“One of their songs,” said Dikon. “Perhaps they’re rehearsing for your concert. It’s the genuine thing. You get the authentic music up here.”
The shoulder of the hill came between them and the song. It was almost dark as they walked along the brushwood fence towards Wai-ata-tapu. Steam from the hot pools drifted in wraiths across the still night air. It was only when she moved forward that Barbara’s dress and the blurred patches of white that were her arms and face told them that she had been waiting for them. Perhaps the darkness gave her courage and balance. Perhaps any voice would have been welcome just then, but it seemed to Dikon that Barbara’s had a directness and repose that he had not heard in it before.
“I hope I didn’t startle you,” she said. “I heard you coming down the path and thought I should like to speak to you.”
Gaunt said: “What is it, Miss Claire? More excursions and alarms?”
“No, no. We seem to have settled down again. It’s only that I wanted to tell you how very sorry we all are about that frightful scene. We shan’t go on apologizing, but I did just want to say this: Please don’t think you are under an obligation to stay. Of course you know you are not, but perhaps you feel it’s rather difficult to tell us you are going. Don’t hesitate. We shall quite understand.”
She turned her head and they saw her in profile against a shifting background of steam. The dusk, simplifying her ugly dress, revealed the beauty of her silhouette. The profile lines of her head and throat were well-drawn, delicate, and harmonious. It was an astonishing change. Perhaps if Gaunt had not seen her so translated, his voice would have held less warmth and friendliness when he answered her.
“But there is no question of our going,” he said. “We have not thought of it. As for the scene, Dikon will tell you that I have a lust for scenes. We are very sorry if you’re in difficulties, but we don’t in the least want to go.”
Dikon saw him take her arm and turn her towards the house. It was a gesture he often used on the stage, adroit and impersonal. Dikon followed behind as they walked across the pumice.
“It’s awfully nice of you,” Barbara was saying. “I — we have felt so frightful about it. I was horrified when I heard what Mr. Questing had done, badgering you to come. We didn’t know what he was up to. Uncle James and I were horrified.”
“He didn’t badger me,” said Gaunt. “Dikon attended to Questing. That’s why I keep him.”
“Oh.” Barbara half-turned her head and laughed, not with her usual boisterousness, but shyly. “I wondered what he was for,” she said.
“He has his uses. When I start work again he’ll be kept very spry.”
“You’re going to write, aren’t you? Uncle James told me. Is it an autobiography? I do hope it is.”
Gaunt moved his hand above her elbow. “And why do you hope that?”
“Because I want to read it. You see, I’ve seen your Rochester, and once somebody who was staying here had an American magazine, I think it was called the Theatre Arts, and there was an article in it with photographs of you as different people. I liked the Hamlet one the best because — ”
“Well?” asked Gaunt when she paused.
Barbara stumbled over her next speech. “Because — well, I suppose because I know it best. No, that’s not really why. I didn’t know it at all well until then, but I read it again, lots of times, and tried to imagine how you sounded when you said the speech in the photograph. Of course after hearing Mr. Rochester it was easier.”
“Which photograph was that, Dikon?” asked Gaunt over his shoulder.
“It was with Rosencrantz…” Barbara began eagerly.
“Ah, I remember.”
Gaunt stood still and put her from him, holding her by the shoulder as he had held the gratified small-part actor who played Rosencrantz in New York. Dikon heard him draw in his breath as he always did when he collected himself to rehearse. In the silence of that warm evening amidst the reek of sulphur and against the nebulous thermal background, the beautiful voice spoke quietly: —
“ ‘O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.’ ”
Dikon was irritated and disturbed by Barbara’s rapturous silence, and infuriated by the whispered “Thank you” with which she finally ended it. “She’s making a perfect little ass of herself,” he thought, but he knew that Gaunt would not find her attitude excessive. He had an infinite capacity for absorbing adulation.
“Can you go on?” Gaunt was saying. “Which dreams — ”
“ ‘Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.’ ”
“ ‘A dream itself is but a shadow!’ Do you hear this, Dikon?” cried Gaunt. “She knows the lines.” He moved forward again, Barbara at his side. “You’ve got a voice, my child,” he said. “How have you escaped the accent? Do you know what you’ve been talking about? You must hear the music, but you must also achieve the meaning. Say it again: thinking — ‘Which dreams indeed are ambition? ” But Barbara fumbled the second time, and they spoke the line backwards and forwards to each other as they crossed the pumice to the house. Gaunt was treating her to an almost indecent helping of charm, Dikon considered.
The lights were up in the house and Mrs. Claire was hurriedly doing the blackout. She had left the door open and a square of warmth reached across the verandah to the pumice. Before they came to its margin Gaunt checked Barbara again.
“We say good night here,” he said. “The dusk becomes you well. Good night, Miss Claire.”
He turned on his heel and walked towards his rooms.
“Good night,” said Dikon.
She had moved into the light. The look she turned upon him was radiant. “You’re terribly lucky, aren’t you?” said Barbara.
“Lucky?”
“Your job. To be with him.”
“Oh,” said Dikon, “that. Yes, of course.”
“Good night,” said Barbara, and ran indoors.
He looked after her, absently polishing his glasses with his handkerchief. v
Barbara lay in bed with her eyes wide-open to the dark. Until this moment she had denied the waves of bliss that lapped at the edge of her thoughts. Now she opened her heart to them.
She passed the sequence of those few minutes in the dusk through and through her mind, examining each moment, feeling again its lustre, wondering at her happiness. It is easy to smile at such fervours, but in her unreasoned ecstasy she reached a point of pure enchantment to which she would perhaps never again ascend. The experience may appear more touching but its reality is not impugned if it is recorded that Gaunt, at the same time, was preening himself a little.
“Do you know, Dikon,” he said, “that strange little devil quivered like a puppy out there in the dusk.” Dikon did not answer and after a moment Gaunt added: “After all it’s pleasant to know that one’s work can reach so far. The Bard and sulphuric phenomena! An amusing juxtaposition, isn’t it? One lights a little flame, you know. One carries the torch.”
Chapter V
Mr. Questing Goes down for the Second Time
The more blatant eccentricities of the first evening were not repeated during the following days, and the household at Wai-ata-tapu settled down to something like a normal routine. The Colonel fatigued himself to exhaustion with Home Guard exercises. His wife and daughter, overtaxed by the new standard they had set themselves, laboured incessantly in the house, Gaunt, following Dr. Ackrington’s instructions, sat at stated hours in the Springs, took short walks, and began to work steadily on his book. Dikon filed old letters and programmes which had to be winnowed for use in the autobiography. Gaunt dictated for two hours every morning and evening, and expected Dikon’s shorthand notes to be translated into typescript before they began work on the following day. Dr. Ackrington dealt austerely in his own room with the problems of comparative anatomy. On Wednesday he announced that he was going away for a week, and, when Mrs. Claire said gently that she hoped there was nothing the matter, replied that they would all be better if they were dead, and drove away. Colly, who had been a signaller in the 1914 war, recovered from the surprise of Simon’s first advance, and spent a good deal of time in the cabin helping him with his Morse. Simon’s attitude to Gaunt was one of morose suspicion. As far as possible he avoided encounters, but on the rare occasions when they met, his behaviour was remarkable. He was not content to remain altogether silent, but would suddenly roar out strange inquiries and statements. He asked Gaunt whether he reckoned the theatre did any good in the world, and, when Gaunt replied with some heat that he did, inquired the price of seats. On receiving this information he said instantly that a poor family could live for a week on the price of a stall and that there ought to be a flat charge all over the house. Gaunt’s book had gone badly that morning and his leg was painful. He became irritable and a ridiculous argument took place.