‘Ah, come, come! We’re not going to hear any of those tales. Haven’t we read notices in the newspaper, Gerald?’
‘You came off pretty well,’ said Gerald to her, shaking hands. ‘Did you sell anything?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘not much.’
‘Just as well,’ he said.
She wondered what he meant. But she was all aglow with her reception, carried away by this little flattering ceremonial on her behalf.
‘Winifred,’ said the father, ‘have you a pair of shoes for Miss Brangwen? You had better change at once—’
Gudrun went out with her bouquet in her hand.
‘Quite a remarkable young woman,’ said the father to Gerald, when she had gone.
‘Yes,’ replied Gerald briefly, as if he did not like the observation.
Mr Crich liked Gudrun to sit with him for half an hour. Usually he was ashy and wretched, with all the life gnawed out of him. But as soon as he rallied, he liked to make believe that he was just as before, quite well and in the midst of life—not of the outer world, but in the midst of a strong essential life. And to this belief, Gudrun contributed perfectly. With her, he could get by stimulation those precious half-hours of strength and exaltation and pure freedom, when he seemed to live more than he had ever lived.
She came to him as he lay propped up in the library. His face was like yellow wax, his eyes darkened, as it were sightless. His black beard, now streaked with grey, seemed to spring out of the waxy flesh of a corpse. Yet the atmosphere about him was energetic and playful. Gudrun subscribed to this, perfectly. To her fancy, he was just an ordinary man. Only his rather terrible appearance was photographed upon her soul, away beneath her consciousness. She knew that, in spite of his playfulness, his eyes could not change from their darkened vacancy, they were the eyes of a man who is dead.
‘Ah, this is Miss Brangwen,’ he said, suddenly rousing as she entered, announced by the manservant. ‘Thomas, put Miss Brangwen a chair here—that’s right.’ He looked at her soft, fresh face with pleasure. It gave him the illusion of life. ‘Now, you will have a glass of sherry and a little piece of cake. Thomas—’
‘No thank you,’ said Gudrun. And as soon as she had said it, her heart sank horribly. The sick man seemed to fall into a gap of death, at her contradiction. She ought to play up to him, not to contravene him. In an instant she was smiling her rather roguish smile.
‘I don’t like sherry very much,’ she said. ‘But I like almost anything else.’
The sick man caught at this straw instantly.
‘Not sherry! No! Something else! What then? What is there, Thomas?’
‘Port wine—curacao—’
‘I would love some curacao—’ said Gudrun, looking at the sick man confidingly.
‘You would. Well then Thomas, curacao—and a little cake, or a biscuit?’
‘A biscuit,’ said Gudrun. She did not want anything, but she was wise.
‘Yes.’
He waited till she was settled with her little glass and her biscuit. Then he was satisfied.
‘You have heard the plan,’ he said with some excitement, ‘for a studio for Winifred, over the stables?’
‘No!’ exclaimed Gudrun, in mock wonder.
‘Oh!—I thought Winnie wrote it to you, in her letter!’
‘Oh—yes—of course. But I thought perhaps it was only her own little idea—’ Gudrun smiled subtly, indulgently. The sick man smiled also, elated.
‘Oh no. It is a real project. There is a good room under the roof of the stables—with sloping rafters. We had thought of converting it into a studio.’
‘How VERY nice that would be!’ cried Gudrun, with excited warmth. The thought of the rafters stirred her.
‘You think it would? Well, it can be done.’
‘But how perfectly splendid for Winifred! Of course, it is just what is needed, if she is to work at all seriously. One must have one’s workshop, otherwise one never ceases to be an amateur.’
‘Is that so? Yes. Of course, I should like you to share it with Winifred.’
‘Thank you SO much.’
Gudrun knew all these things already, but she must look shy and very grateful, as if overcome.
‘Of course, what I should like best, would be if you could give up your work at the Grammar School, and just avail yourself of the studio, and work there—well, as much or as little as you liked—’
He looked at Gudrun with dark, vacant eyes. She looked back at him as if full of gratitude. These phrases of a dying man were so complete and natural, coming like echoes through his dead mouth.
‘And as to your earnings—you don’t mind taking from me what you have taken from the Education Committee, do you? I don’t want you to be a loser.’
‘Oh,’ said Gudrun, ‘if I can have the studio and work there, I can earn money enough, really I can.’
‘Well,’ he said, pleased to be the benefactor, ‘we can see about all that. You wouldn’t mind spending your days here?’
