Tales of Men and Ghosts

THE cracked bell tinkled sweetly through her heart as she stood listening for the scamper of Juliet’s feet.  Juliet, anticipatingthe laggard Suzanne, almost always opened the door for her governess, not from any unnatural zeal to hasten the hour of her studies, but from the irrepressible desire to see what was going on in the street.  But on this occasion Lizzie listened vainly for astep, and at length gave the bell another twitch.  Doubtless someunusually absorbing incident had detained the child below-stairs; thus only could her absence be explained.

A third ring produced no response, and Lizzie, full of dawning fears, drew back to look up at the shabby, blistered house.  She saw that the studio shutters stood wide, and then noticed, without surprise, that Mrs. Deering’s were still unopened.  No doubt Mrs. Deering was resting after the fatigue of the journey.  Instinctively Lizzie’s eyes turned again to the studio; and as she looked, she saw Deering at the window.  He caught sight of her, and an instant later came to the door.  He looked paler than usual, and she noticed that he wore a black coat.

“I rang and rang—­where is Juliet?”

He looked at her gravely, almost solemnly; then, without answering, he led her down the passage to the studio, and closed the door when she had entered.

“My wife is dead—­she died suddenly ten days ago.  Didn’t you see it in the papers?”

Lizzie, with a little cry, sank down on the rickety divan.  She seldom saw a newspaper, since she could not afford one for her own perusal, and those supplied to the Pension Clopin were usually in the hands of its more privileged lodgers till long after the hour when she set out on her morning round.

“No; I didn’t see it,” she stammered.

Deering was silent.  He stood a little way off, twisting an unlit cigarette in his hand, and looking down at her with a gaze that was both hesitating and constrained.

She, too, felt the constraint of the situation, the impossibility of finding words that, after what had passed between them, should seem neither false nor heartless; and at last she exclaimed, standing up:  “Poor little Juliet!  Can’t I go to her?”

“Juliet is not here.  I left her at St.-Raphael with the relations with whom my wife was staying.”

“Oh,” Lizzie murmured, feeling vaguely that this added to the difficulty of the moment.  How differently she had pictured theirmeeting!

“I’m so—­so sorry for her!” she faltered out.

Deering made no reply, but, turning on his heel, walked the length of the studio, and then halted vaguely before the picture on the easel.  It was the landscape he had begun the previous autumn, with the intention of sending it to the Salon that spring.  But it was still unfinished—­seemed, indeed, hardly moreadvanced than on the fateful October day when Lizzie, standing before it for the first time, had confessed her inability to dealwith Juliet.  Perhaps the same thought struck its creator, for hebroke into a dry laugh, and turned from the easel with a shrug.

Under his protracted silence Lizzie roused herself to the fact that, since her pupil was absent, there was no reason for her remaining any longer; and as Deering again moved toward her she said with an effort:  “I’ll go, then.  You’ll send for me when shecomes back?”

Deering still hesitated, tormenting the cigarette between his fingers.

“She’s not coming back—­not at present.”

Lizzie heard him with a drop of the heart.  Was everything to be changed in their lives?  But of course; how could she have dreamed it would be otherwise?  She could only stupidly repeat:  “Not coming back?  Not this spring?”

“Probably not, since are friends are so good as to keep her.  The fact is, I’ve got to go to America.  My wife left a little property, a few pennies, that I must go and see to—­for the child.”

Lizzie stood before him, a cold knife in her breast.  “I see—­I see,” she reiterated, feeling all the while that she strained her eyes into impenetrable blackness.

“It’s a nuisance, having to pull up stakes,” he went on, with a fretful glance about the studio.

She lifted her eyes slowly to his face.  “Shall you be gone long?” she took courage to ask.

“There again—­I can’t tell.  It’s all so frightfully mixed up.”  He met her look for an incredibly long, strange moment.  “Ihate to go!” he murmured as if to himself.

Lizzie felt a rush of moisture to her lashes, and the old, familiar wave of weakness at her heart.  She raised her hand to her face with an instinctive gesture, and as she did so he held out his arms.

“Come here, Lizzie!” he said.

And she went—­went with a sweet, wild throb of liberation, with the sense that at last the house was his, that she was his, if he wanted her; that never again would that silent, rebuking presence in the room above constrain and shame her rapture.

He pushed back her veil and covered her face with kisses.  “Don’t cry, you little goose!” he said.