Hetty Dorval by Ethel Wilson Page B

distressed, then I should have to believe that in so far as Hetty could be moved, she was moved. I should then have to believe that she loved Richard, and – although she knew what knowledge I held – that she still was determined to marry him and perhaps to make and to keep him happy. But if Hetty should look at me with her gentle unrevealing look and keep silent, and, presently, rise and leave me and shut a door between us, then it would be plain that Hetty remained the Hetty of Shanghai and of Lytton and of how many more places, and that Menace was still her true name. That, at all events, was the way that the light shone on the path I had taken and was now treading.
    Rain fell pattering on the shining pavements as I left my room to seek out Hetty that evening. Dark branches were silhouetted against the street lights and there was the satisfactory feeling of an easy rain that always brought a sense ofwell-being. Familiar London growled gently about me for miles. In Paris, Paula and I, being only strangers and students, had not experienced the impending feeling which we had felt in London and which I now felt again. From London we drew in the significant emanations of time past and time to come with our breath, and they entered our blood, brains and spirit. Sometimes in Piccadilly or in Whitehall I had become aghast at the pre-vision of craters, rubble and death.
For what are you destined, you arrogant man, walking unhurriedly along St. James’s Street? And you, you rolling bus with your load? And you, hurrying waiter? What awaits us all?
But as I walked through the rain in Hyde Park to take my bus to Hetty’s, the skies above London were still empty. Paula’s father was a journalist, whose territory was Middle Europe, and from him Paula and I had caught the feeling of pre-vision with the on-coming months, but more than anywhere in London, which speaks through air and stone, wall and pavement.
    I did not hurry on my way nor did I feel anxious lest Hetty should be out. If she were out, then I would stay until she came in. But to telephone to her, and to try to arrange a meeting would have been folly, for she would then, I felt, vanish between empty finger-tips. It was not easy in the dark rainy streets to find the tall house where Hetty had her small apartment; but when I had found it, was admitted, stood in my wet mackintosh at her door and rang the bell, and Mouse opened the door, I thought
This Is It
.
    Unquestionably Mrs. Broom did not know me. Seven years ago she had seen me as a superfluous visiting child. Three years ago she no doubt had observed me in her own contemptuous way on board ship. And here I was, a young woman with some confidence who had not, it seemed, crossed her path before. On Mrs. Broom’s side there was also a change.She had grown thinner, and, under the hall light, age and perhaps fatigue showed in her face, but the iron grey of her hair was the same. The look on Mrs. Broom’s face was still the contained look of a woman who, one might think, consumed herself in unhappiness. She had the look of a woman who defended, and was at all points wary, and closed herself in from all people.
    “Mrs. Broom,” I said, “I should like to see Hetty.” Mrs. Broom looked at me as though this were a statement whose implications were to be considered. She had developed the manner of being about to close a door on you to a very high degree since I had seen her in Lytton.
    “Who are you and what is your business?” she asked. Her cold eyes examined me.
    “I am Frankie Burnaby, and I wish to see Hetty,” I answered, not thinking it at all strange that Mrs. Dorval and Lady Connot should now be, as far as I was concerned, simply Hetty.
    There was no greeting from Mrs. Broom. Indeed, if there was a change in her expression it became more defending than before. “Burnaby?” she said, and then “Oh,” and we stood and looked at each other. “And your business?”
    “I wish to see Hetty,” I answered