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It had scarcely changed, either within or without. As the four of us trooped inside-six with the dolls, for the dolls went out to lunch with us-I had an eerie sort of sensation that it was only yesterday that I was there. The same window with the muslin curtain drawn across; the same small room with the eight or ten marble tables; the same high desk, and if it was not the same woman who was seated at it then she was a very decent imitation.
"What a queer little place it seems."
Mrs Heathcote said this as we stood looking about for a table.
"Yes, it does seem queer."
It did-for a reason I was not disposed to explain. I chose the same table-that is, the table next to the desk in which the woman sat. As might have been expected, we had the place to ourselves, and the whole services of the one waiter. I fancy that the establishment provided us with a tolerable meal; the cooking always had been decent at Ordino's. Judging from the way in which the others despatched the fare which was set before us, the tradition still survived. So far as I was personally concerned I was scarcely qualified to criticise. Each mouthful "gave me furiously to think;" I thought between the mouthfuls; never before had I had a meal so full of thinking. My guests were merry enough; those two young women were laughing all the time.
At last we came to the dessert. "Madam," I began, "have you been badly treated or well?"
"Excellently treated, thank you. I think it has all been capital, only I'm afraid you haven't had your proper share."
"Oh, yes, I have had my proper portion and to spare. Is it allowable to ask you to gratify my curiosity by telling me for what special reason you chose Ordino's?"
She toyed with a pear which she was peeling.
"You will laugh at me."
"There will be no malice in my laughter if I do."
"Then the story is not mine."
"Whose then?"
"It's about my sister-Marjorie."
I gripped the edge of the table, but she did not notice, she was peeling her pear. Her daughters were occupied with their dolls. They were teaching them the only proper way in which to consume a banana. Judging from his contortions the one waiter seemed to find the proceedings as good as a play.
"You have a sister whose name is Marjorie?"
"Oh, yes, she is all the relations I have."
"Marjorie what?"
"Marjorie Fleming." Then I knew that a miracle had happened. "My eldest girl is named after her." I might have guessed it; I believe I did. "She's the dearest creature in the world, but she hasn't had the very best of times."
I said nothing, having nothing to say. I waited for her to go on, which presently she did do, dreamily, as she peeled her pear.
"Do you know that it was in this place-I suppose in this very room-perhaps at this very table, that her life was spoilt one Christmas Day."
"How-how spoilt?"
It seemed as if my tongue had shrivelled in my mouth.
"What is it that spoils a woman's life?"
"How should I know?"
"I thought that everyone knew what spoils a woman's life-even you cynical bachelors." Cynical bachelors! I was beginning to shiver as if each word she uttered was a piece of ice slipped down my back. "Different people write it different ways, but it's all summed up in the same word in the end-a lover."
"I thought that it was a lover who is supposed to make a woman's life the perfect thing it ought to be."
"He either makes or mars it. In my sister's case he-marred it."
"A woman's life is not so easily spoilt."
"Hers was. All in a moment. It was years and years ago, but it's with her still-that moment. I know, I know! Poor Marjorie! The whole of her life worth living is in the land of ghosts."
My heart stopped beating. The sap in my veins was dried. It seemed as if the world was slipping from me. All Marjorie's life worth living was in the land of ghosts? Why, then, we were in the land of ghosts together!
"She told me the story once, and only once, but I've never forgotten it-never; a woman never does forget that kind of story, and I'm sure Marjorie never will. I know it's just as present to her now as if it had only happened yesterday. Dear Marjorie! You don't know what a dear sister my sister is. Although, in those days, she was only a young girl, she lived alone in London. Our father and mother died when we were children. She was full of dreams of becoming a great artist; they are gone now, with the other dreams. She had a lover, who was jealous of her artist friends. They had lovers' tiffs. They used often to come to this place. They came here together one Christmas Day, of all days in the year. And it is because of what happened on that Christmas Day that Ordino's Restaurant has been to me a sort of legend, a shrine which had to be visited when occasion offered. They quarrelled. Marjorie told me that she never could remember just how the quarrel began, and I believe her. Quarrels, especially between a man and a woman, spring out of nothing often and often. They grew furiously hot. Suddenly, in his heat, he said something which no man ever ought to say to any woman, above all to the woman whom he loves. Marjorie stood up. She laid on the table the locket he had just given her-a Christmas gift-with, in it, his portrait and hers. And she said, 'I return you your locket. Presently, when I get home, I will return all that you have given me. I never wish to see you, or to hear from you, again.' And she went towards the entrance, he doing nothing to stop her. As she opened the door she saw him stand up and give the locket, her locket, to the woman who sat at the desk, as that woman is sitting now, and he said, in tones which he evidently intended that she should hear, 'Madam, permit me to beg your acceptance of this locket. Since it is associated with someone whom I wish I had never met, you will do me a great favour by relieving me of its custody.' Marjorie waited to hear no more. She went out, alone, into the street, that Christmas Day, and she has never seen him since or heard if he is alive or dead."
I was speechless. I could only sit and stare at the ghosts who stared at me.
All at once "the woman who sat at the desk," as Mrs Heathcote had put it, came down from her place and stood beside us.
"Madam," she exclaimed, in what struck me, even then, as tones of singular agitation, "it is a miracle, a true miracle. You must forgive me, I could not help but listen; my parents have told me the story many and many a time. It all happened as you have said. It was to my mother the locket was given. She wished very much not to take it, but the young gentleman, he was very excited, and at last, to avoid a scene, my father said to her, 'At least in your keeping it will be safe; worse might befall it than to be left in your hands. These foolish young people will make it up again. Presently they will return; you will be able to give back the locket to its proper owner.' But they did not return, neither the one nor the other, never, not once! At last my mother died; the locket came to me. She wished that when I was in the desk I should always carry it as she had done, for she believed that, at last, there would arrive a day when one or the other would return and the locket would be restored. Madam, here is the locket. I entreat you to permit me to beg you to return it to your sister, to whom it properly belongs."
The speaker held out something which I vaguely recognised as the locket of that eventful Christmas Day, which I had purchased with such loving thought and tender carefulness, and of which I had rid myself in such a storm of rage. Mrs Heathcote stared alternately at it and at the woman who for so long had held it, as a sacred charge, in such safe keeping, as if its sudden appearance had robbed her of her power of speech. I was conscious that someone had come into the place. Instantly those two young persons-who were still instructing their dolls in the proper manner of eating a banana-tore off towards the door, crying, at the top of their voices, -
"Father! father! Oh, mother, here's father!"
And all at once Mrs Heathcote went pushing past me, then I knew that she was in the arms of a man with a beard-I believe she was crying! – and exclaiming, -
"Robert, have you dropped from the skies?"
"No,"