“It can’t end like that!” he exclaimed irritably. But as he began to pace the room again, he became more and more convinced that this was how it would end.
In the evening he went to the long bar of the Cosmopolitan, hoping to see Rummy. He had been in twice since his first visit, but on this occasion he learned that she had been off duty for some days as she was ill.
Rendell decided he would walk back to Chelsea, and then write to Rosalie. Since her departure she had written two or three times a week and although these letters consisted only of a single sheet, they evoked her image so vividly that Rendell seemed to see her confronting and claiming him.
He reached home at about nine o’clock, then sat by the fire to smoke a cigarette before writing to Rosalie.
The cigarette was half-finished when the door opened slowly.
He looked up and saw Elsa. She stood motionless, watching him intently, her lips slightly parted.
“Thought I’d come to see how you’re getting on.”
“Very glad you did,” Rendell replied as he rose. “Come in and sit down, if you’ve time. I hoped I’d see you before I went away.”
“You’re not busy?”
“No, not in the least.”
She sank into a chair by the fire. Rendell noticed that she relaxed the whole of her body directly she was seated.
“You sit as if it were a luxury,” he said with a smile.
“So it is—if you’re used to being terribly tired. I’ve been a model for years—you knew that? I’ve often posed for hours when I did not know how to stand.”
A silence followed. Rendell did not speak, as he assumed that at any moment she would explain why she had come. Also, a change in her appearance puzzled him, though he could not decide whether she had actually altered, or whether—on former occasions—all his attention had been captured by the beauty of her hair.
She was not looking at him, and he glanced at her repeatedly. She had the eyes and features of a child—but a child who had known privation. It had tautened the face, thereby accentuating cheekbones and chin. But the suffering that had marred her beauty had also individualised it. It was wholly hers, for it epitomised her history.
As the minutes passed Rendell discovered that to be silent with her did not embarrass him. She lay back, outstretched in her chair, with eyes nearly closed. Rendell felt that this physical abandonment expressed her recognition of a kinship between them which had no need of speech. To him, therefore, this silence possessed a unique quality. During it they ceased to be strangers.
Then, suddenly—and inevitably as it seemed to him—he began to tell her about himself. He spoke quietly, without looking once in her direction. He told her about his profession, what he had done, where he had been. Words presented themselves with unaccustomed readiness. In a few swift sentences he revealed the quality of the life he had lived before his marriage.
“I was that type—roughly. It’s a common enough one, of course—certain amount of ability, fair amount of money, keen on adventure. And a real admiration for only one quality—courage. I was free. I took what I wanted, if I could get it. I barged about the world, doing my job, and meeting all sorts of people. I knew quite a lot about men. I had to. I knew nothing about women, because, in those days, they were only a physical necessity. And you don’t learn a lot about them that way.”
He paused for a moment, then went on:
“Well, eventually, I married. I’d just returned to England after a long absence. She was some years younger than I was, and pretty frail. Half a child, really. God alone knows why she married me! Anyway, her health was bad from the beginning, so it was more like a brother and sister relationship than anything else. In two years she was dead.”
“I said just now,” he continued, “that courage was really the only quality I admired. Well, during those two years, she showed me a type I knew nothing about. I knew only the kind that goes out to meet danger. She showed me the courage that lies still, and watches—and waits. Well, she died. That was a year ago. And I found that my old way of life was over. Then I discovered that there was such a thing as loneliness.”
He then explained how he had come to Potiphar Street, and gave an edited account of his experiences there during the last few weeks. He ended by saying:
“I’m going to Italy soon, but this is what beats me. I suppose it’s why I’ve told you this rigmarole. I don’t know. Anyway, it’s this. Trent’s altered my life—yet I shall probably never meet him, probably never see him.”
“What do you want to know about him?” Elsa asked slowly.
“That would take a month. So tell me just this, if you can. Why has he had rooms here for years without telling any of his friends?”
“Because he can only write in those rooms upstairs. He didn’t tell his friends for several reasons. One was that he didn’t want to be disturbed. But, apart from all that, he belongs here.”
“Belongs here!” Rendell echoed.
“Yes. You’ll understand everything before long.”
“I doubt it! But you seem very definite about Trent. Have you known him long?”
“For ten years.”
“You mean, you’ve known him since he first came here?”
“Yes. The house was full of writers and artists in those days. That was an experiment of Captain Frazer’s. I was one of them. Ivor was another. Why do you look so surprised?”
“I don’t know. There’s something queer about all this. I feel that, underneath, you’re excited about something.”
“Tell me,” she said impetuously, leaning towards him, “have you ever waited for something, longed for something, year after year, till you felt that if it ever happened you just wouldn’t be able to bear it?”
“No, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything as much as all that.”
Rendell rose, took a cigarette and was about to light in, when he suddenly exclaimed.
“You’re laughing!”
“I can’t help it. I’m terribly happy to-night. Sit down and I’ll tell you one or two things.”
She was silent for a minute, then went on:
“I was twenty when I came here, ten years ago. I hadn’t a farthing. My father was an Austrian, but he died when I was fifteen. Since then I lived with my mother who had an annuity. She died suddenly, when I was twenty. I had no money and knew nothing. Then an artist who admired my figure said he’d pay me to sit for him. So I became an artist’s model.”
“And that was the position just before you met Trent?”
“Yes. I took a box of a room here. Ivor stayed here for a year, writing Two Lives and a Destiny.”
After a pause she added:
“I knew nothing about men—then. I’d never met anyone in the least like him, in appearance, personality, or anything else. I was crazy about him. It was I who suggested he should write Two Lives and a Destiny. It was a great success. Then he took that flat near Cork Street. That was the end of him.”
“You mean, you didn’t see him again?”
“No, hardly ever.”
“But why did he leave you like that?”
“That’s a long story. But it wasn’t very surprising, do you think? Nearly every artist, when he becomes successful, is irritated by the people he mixed with when he was unknown. Still, there were special reasons in Ivor’s case. But that doesn’t matter.”
“And what happened to you?” Rendell asked as she remained silent.
She rose slowly, then leaned against the mantelpiece and looked down at him with an odd expression.