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Septimus

<h2>[291]CHAPTER XXII</h2> The little flat in Chelsea, cleaned, swept and garnished by the wife of the porter of the Mansions, received Emmy, her babe, Madame Bolivard and multitudinous luggage. All the pretty fripperies and frivolities had been freshened and refurbished since their desecration at alien hands, and the place looked cheery and homelike; but Emmy found it surprisingly small, and was amazed to discover the prodigious space taken up by the baby. When she drew Septimus's attention to this phenomenon he accounted for it by saying that it was because he had such a very big name, which was an excellent thing in that it would enable him to occupy a great deal of room in the universe when he grew up. She busied herself all the morning about the flat, happier than she had been for a whole year. Her days of Hagardom were over. The menacing shadow of the finger of scorn pointing at her from every airt of heaven had disappeared. A clear sky welcomed her as she came back to take up an acknowledged position in the world. The sense of release from an intolerable ban outweighed the bitterness of old associations. She was at home, in London, among dear familiar things and faces. She was almost happy. When Madame Bolivard appeared with bonnet and basket undismayedly prepared to market for lunch and dinner, she laughed like a schoolgirl, and made her repeat the list of English words she had taught her in view of this[292] contingency. She could say "cabbage," "sugar," "lettuce," and ask for all sorts of things. "But suppose you lose your way, Madame Bolivard?" "I shall find it, madame." "But how will you ask for directions? You know you can't say 'Ecclefechan Mansions.'" Madame Bolivard made a hopeless, spluttering sound as if she were blowing teeth out of her mouth, which in no wise resembled the name of the place wherein she dwelt. But Madame Bolivard, as has been remarked, was a brave femme; and allons donc! this was the least of the difficulties she had had to encounter during her life. Emmy bade her godspeed in her perils among the greengrocers. She went blithely about her household tasks, and sang and cooed deliciously to the child lying in its bassinette. Every now and then she looked at the clock over the mantelpiece, wondering why Septimus had not come. Only in the depths of her heart—depths which humans in their every-day life dare not sound too frequently—did she confess how foolishly she longed for him. He was late. With Emmy, Septimus never broke an appointment. To insure his being at a certain place at a certain time to meet her he took the most ingenious and complicated precautions. Before now he had dressed overnight and gone to sleep in his clothes so as to be ready when the servant called him in the morning. Emmy, knowing this, after the way of women began to grow anxious. When, therefore, she opened the flat door to him she upbraided him with considerable tenderness. "It was Clem Sypher," he explained, taking off his overcoat. "He sent for me. He wanted me badly. Why, I don't know. At least I do half know, but the other half I don't. He's a magnificent fellow." [293]A little later, after Septimus had inspected her morning's work in the flat, and the night's progress in the boy's tooth, and the pretty new blouse which she had put on in his honor, and the rose in her bosom taken from the bunch he had sent to greet her arrival in the flat the night before, and after he had heard of the valorous adventure of Madame Bolivard and of a message from Hégisippe Cruchot which she had forgotten to deliver overnight, and of an announcement from Zora to the effect that she would call at Ecclefechan Mansions soon after lunch, and of many things of infinite importance, Emmy asked him what Clem Sypher had been doing, and wherein lay the particular magnificence of character to which Septimus had alluded. "He's awfully splendid," said Septimus. "He has given up a fortune for the sake of an idea. He also gave me an umbrella and his blessing. Emmy"—he looked at her in sudden alarm—"did I bring an umbrella with me?" "You did, dear, and you put it in the stand; but what you've done with the blessing, I don't know." "I've got it in my heart," said he. "He's a tremendous chap." Emmy's curiosity was excited. She sat on the fender seat and bent forward, her hands on her knees, in a pretty girlish attitude and fixed her forget-me-not eyes on him. "Tell me all about it." He obeyed and expounded Sypher's quixotism in his roundabout fashion. He concluded by showing her how it had been done for Zora's sake. Emmy made a little gesture of impatience. "Zora!" she exclaimed jealously. "It's always Zora. To see how you men go on, one would think there was no other woman in the world. Every one does crazy things[294] for her, and she looks on calmly and never does a hand's turn for anybody. Clem Sypher's a jolly sight too good for her." Septimus looked pained at the disparagement of his goddess. Emmy sprang to her feet and put her finger-tips on his shoulders. "Forgive me, dear. Women are cats—I've often told you—and love to scratch even those they're fond of. Sometimes the more they love them the harder they scratch. But I won't scratch you any more. Indeed I won't." The sound of the latch-key was heard in the front door. "There's Madame Bolivard," she cried. "I must see what miracle of loaves and fishes she has performed. Do mind baby till I come back." She danced out of the room, and Septimus sat on a straight-backed chair beside the bassinette. The baby—he was a rather delicate child considerably undergrown for his age, but a placid, uncomplaining little mortal—looked at Septimus out of his blue and white china eyes and contorted his india-rubber features into a muddle indicative of pleasure, and Septimus smiled cordially at the baby. "William Octavius Oldrieve Dix," he murmured—an apostrophe which caused the future statesman a paroxysm of amusement—"I am exceedingly glad to see you. I hope you like London. We're great friends, aren't we? And when you grow up, we're going to be greater. I don't want you to have anything to do with machinery. It stops your heart beating and makes you cold and unsympathetic and prevents women from loving you. You mustn't invent things. That's why I am going to make you a Member of Parliament—a Conservative member." William Octavius, who had been listening attentively,[295] suddenly chuckled, as if he had seen a joke. Septimus's gaze conveyed sedate reproof. "When you laugh you show such a deuce of a lot of gum—like Wiggleswick," said he. The baby made no reply. The conversation languished. Septimus bent down to examine the tooth, and the baby clutched a tiny fistful of upstanding hair as a reaper clutches a handful of wheat. Septimus smiled and kissed the little crinkled, bubbly lips and fell into a reverie. William Octavius went fast asleep. When Emmy returned she caught an appealing glance from Septimus and rescued him, a new Absalom. "You dear thing," she cried, "why didn't you do it yourself?" "I was afraid of waking him. It's dangerous to wake babies suddenly. No, it isn't babies; it's somnambulists. But he may be one, you see, and as he can't walk we can't tell. I wonder whether I could invent an apparatus for preventing somnambulists from doing themselves damage." Emmy laughed. "You can invent nothing so wonderful as Madame Bolivard," she cried gaily. "She is contemptuous of the dangers of English marketing. 'The people understood me at once,' she said. She evidently has a poor opinion of them." Septimus stayed to lunch, a pleasant meal which made them bless Hégisippe Cruchot for introducing them to the aunt who could cook. So far did their gratitude go that Septimus remarked that it would only be decent to add "Hégisippe" to the baby's names. But Emmy observed that he should have thought of that before; the boy had already been christened; it was too late. They drank the Zouave's health instead in some fearful and wonderful red[296] wine which Madame Bolivard had procured from heaven knows what purveyor of dangerous chemicals. They thought it excellent. "I wonder," said Emmy, "whether you know what this means to me." "It's home," replied Septimus, with an approving glance around the little dining-room. "You must get me a flat just like this." "Close by?" "If it's too close I might come here too often." "Do you think that possible?" she said, with as much wistfulness as she dare allow herself. "Besides, you have a right." Septimus explained that as a Master of Arts of the University of Cambridge he had a right to play marbles on the Senate House steps, a privilege denied by statute to persons in statu pupillari, but that he would be locked up as a lunatic if he insisted on exercising it. After a pause Emmy looked at him, and said with sudden tragicality: "I'm not a horrible, hateful worry to you, Septimus?" "Lord, no," said Septimus. "You don't wish you had never set eyes on me?" "My dear girl!" said Septimus. "And you wouldn't rather go on living quietly at Nunsmere and not bother about me any more? Do tell me the truth." Septimus's hand went to his hair. He was unversed in the ways of women. "I thought all that was settled long ago," he said. "I'm such a useless creature. You give me something to think about, and the boy, and his education, and his teeth. And[297] he'll have whooping cough and measles and breeches and things, and it will be frightfully interesting." Emmy, elbow on table and chin in hand, smiled at him with a touch of audacity in her forget-me-not eyes. "I believe you're more interested in the boy than you are in me." Septimus reddened and stammered, unable, as usual, to express his feelings. He kept to the question of interest. "It's so different," said he. "I look on the boy as a kind of invention." She persisted. "And what am I?" He had one of his luminous inspirations. "You," said he, "are a discovery." Emmy laughed. "I do believe you like me a little bit, after all." "You've got such beautiful finger-nails," said he. Madame Bolivard brought in the coffee. Septimus in the act of lifting the cup from tray to table let it fall through his nervous fingers, and the coffee streamed over the dainty table-cloth. Madame Bolivard appealed fervently to the Deity, but Emmy smiled proudly as if the spilling of coffee was a rare social accomplishment. Soon after this Septimus went to his club with orders to return for tea, leaving Emmy to prepare for her meeting with Zora. He had offered to be present at this first interview so as to give her his support, and corroborate whatever statement as to his turpitudes she might care to make in explanation of their decision to live apart. But Emmy preferred to fight her battle single-handed. Alone he had saved the situation by his very vagueness. In conjunction with herself there was no knowing what he might do, for she had resolved to exonerate him from all blame and to[298] attribute to her own infirmities of disposition this calamitous result of their marriage. Now that the hour of meeting approached she grew nervous. Unlike Zora, she had not inherited her father's fearlessness and joy of battle. The touch of adventurous spirit which she had received from him had been her undoing, as it had led her into temptation which the gentle, weak character derived from her mother had been powerless to resist. All her life she had been afraid of Zora, subdued by her splendid vitality, humbled before her more generous accomplishment. And now she was to fight for her honor and her child's and at the same time for the tender chivalry of the odd, beloved creature that was her husband. She armed herself with woman's weapons, and put on a brave face, though her heart thumped like some devilish machine, racking her mercilessly. The bell rang. She bent over the boy asleep in the bassinette and gave a mother's touch or two to the tiny coverlet. She heard the flat door open and Zora's rich voice inquire for Mrs. Dix. Then Zora, splendid, deep bosomed, glowing with color, bringing with her a perfume of furs and violets, sailed into the room and took her into her arms. Emmy felt fluffy and insignificant. "How well you're looking, dear. I declare you are prettier than ever. You've filled out. I didn't come the first thing this morning as I wanted to, because I knew you would find everything topsy-turvy in the flat. Septimus is a dear, but I haven't much faith in his domestic capabilities." "The flat was in perfect order," said Emmy. "Even that bunch of roses in a jar." "Did he remember to put in the water?" Zora laughed, meaning to be kind and generous, to make[299] it evident to Emmy that she had not come as a violent partisan of Septimus, and to lay a pleasant, familiar foundation for the discussion in prospect. But Emmy resented the note of disparagement. "Of course he did," she said shortly. Zora flew to the bassinette and glowed womanlike over the baby. A beautiful child, one to be proud of indeed. Why hadn't Emmy dear proclaimed his uniqueness in the world of infants? From the references in her letters he might have been the ordinary baby of every cradle. "Oh, you ought to be such a happy woman!" she cried, taking off her furs and throwing them over the back of a chair. "Such a happy woman!" An involuntary sigh shook her. The first words had been intended to convey a gentle reproof; nature had compelled the reiteration on her own account. "I'm happy enough," said Emmy. "I wish you could say that with more conviction, dear. 'Happy enough' generally means 'pretty miserable.' Why should you be miserable?" "I'm not. I have more happiness than I deserve. I don't deserve much." Zora put her arm round her sister's waist. "Never mind, dear. We'll try to make you happier." Emmy submitted to the caress for a while and then freed herself gently. She did not reply. Not all the trying of Zora and all the Ladies Bountiful of Christendom could give her her heart's desire. Besides, Zora, with her large air of smiling dea ex machina was hopelessly out of tone with her mood. She picked up the furs. "How lovely. They're new. Where did you get them?" The talk turned on ordinary topics. They had not met[300] for a year, and they spoke of trivial happenings. Emmy touched lightly on her life in Paris. They exchanged information as to their respective journeys. Emmy had had a good crossing the day before, but Madame Bolivard, who had faced the hitherto unknown perils of the deep with unflinching courage, had been dreadfully seasick. The boy had slept most of the time. Awake he had been as good as gold. "He's the sweetest tempered child under the sun." "Like his father," said Zora, "who is both sweet tempered and a child." The words were a dagger in Emmy's heart. She turned away swiftly lest Zora should see the pain in her eyes. The intensity of the agony had been unforeseen. "I hope the little mite has a spice of the devil from our side of the family," added Zora, "or it will go hard with him. That's what's wrong with poor Septimus." Emmy turned with a flash. "There's nothing wrong with Septimus. I wouldn't change him for any man in the world." Zora raised surprised eyebrows and made the obvious retort: "Then, my dear, why on earth don't you live with him?" Emmy shrugged her shoulders, and looked out of the window. There was a block of flats over the way, and a young woman at a window immediately opposite was also looking out. This irritated her. She resented being stared at by a young woman in a flat. She left the window and sat on the sofa. "Don't you think, Zora, you might let Septimus and myself arrange things as we think best? I assure you we are quite capable of looking after ourselves. We meet in the friendliest way possible, but we have decided to occupy[301] separate houses. It's a matter that concerns ourselves entirely." Zora was prepared for this attitude, which she had resolved not to countenance. She had come, in all her bravery, to bring Emmy to her senses. Emmy should be brought. She left the bassinette and sat down near her sister and smiled indulgently. "My dearest child, if you were so-called 'advanced people' and held all sorts of outrageous views, I might understand you. But you are two very ordinary folk with no views at all. You never had any in your life, and if Septimus had one he would be so terribly afraid of it that he would chain it up. I'm quite certain you married without any idea save that of sticking together. Now, why haven't you?" "I make Septimus miserable. I can't help it. Sooner than make him unhappy I insist upon this arrangement. There!" "Then I think you are very wicked and heartless and selfish," said Zora. "I am," said Emmy defiantly. "Your duty is to make him happy. It would take so little to do that. You ought to give him a comfortable home and teach him to realize his responsibilities toward the child." Again the stab. Emmy's nerve began to give way. For the first time came the wild notion of facing Zora with the whole disastrous story. She dismissed it as crazy. "I tell you things can't be altered." "But why? I can't imagine you so monstrous. Give me your confidence, darling." "There's nothing to give." "[302]I'm sure I could put things right for you at once if I knew what was wrong. If it's anything to do with Septimus," she added in her unwisdom and with a charming proprietary smile, "why, I can make him do whatever I like." "Even if we had quarreled," cried Emmy, losing control of her prudence, "do you suppose I would let you bring him back to me?" "But why not?" "Have you been so blind all this time as not to see?" Emmy knew her words were vain and dangerous, but the attitude of her sister, calm and confident, assuming her air of gracious patronage, irritated her beyond endurance. Zora's smile deepened into indulgent laughter. "My dearest Emmy, you don't mean to say that it's jealousy of me? But it's too ridiculous. Do you suppose I've ever thought of Septimus in that way?" "You've thought of him just as you used to think of the bob-tailed sheep dog we had when we were children." "Well, dear, you were never jealous of my attachment to Bobbie or Bobbie's devotion to me," said Zora, smilingly logical. "Come, dear, I knew there was only some silly nonsense at the bottom of this. Look. I'll resign every right I have in poor Septimus." Emmy rose. "If you call him 'poor Septimus' and speak of him in that tone, you'll drive me mad. It's you that are wicked and heartless and selfish." "I?" cried Zora, aghast. "Yes, you. You accept the love and adoration of the noblest gentleman that God ever put into the world, and you treat him and talk of him as if he were a creature of no account. If you were worthy of being loved by him, I[303] shouldn't he jealous. But you're not. You've been so wrapped up in your own magnificence that you've not even condescended to notice that he loved you. And even now, when I tell you, you laugh, as if it were preposterous that 'poor Septimus' could ever dare to love you. You drive me mad." Zora drew herself up angrily. To make allowances for a silly girl's jealousy was one thing; it was another to be accused in this vehement fashion. Conscious of her innocence, she said: "Your attack on me is entirely unjustifiable, Emmy. I have done nothing." "That's why," retorted Emmy quickly. "You've done nothing. Men are sacrificing their lives and fortunes for you, and you do nothing." "Lives and fortunes? What do you mean?" "I mean what I say," cried Emmy desperately. "Septimus has done everything short of laying down his life for you, and that he would have done if necessary, and you haven't even taken the trouble to see the soul in the man that was capable of it. And now that something has happened which you can't help seeing you come in your grand way to put it all to rights in a minute. You think I've turned him out because he's a good-natured worry like Bobbie, the bob-tailed sheep dog, and you say, 'Poor fellow, see how pitifully he's wagging his tail. It's cruel of you not to let him in.' That's the way you look at Septimus, and I can't stand it and I won't. I love him as I never dreamed a woman could love a man. I could tear myself into little pieces for him bit by bit. And I can't get him. He's as far removed from me as the stars in heaven. You could never understand. I pray every night to God[304] to forgive me, and to work a miracle and bring him to me. But miracles don't happen. He'll never come to me. He can't come to me. While you have been patronizing him, patting him on the head, playing Lady Bountiful to him—as you are doing to the other man who has given up a fortune this very morning just because he loves you—while you've been doing this and despising him—yes, you know you do in your heart, for a simple, good-natured, half-witted creature who amuses himself with crazy inventions, he has done a thing to save you from pain and shame and sorrow—you, not me—because he loved you. And now I love him. I would give all I have in life for the miracle to happen. But it can't. Don't you understand? It can't!" She stood panting in front of Zora, a passionate woman obeying elemental laws; and when passionate women obey elemental laws they are reckless in speech and overwhelming in assertion and denunciation. Emmy was the first whom Zora had encountered. She was bewildered by the storm of words, and could only say, rather stupidly: "Why can't it?" Emmy thew two or three short breaths. The notion had come again. The temptation was irresistible. Zora should know, having brought it on herself. She opened the door. "Madame Bolivard!" she cried. And when the Frenchwoman appeared she pointed to the bassinette. "Take baby into the bedroom. It will be better for him there." "Bien, madame," said Madame Bolivard, taking up the child. And when the door had closed behind her Emmy pointed to it and said: "That's why." [305]Zora started forward, horror stricken. "Emmy, what do you mean?" "I'll tell you. I couldn't with him in the room. I should always fancy that he had heard me, and I want him to respect and love his mother." "Emmy!" cried Zora. "Emmy! What are you saying? Your son not respect you—if he knew—do you mean...?" "Yes," said Emmy, "I do—Septimus went through the marriage ceremony with me and gave us his name. That's why we are living apart. Now you know." "My God!" said Zora. "Do you remember the last night I was at Nunsmere?" "Yes. You fainted." "I had seen the announcement of the man's marriage in the newspaper." She told her story briefly and defiantly, asking for no sympathy, proclaiming it all ad majorem Septimi gloriam. Zora sat looking at her paralyzed with helplessness, like one who, having gone lightly forth to shoot rabbits, suddenly comes upon a lion. "Why didn't you tell me—at the time—before?" "Did you ever encourage me to give you my confidence? You patted me on the head, too, and never concerned yourself about my affairs. I was afraid of you—deadly afraid of you. It sounds rather silly now, doesn't it? But I was." Zora made no protest against the accusation. She sat quite still, her eyes fixed on the foot of the bassinette, adjusting her soul to new and startling conceptions. She said in a whisper: "My God, what a fool I've been!" The words lingered a haunting echo in her ears. They[306] were mockingly familiar. Where had she heard them recently? Suddenly she remembered. She raised her head and glanced at Emmy in anything but a proud way. "You said something just now about Clem Sypher having sacrificed a fortune for me. What was it? I had better hear everything." Emmy sat on the fender stool, as she had done when Septimus had told her the story, and repeated it for Zora's benefit. "You say he sent for Septimus this morning?" said Zora in a low voice. "Do you think he knows—about you two?" "It is possible that he guesses," replied Emmy, to whom Hégisippe Cruchot's indiscretion had been reported. "Septimus has not told him." "I ask," said Zora, "because, since my return, he has seemed to look on Septimus as a sort of inspired creature. I begin to see things I never saw before." There was silence. Emmy gripped the mantelpiece and, head on arm, looked into the fire. Zora sat lost in her expanding vision. Presently Emmy said without turning round: "You mustn't turn away from me now—for Septimus's sake. He loves the boy as if he were his own. Whatever wrong I've done I've suffered for it. Once I was a frivolous, unbalanced, unprincipled little fool. I'm a woman now—and a good woman, thanks to him. To live in the same atmosphere as that exquisite delicacy of soul is enough to make one good. No other man on earth could have done what he has done and in the way he has done it. I can't help loving him. I can't help eating my heart out for him. That's my punishment." [307]This time the succeeding silence was broken by a half-checked sob. Emmy started round, and beheld Zora crying silently to herself among the sofa cushions. Emmy was amazed. Zora, the magnificent, had broken down, and was weeping like any silly fool of a girl. It was real crying; not the shedding of the tears of sensibility which often stood in her generous eyes. Emmy moved gently across the room—she was a soft-hearted, affectionate woman—and knelt by the sofa. "Zora, dear." Zora, with an immense longing for love, caught her sister in her arms, and the two women wept very happily together. It was thus that Septimus, returning for tea, as he was bidden, found them some while afterwards. Zora rose, her lashes still wet, and whipped up her furs. "But you're not going?" "Yes. I'll leave you two together. I'll do what I can. Septimus—" She caught him by the arm and drew him a step or two towards the door. "Emmy has told me everything. Oh, you needn't look frightened, dear. I'm not going to thank you—" Her voice broke on the laugh. "I should only make a fool of myself. Some other time. I only want to say, don't you think you would be more—more cosy and comfortable if you let her take care of you altogether? She's breaking her heart for love of you, Septimus, and she would make you happy." She rushed out of the room, and before the pair could recover from their confusion they heard the flat door slam behind her. Emmy looked at Septimus with a great scare in her blue eyes. She said something about taking no notice of what Zora said. "[308]But is it true?" he asked. She said with her back against the wall: "Do you think it very amazing that I should care for you?" Septimus ran his hands vehemently up his hair till it reached the climax of Struwel Peterdom. The most wonderful thing in his life had happened. A woman loved him. It upset all his preconceived notions of his place in the universe. "Yes, I do," he answered. "It makes my head spin round." He found himself close to her. "Do you mean that you love me"—his voice grew tremulous—"as if I were an ordinary man?" "No," she cried, with a half laugh. "Of course I don't. How could I love an ordinary man as I love you?" Neither could tell afterwards how it happened. Emmy called the walls to witness that she did not throw herself into his arms, and Septimus's natural timidity precluded the possibility of his having seized her in his; but she stood for a long, throbbing time in his embrace, while he kissed her on the lips and gave all his heart into her keeping. They sat down together on the fender seat. "When a man does that," said Septimus, as if struck by a luminous idea, "I suppose he asks the girl to marry him." "But we are married already," she cried joyously. "Dear me," said Septimus, "so we are. I forgot. It's very puzzling, isn't it? I think, if you don't mind, I'll kiss you again." <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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