a future. First it was to give him the bare necessaries of life, later to provide a home in the country where he could grow up strong and well under good, kind care ... then, my thoughts were for his future ... Oh! I hoped to redeem my soul by his future, Clem!... So I worked and lied ... and lied and took ... and lied and saved ... not often with my lips did I lie, Clem ... but always with my eyes. I had at last amassed nearly eight hundred pounds ... you will think that remarkable, if you will remember that always I amassed it virtuously ... that there is no man of all I met in those years who can call me anything but a good woman—abominably, disgustingly, vilely good.

"And then ... I was introduced to a financier, who, because of the charm of my innocent eyes, told me that, in a few weeks, he would transform my eight hundred pounds into eight thousand pounds. Incidentally, he remarked that we must see more of each other ... and I looked into his eyes and saw that they were not innocent,—and that there would be a difficult day of reckoning for me later on ... but for eight thousand pounds, and secure in mailed armour of purity, I risked that ... especially as he was just leaving England for a few weeks ... I handed over my eight hundred pounds without a qualm, for he had a great name in the financial world. In less than three weeks his dead body was being hauled over the side of a yacht in the Adriatic, and my eight hundred pounds was deader than Dead-Sea fruit, for I never heard of it again ... nor wanted to ... the need of it was gone ... my boy was dead!"

"Poppy! Poppy!" Clem got up and drew the girl down to the floor by her side. "Rest your head on me dear ... you are tired ... life has been too hard for you.

"'Dost thou know, O happy God!——'

"Life has been brutal to you. I think of my own sheltered childhood, and compare it with yours—flung out into the fiery sands of the desert to die or survive, as best you might!... The strange thing is that your face bears no sign of all the terrible things that have overtaken you! I see no base, vile marks anywhere on you, Poppy.... It cannot all be acting ... no one is clever enough to mask a soiled soul for ever, and from everyone, if it really is soiled.... You look good—not smirking, soft goodness that means nothing, but brave, strong goodness ... and I know that that look is true ... and so I can love you, after all these things you have told me ... I can love you better than ever. But why is it, Poppy?"

"I don't know. If it is so, the reason must be that all was done for Love, Clem ... because always I had a sweet thing at my heart ... the love I bore to my child, and to the father of my child. Because, like the mother of Asa, 'I built an altar in a grove' and laid my soul upon it for Love. I want to tell you something further. Being good, as the world calls it, has no charm for me. Many of the men I have spoken of had a sinister attraction. I understood what they felt. I looked into eyes and saw things there that had answers deep down in me. I am a child of passionate Africa, Clem ... the blood in my veins runs as hot and red as the colour of a poppy.... It is an awful thing to look into the eyes of a man you do not love and see passion staring there—and feel it urging in your own veins, too. It is an awful thing to know what it is that he is silently demanding, and what that basely answers in your own nature.... Yet there are worse things than this knowledge. A worse thing, surely, would have been to have gone hurtling over the precipice with some Gadarene swine!... Clem, if I had been really innocent those years, nothing could have saved me. I should have gone to the devil, as they call it, with some vile man I had no love for, just because I didn't know how to keep out of the traps laid for me by my own nature—and then I should have 'been at the devil' indeed! But I had bought knowledge with the price of my girlhood ... and I had mated with my own right man.... I had looked at life, if only for an hour, with love-anointed eyes ... and so, it came to pass that I had a memory to live for, and a child to fight for ... and courage to fight my greatest enemy—myself. I think no one who knew the workings of my heart would deny me courage, Clem."

"No, and it is a noble quality, child—the noblest, I think, when it is used to fight one's own baser nature. That only would keep a woman beautiful ... it is to that you owe your beauty, dear."

"Then it is to you I owe it to a great extent—for it was you who first put the creed into me of courage—and silence—and endurance. Do you remember the night you wished me good-bye over your gate, Clem?"

"I remember everything—but, dear, there is one thing that grieves and bewilders me—why, why could you not have earned a clean, fine living with your pen ... where was your gift of writing?"

"It left me, Clem, when I tried to earn money with it. I could not write. I tried and tried. I sat to it until my eyes sank into my head and hollows came to my cheeks—until we were hungry, my little Pat and I—and cold. For bread and firing I had to leave it, and turn to other things. After the boy died ... it came back and mocked me. I wrote then to ease my pain ... and everything I have written since has been successful ... found a ready market and in some sort Fame ... but it was all too late!"

"Poor child! everything has mocked you!" Clem put her arms round the girl and kissed her tenderly; then drew away and assumed an ordinary pose, for a maid had come into the room bringing lights, and with the intimation that she was about to sound the dressing-bell, as it wanted only half an hour to dinner-time.

"Heavens!" cried Clem; "and I hear Billy's voice in the garden; Eve Carson's, too, I believe. Fly to your room, Poppy. I expect Sarah has laid out one of your gowns."