Joan and Peter — Adolescence Part 6
§ 22 It was Adela who inflicted Joan’s second shock upon her, and drove away the last swirling whispers of adolescent imaginations and moon mist from the hard forms of reality.
This visit she had seemed greatly improved to Joan; she was graver.
Visibly she thought, and no longer was her rolling eye an invitation to masculine enterprise.
She came to Joan’s room on Boxing Day morning to make up dresses with her for the night’s dance, and she let her mind run as she stitched.
Every one was to come in fancy dress; the vicarage girls would come and the Braughing people.
Every one was to represent a political idea.
Adela was going to be Tariff Reform.
All her clothes were to be tattered and unfinished, she said, even her shoes were to have holes.
She would wear a broken earring in one ear.
“I don’t quite see your point,” said Joan.
“Tariff Reform means work for all, dear,” Adela explained gently.
Days before Joan had planned to represent Indian Nationalism.
It was a subject much in dispute between her and Peter, whose attitude to India and Indians seemed to her unreasonably reactionary—in view of all his other opinions.
She could never let her controversies with Peter rest;
the costume had been aimed at him.
She was going to make up her complexion with a little brown, wear a sari, sandals on bare feet, and a band of tinsel across her forehead.
She had found some red Indian curtain stuff that seemed to be adaptable for the sari.
She worked now in a preoccupied manner, with her mind full of strange thoughts.
Sometimes she listened to what Adela was saying, and sometimes she was altogether within herself.
But every now and then Adela would pull her back to attention by a question.
“Don’t you think so, Joan?
” “Think what?
” asked Joan.
“Love’s much more _our_ business than it is theirs.
” That struck Joan.
“Is it?
” she asked.
She had thought the shares in the business were equal and opposite.
“All this waiting for a man to discover himself in love with you; it’s rot.
You may wait till Doomsday.
” “Still, they do seem to fall in love.
” “With any one.
A man’s in love with women in general, but women fall in love with men in particular.
We’re the choosers.
Naturally.
We want a man, that man and no other, and all our own.
They don’t feel like that.
And we have to hang about pretending they choose and trying to make them choose without seeming to try to make them.
Well, we’re altering all that.
When I want a man——” Adela’s pause suggested a particular reference.
“I’ll get him somehow,” she said intently.
“If you mean to get him—if you don’t mind much the little things that happen meanwhile—you’ll get him,” said Adela, as though she repeated a creed.
“But, of course, you can’t make terms.
When a man knows that a woman is his, when he’s sure of it—absolutely, then she’s got him for good.
Sooner or later he must come to her.
I haven’t had my eyes open just for show, Joan, this last year or so.
” “Good luck, Adela,” said Joan.
Adela attempted no pretences.
“It stands to reason if you love a man——” Her eyes filled with tears.
“Love his very self.
You can make him happy and safe.
Be his line of least resistance.
But the meanwhile is hard——” Adela stitched furiously.
“That’s why you came down here?
” Joan asked.
“You haven’t seen?
” Adela’s preoccupation with Sopwith Greene had been the most conspicuous fact in the party.
“Once or twice a gleam,” said Joan.
“Ask him to play tonight, dear,” said Adela.
“Some of his own things.
” But now the last checks upon Adela’s talk were removed.
She wanted to talk endlessly and unrestrainedly about love.
She wanted to hear herself saying all the generosities and devotions she contemplated.
“There’s no bargain in love,” said Adela.
“You just watch and give.
” Running through all her talk was a thread of speculation; she was obsessed by the idea of the relative blindness and casualness of love in men.
“We used to dream of lovers who just concentrated upon us,” she said.
“But there’s something nimmy-pimmy in a man concentrating on a woman.
He ought to have a Job, something Big, his Art, his Aim—Something.
One wouldn’t really respect a man who didn’t do something Big.
Love’s a nuisance to a real man, a disturbance, until some woman takes care of him.
” “Couldn’t two people—take care of each other?
” asked Joan.
“Oh, that’s Ideal, Joan,” said Adela as one who puts a notion aside.
“A man takes his love where he finds it.
On his way to other things.
The easier it is to get the better he likes it.
That’s why, so often, they take up with any—sort of creature.
And why one needn’t be so tremendously jealous....
” Adela reflected.
“_I_ don’t care a bit about him and Hetty.
” “Hetty Reinhart?
” “Everybody talked about them.
Didn’t you hear?
But of course you were still at school.
Of course there’s that studio of hers.
You know about her?
Yes.
She has a studio.
Most convenient.
She does as she pleases.
It amused him, I suppose.
Men don’t care as we do.
They’re just amused.
Men can fall in love for an afternoon—and out of it again.
He makes love to her and he’s not even jealous of her.
Not a bit.
He doesn’t seem to mind a rap about Peter.
” She babbled on, but Joan’s mind stopped short.
“Adela,” she said, “what is this about Hetty and Peter?
” “The usual thing, I suppose, dear.
You don’t seem to hear of _anything_ at Cambridge.
” “But you don’t mean——?
” “Well, I know _something_ of Hetty.
And I’ve got eyes.
” “You mean to say she’s—she’s _got_ Peter?
” “It shows plainly enough.
” “_My_ Peter!
” cried Joan sharply.
“You’re not an Egyptian princess,” said Adela.
“You mean—he’s gone—Peter’s gone—to her studio?
That—things like that have happened?
” Adela stared at her friend.
“These things _have_ to happen, Joan.
” “But he’s only a boy yet.
” “She doesn’t think he’s a boy.
Why!
he’s almost of age!
Lot of boy about Peter!
” “But do you mean——?
” “I don’t mean anything, Joan, if you’re going to look like that.
You’ve got no right to interfere in Peter’s love affairs.
Why should you?
Don’t we all live for experience?
” “But,” said Joan, “Peter is different.
” “No. No one is different,” said Adela.
“But I tell you he’s _my_ Peter.
” “He’s your brother, of course.
” “_No!
_” “Your half brother then.
Everybody knows that, Joan—thanks to the Sheldricks.
A sister can’t always keep her brothers away from other girls.
” Joan was on the verge of telling Adela that she was not even Peter’s half sister, but she restrained herself.
She stuck to the thing that most concerned her now.
“It’s spoiling him,” she said.
“It will make a mess of him.
Why!
he may think that is love, that!
—slinking off to a studio.
The nastiness!
And she’s had a dozen lovers.
She’s a common thing.
She just strips herself here and shows her arms and shoulders because she’s—just that.
” “She’s really in love with him anyhow,” said Adela.
“She’s gone on him.
It’s amusing.
” “Love!
_That_—love!
It makes me sick to think of it,” said Joan.
“A man isn’t made like that,” said Adela.
“Peter has to go his own way.
” “Peter,” said Joan, “who used to be the cleanest thing alive.
” “Good sisters always feel like that,” said Adela.
“I know how shocked I was when first I heard of Teddy....
It isn’t the same thing to men, Joan.
It isn’t indeed....
” “_Dirty_ Peter,” said Joan with intense conviction.
“Of course I’ve known.
Of course I’ve known.
Any one could see.
Only I wouldn’t know.
” She thrust the striped red stuff for her Indian dress from her.
“I shan’t be Indian Nationalism, Adela, after all.
Somehow I don’t care to be.
Why should I cover myself up in this way?
” “You’d look jolly.
” “No. I want something with black in it.
And red.
And my arms and shoulders showing.
Why shouldn’t we all dress down to Hetty?
She has the approval of the authorities.
Aunt Phœbe applauds every stitch she takes off.
Freedom—with a cap of Liberty.
” “Hetty said something about being Freedom,” hesitated Adela.
“Then I shall come as Anarchy,” said Joan, staring at the red stuff upon the table before her.
Came a pause.
“I don’t see why Peter should have all the fun in life,” said Joan.
§ 23 Joan as Anarchy made a success that evening at Pelham Ford.
In the private plans of Hetty Reinhart that success had not been meant for Joan.
Hetty as Freedom gave the party her lithe arms, her slender neck, and so much of her back that the two vicarage girls, who had come very correctly in powder and patches as Whig and Tory, were sure that it was partly accidental.
On Hetty’s dark hair perched a Phrygian cap, and she had a tricolour skirt beneath a white bodice that was chiefly decolletage and lace.
About her neck was a little band of black which had nothing to do with Freedom; it was there for the sake of her slender neck.
She was much more like _La Vie Parisienne_.
She was already dancing with Peter when Joan, who had delayed coming down until the music began, appeared in the doorway.
Nobby, wrapped in a long toga-like garment of sun-gold and black that he alleged qualified him to represent Darkest Africa, was standing by the door, and saw the effect of Joan upon one of the Braughing boys before he discovered her beside him.
Her profile was the profile of a savage.
She lifted her clear-cut chin as young savage women do, and her steady eyes regarded Hetty and Peter.
Her black hair was quite unbound and thrown back from her quiet face, and there was no necklace, no bracelet, not a scrap of adornment nor enhancement upon her arms or throat.
It had not hitherto occurred to Oswald that his ward had the most beautiful neck and shoulders in the world, or that Joan was as like what Dolly once had been as a wild beast is like a cherished tame one.
But he did presently find these strange ideas in his mind.
Her dress was an exiguous scheme of slashes and tatters in black and bright red.
She was bare ankled—these modern young people thought nothing of that—but she had white dancing shoes upon her feet.
“Joan!
” said Huntley, advancing with an air of proprietorship.
“No,” said Joan with a gesture of rejection.
“I don’t want to dance with any one in particular.
I’m going to dance alone.
” “Well—dance!
” said Huntley with a large courtly movement of a white velvet cloak all powdered with gold crosses and fleur-de-lys, that he pretended was a symbol of Reaction.
“When I choose,” said Joan.
“And as I choose.
” Across the room Peter was staring at her, and she was looking at Peter.
He tripped against Hetty, and for a little interval the couple was out of step.
“Come on, Peter,” said Hetty, rallying him.
Joan appeared to forget Peter and every one.
There was dancing in her blood, and this evening she meant to dance.
Her body felt wonderfully light and as supple as a whip under her meagre costume.
There was something to be said for this semi-nudity after all.
The others were dancing a two-step with such variations as they thought fit, and there was no objection whatever at Pelham Ford to solo enterprises.
Joan could invent dances.
She sailed out into the room to dance as she pleased.
Oswald watched her nimble steps and the whirling rhythms of her slender body.
She made all the others seem overdressed and clumsy and heavy.
Her face had a grave preoccupied expression.
Huntley stood for a moment or so beside Oswald, and then stepped out after her to convert her dance into a duet.
He too was a skilful and inventive dancer, and the two coquetted for a time amidst the other couples.
Then Joan discovered Wilmington watching her and Huntley from the window bay.
She danced evasively through Huntley’s circling entanglements, and seized Wilmington’s hand and drew him into the room.
“I can’t dance, Joan,” he said, obeying her.
“You _know_ I can’t dance.
” “You have to dance,” she said, aglow and breathing swiftly.
“Trust me.
” She took and left his hands and took them again and turned him about so skilfully that a wonderful illusion was produced in Wilmington’s mind and in those about him that indeed he could dance.
Huntley made a crouching figure of jealousy about them; he spread himself and his cloak into fantastic rhombs—and then the music ceased....
“The Argentine Tango!
” cried Huntley.
“Joan, you _must_ tango.
” “Never.
” “Dance Columbine to my Harlequin then.
” “And stand on your knee?
I should break it.
” “Try me,” said Huntley.
“Kneel,” said Joan.
“Now take my hands.
Prepare for the shock.
” And she leapt lightly to his knee and posed for a second, poised with one toe on Huntley’s thigh, and was down again.
“Do it again, Joan,” he cried with enthusiasm.
“Do it again.
” “Let us invent dances,” cried Aunt Phyllis.
“Let us invent dances.
Couldn’t we dance charades?
” “Let them dance as nature meant them to,” said Aunt Phœbe’s deepest tones.
“_Madly!
_” “Shall we try that Tango we did the other night?
” said Hetty, coming behind Peter.
Peter had come forward to the group in the centre of the room.
Old habits were strong in him, and he had a vague feeling that this was one of the occasions when Joan ought to be suppressed.
“We’re getting chaotic,” he said.
“You see, Peter, I’m Anarchy,” said Joan.
“An ordered Freedom is the best,” said Peter without reflecting on his words.
“Nobby, I want to dance with you,” said Joan.
“I’ve never danced anything but a Country Dance—you know the sort of thing in which people stand in rows—in my life,” said Oswald.
“A country dance,” cried Joan.
“Sir Roger de Coverley.
” “We want to try a fox-trot we know,” complained one of the Braughing guests.
Two parties became more and more distinctly evident in the party.
There was a party which centred around Hetty and the Sheldrick girls, which was all for the rather elaborately planned freak dances they had more or less learnt in London, the Bunny-Hugs, the Fox-Trot, and various Tangoes.
Most of the Londoners were of this opinion, Sopwith Greene trailed Adela with him, and Huntley was full of a passionate desire to guide Joan’s feet along the Tango path.
But Joan’s mind by a kind of necessity moved contrariwise to Hetty’s. Either, she argued, they must dance in the old staid ways—Oswald and the Vicarage girls applauding—or dance as the spirit moved them.
“Oh, dance your old Fox-Trots,” she cried, with a gesture that seemed to motion Huntley and Hetty together.
“Have your music all rattle and rag-time like sick people groaning in trains.
That’s neither here nor there.
I want to dance to better stuff than that.
Come along, Willy.
” She seized on Wilmington’s arm.
“But where are you going?
” cried Huntley.
“I’m going to dance Chopin in the hall—to the pianola.
” “You’re going to play,” she told Wilmington.
“But you can’t,” said Peter.
Joan disappeared with her slave.
A light seemed to go out from the big library as she went.
“Now we can get on,” said Hetty, laying hands on her Peter.
For a time the Fox-Trot ruled.
The Vicarage girls didn’t do these things, and drifted after Joan.
So did Oswald.
Towards the end the dancers had a sense of a cross-current of sound in the air, of some adverse influence thrown across their gymnastics.
When their own music stopped, they became aware of that crying voice above the thunder, the Revolutionary Etude.
There was a brief listening pause.
“Now, how the deuce,” said Huntley, “can she be dancing _that_?
” He led the way to the hall....
“I’m tired of dancing,” whispered Hetty.
“Stay back.
They’re all going.
I want you to kiss the little corner of my mouf.
” Peter looked round quickly, and seized his privilege with unseemly haste.
“Let’s see how Joan is dancing that old row,” he said....
Animation, boldness, and strict relegation of costume to its function of ornament had hitherto made Hetty the high light of this little gathering.
She was now to realize how insecure is this feminine predominance in the face of fresher youth and greater boldness.
And Joan was full of a pretty girl’s discovery that she may do all that she dares to do.
For a time—and until it is time to pay.
Life had intoxicated Joan that night.
A derision of seemliness possessed her.
She was full of impulse and power.
She felt able to dominate every one.
At one time or other she swept nearly every man there except Oswald and Peter and Pryce into her dancing.
Two of the Braughing youths fell visibly in love with her, and Huntley lost his head, badgered her too much to dance, and then was offended and sulked in a manner manifest to the meanest capacity.
And she kissed Wilmington.
That was her wildest impulse.
She came into the study where he was playing the pianola for her dancing.
