about to start a theatre, and she was awfully keen on interior decoration, a young man, Eddie
Warren, who had just published a little book of poems and whom everybody was asking to dine,
and a “find” of Bertha's called Pearl Fulton. What Miss Fulton
25
did, Bertha didn’t know. They had
met at the club and Bertha had fallen in love with her, as she always did fall in love with beautiful
women who had something strange about them.
The provoking thing was that, though they had been about together and met a number of
times and really talked, Bertha couldn’t make her out. Up to a certain point Miss Fulton was rarely,
wonderfully frank, but the certain point was there, and beyond that she would not go.
Was there anything beyond it? Harry said “No.”
26
Voted her dullish, and “cold like all
blonde women, with a touch, perhaps, of anaemia of the brain.” But Bertha wouldn't agree with
him; not yet, at any rate.
“No, the way she has of sitting with her head a little on one side, and smiling, has
something behind it, Harry, and I must find out what that something is.”
“Most likely it’s a good stomach,” answered Harry.
He made a point of catching Bertha’s heels with replies of that kind... “liver frozen, my
dear girl,” or “pure flatulence,” or “kidney disease”, ...and so on. For some strange reason Bertha
liked this, and almost admired it in him very much.
She went into the drawing-room and lighted the fire; then, picking up the cushions, one by
one, that Mary had disposed so carefully, she threw them back on to the chairs and the couches.
27
That made all the difference; the room came alive at once. As she was about to throw the last one
she surprised herself by suddenly hugging it to her, passionately, passionately.
28
But it did not put
out the fire in her bosom. Oh, on the contrary!
The windows of the drawing-room opened on to a balcony overlooking the garden. At the
far end, against the wall, there was a tall, slender pear tree
29
in fullest, richest bloom;
30
it stood
perfect, as though becalmed against the jade-green sky. Bertha couldn’t help feeling, even from
this distance, that it had not a single bud or a faded petal.
31
Down below, in the garden beds, the red
and yellow tulips, heavy with flowers, seemed to lean upon the dusk. A grey cat, dragging its belly,
crept across the lawn,
32
and a black one, its shadow, trailed after. The sight of them,
33
so intent and
so quick, gave Bertha a curious shiver.
“What creepy things cats are!” she stammered, and she turned away from the window and
began walking up and down...
How strong the jonquils smelled in the warm room. Too strong? Oh, no. And yet, as
though overcome, she flung down on a couch and pressed her hands to her eyes.
“I’m too happy – too happy!” she murmured.
And she seemed to see on her eyelids the lovely pear tree with its wide open blossoms as a
symbol of her own life.
Really – really – she had everything. She was young. Harry and she were as much in love
as ever, and they got on together splendidly and were really good pals. She had an adorable baby.
They didn’t have to worry about money.
34
They had this absolutely satisfactory house and garden.
And friends – modern, thrilling friends, writers and painters and poets or people keen on social
questions – just the kind of friends they wanted. And then there were books, and there was music,
and she had found a wonderful little dressmaker, and they were going abroad in the summer, and
their new cook made the most superb omelettes. . . .
“I’m absurd. Absurd!” She sat up; but she felt quite dizzy, quite drunk. It must have been
the spring.
35
Yes, it was the spring. Now she was so tired she could not drag herself upstairs to dress.
A white dress, a string of jade beads, green shoes and stockings. It wasn’t intentional. She
had thought of this scheme hours before she stood at the drawing-room window.
Her petals
36
rustled softly into the hall, and she kissed Mrs. Norman Knight, who was
taking off the most amusing orange coat with a procession of black monkeys round the hem and up
the fronts.
“ ...Why! Why! Why is the middle-class so stodgy – so utterly without a sense of humour!
My dear, it’s only by a fluke that I am here at all – Norman being the protective fluke. For my
darling monkeys so upset the train that it rose to a man and simply ate me with its eyes. Didn’t
laugh – wasn’t amused – that I should have loved. No, just stared–and bored me through and