II
I
At about this time Stephen first became conscious of an urgent necessity to love. She adored her father, but that was quite different; he was part of herself, he had always been there, she could not envisage the world without him—it was other with Collins, the housemaid. Collins was what was called “second of three”; she might one day hope for promotion. Meanwhile she was florid, full-lipped and full-bosomed, rather ample indeed for a young girl of twenty, but her eyes were unusually blue and arresting, very pretty inquisitive eyes. Stephen had seen Collins sweeping the stairs for two years, and had passed her by quite unnoticed; but one morning, when Stephen was just over seven, Collins looked up and suddenly smiled, then all in a moment Stephen knew that she loved her—a staggering revelation!
Collins said politely: “Good morning, Miss Stephen.”
She had always said: “Good morning, Miss Stephen,” but on this occasion it sounded alluring—so alluring that Stephen wanted to touch her, and extending a rather uncertain hand she started to stroke her sleeve.
Collins picked up the hand and stared at it. “Oh, my!” she exclaimed, “what very dirty nails!” Whereupon their owner flushed painfully crimson and dashed upstairs to repair them.
“Put them scissors down this minute, Miss Stephen!” came the nurse’s peremptory voice, while her charge was still busily engaged on her toilet.
But Stephen said firmly: “I’m cleaning my nails ’cause Collins doesn’t like them—she says they’re dirty!”
“What impudence!” snapped the nurse, thoroughly annoyed. “I’ll thank her to mind her own business!”
Having finally secured the large cutting-out scissors, Mrs. Bingham went forth in search of the offender; she was not one to tolerate any interference with the dignity of her status. She found Collins still on the top flight of stairs, and forthwith she started to upbraid her: “putting her back in her place,” the nurse called it; and she did it so thoroughly that in less than five minutes the “second of three” had been told of every fault that was likely to preclude promotion.
Stephen stood still in the nursery doorway. She could feel her heart thumping against her side, thumping with anger and pity for Collins who was answering never a word. There she knelt mute, with her brush suspended, with her mouth slightly open and her eyes rather scared; and when at long last she did manage to speak, her voice sounded humble and frightened. She was timid by nature, and the nurse’s sharp tongue was a byword throughout the household.
Collins was saying: “Interfere with your child? Oh, no, Mrs. Bingham, never! I hope I knows my place better than that—Miss Stephen herself showed me them dirty nails; she said: ‘Collins, just look, aren’t my nails awful dirty!’ And I said: ‘You must ask Nanny about that, Miss Stephen.’ Is it likely that I’d interfere with your work? I’m not that sort, Mrs. Bingham.”
Oh, Collins, Collins, with those pretty blue eyes and that funny alluring smile! Stephen’s own eyes grew wide with amazement, then they clouded with sudden and disillusioned tears, for far worse than Collins’ poorness of spirit was the dreadful injustice of those lies—yet this very injustice seemed to draw her to Collins, since despising, she could still love her.
For the rest of that day Stephen brooded darkly over Collins’ unworthiness; and yet all through that day she still wanted Collins, and whenever she saw her she caught herself smiling, quite unable, in her turn, to muster the courage to frown her innate disapproval. And Collins smiled too, if the nurse was not looking, and she held up her plump red fingers, pointing to her nails and making a grimace at the nurse’s retreating figure. Watching her, Stephen felt unhappy and embarrassed, not so much for herself as for Collins; and this feeling increased, so that thinking about her made Stephen go hot down her spine.
In the evening, when Collins was laying the tea, Stephen managed to get her alone. “Collins,” she whispered, “you told an untruth—I never showed you my dirty nails!”
“ ’Course not!” murmured Collins, “but I had to say something—you didn’t mind, Miss Stephen, did you?” And as Stephen looked doubtfully up into her face, Collins suddenly stooped and kissed her.
Stephen stood speechless from a sheer sense of joy, all her doubts swept completely away. At that moment she knew nothing but beauty and Collins, and the two were as one, and the one was Stephen—and yet not Stephen either, but something more vast, that the mind of seven years found no name for.
The nurse came in grumbling: “Now then, hurry up, Miss Stephen! Don’t stand there as though you were daft! Go and wash your face and hands before tea—how many times must I tell you the same thing?”
“I don’t know—” muttered Stephen. And indeed she did not; she knew nothing of such trifles at that moment.
II
From now on Stephen entered a completely new world, that turned on an axis of Collins. A world full of constant exciting adventures; of elation, of joy, of incredible sadness, but withal a fine place to be dashing about in like a moth who is courting a candle. Up and down went the days; they resembled a swing that soared high above the treetops, then dropped to the depths, but seldom if ever hung midway. And with them went Stephen, clinging to the swing, waking up in the mornings with a thrill of vague excitement—the sort of excitement that belonged by rights to birthdays, and Christmas, and a visit to the pantomime at Malvern. She would open her eyes and jump out of bed quickly, still too sleepy to remember why she felt so elated; but then would come memory—she would know
