



Produced by Joshua Hutchinson and PG Distributed Proofreaders










THE TRESPASSER

By D. H. Lawrence



1912



_Chapter 1_


'Take off that mute, do!' cried Louisa, snatching her fingers from the
piano keys, and turning abruptly to the violinist.

Helena looked slowly from her music.

'My dear Louisa,' she replied, 'it would be simply unendurable.' She
stood tapping her white skirt with her bow in a kind of a pathetic
forbearance.

'But I can't understand it,' cried Louisa, bouncing on her chair with
the exaggeration of one who is indignant with a beloved. 'It is only
lately you would even submit to muting your violin. At one time you
would have refused flatly, and no doubt about it.'

'I have only lately submitted to many things,' replied Helena, who
seemed weary and stupefied, but still sententious. Louisa drooped from
her bristling defiance.

'At any rate,' she said, scolding in tones too naked with love, I don't
like it.'

'_Go on from Allegro_,' said Helena, pointing with her bow to the place
on Louisa's score of the Mozart sonata. Louisa obediently took the
chords, and the music continued.

A young man, reclining in one of the wicker arm-chairs by the fire,
turned luxuriously from the girls to watch the flames poise and dance
with the music. He was evidently at his ease, yet he seemed a stranger
in the room.

It was the sitting-room of a mean house standing in line with hundreds
of others of the same kind, along a wide road in South London. Now and
again the trams hummed by, but the room was foreign to the trams and to
the sound of the London traffic. It was Helena's room, for which she was
responsible. The walls were of the dead-green colour of August foliage;
the green carpet, with its border of polished floor, lay like a square
of grass in a setting of black loam. Ceiling and frieze and fireplace
were smooth white. There was no other colouring.

The furniture, excepting the piano, had a transitory look; two light
wicker arm-chairs by the fire, the two frail stands of dark, polished
wood, the couple of flimsy chairs, and the case of books in the
recess--all seemed uneasy, as if they might be tossed out to leave the
room clear, with its green floor and walls, and its white rim of
skirting-board, serene.

On the mantlepiece were white lustres, and a small soapstone Buddha from
China, grey, impassive, locked in his renunciation. Besides these, two
tablets of translucent stone beautifully clouded with rose and blood,
and carved with Chinese symbols; then a litter of mementoes,
rock-crystals, and shells and scraps of seaweed.

A stranger, entering, felt at a loss. He looked at the bare wall-spaces
of dark green, at the scanty furniture, and was assured of his
unwelcome. The only objects of sympathy in the room were the white lamp
that glowed on a stand near the wall, and the large, beautiful fern,
with narrow fronds, which ruffled its cloud of green within the gloom of
the window-bay. These only, with the fire, seemed friendly.

The three candles on the dark piano burned softly, the music fluttered
on, but, like numbed butterflies, stupidly. Helena played mechanically.
She broke the music beneath her bow, so that it came lifeless, very
hurting to hear. The young man frowned, and pondered. Uneasily, he
turned again to the players.

The violinist was a girl of twenty-eight. Her white dress, high-waisted,
swung as she forced the rhythm, determinedly swaying to the time as if
her body were the white stroke of a metronome. It made the young man
frown as he watched. Yet he continued to watch. She had a very strong,
vigorous body. Her neck, pure white, arched in strength from the fine
hollow between her shoulders as she held the violin. The long white lace
of her sleeve swung, floated, after the bow.

Byrne could not see her face, more than the full curve of her cheek. He
watched her hair, which at the back was almost of the colour of the
soapstone idol, take the candlelight into its vigorous freedom in front
and glisten over her forehead.

Suddenly Helena broke off the music, and dropped her arm in irritable
resignation. Louisa looked round from the piano, surprised.

'Why,' she cried, 'wasn't it all right?'

Helena laughed wearily.

'It was all wrong,' she answered, as she put her violin tenderly to
rest.

'Oh, I'm sorry I did so badly,' said Louisa in a huff. She loved Helena
passionately.

'You didn't do badly at all,' replied her friend, in the same tired,
apathetic tone. 'It was I.'

When she had closed the black lid of her violin-case, Helena stood a
moment as if at a loss. Louisa looked up with eyes full of affection,
like a dog that did not dare to move to her beloved. Getting no
response, she drooped over the piano. At length Helena looked at her
friend, then slowly closed her eyes. The burden of this excessive
affection was too much for her. Smiling faintly, she said, as if she
were coaxing a child:

'Play some Chopin, Louisa.'

'I shall only do that all wrong, like everything else,' said the elder
plaintively. Louisa was thirty-five. She had been Helena's friend
for years.

'Play the mazurkas,' repeated Helena calmly.

Louisa rummaged among the music. Helena blew out her violin-candle, and
came to sit down on the side of the fire opposite to Byrne. The music
began. Helena pressed her arms with her hands, musing.

'They are inflamed still' said the young man.

She glanced up suddenly, her blue eyes, usually so heavy and tired,
lighting up with a small smile.

'Yes,' she answered, and she pushed back her sleeve, revealing a fine,
strong arm, which was scarlet on the outer side from shoulder to wrist,
like some long, red-burned fruit. The girl laid her cheek on the
smarting soft flesh caressively.

'It is quite hot,' she smiled, again caressing her sun-scalded arm with
peculiar joy.

'Funny to see a sunburn like that in mid-winter,' he replied, frowning.
'I can't think why it should last all these months. Don't you ever put
anything on to heal it?'

She smiled at him again, almost pitying, then put her mouth lovingly on
the burn.

'It comes out every evening like this,' she said softly, with curious
joy.

'And that was August, and now it's February!' he exclaimed. 'It must be
psychological, you know. You make it come--the smart; you invoke it.'

She looked up at him, suddenly cold.

'I! I never think of it,' she answered briefly, with a kind of sneer.

The young man's blood ran back from her at her acid tone. But the
mortification was physical only. Smiling quickly, gently--'

'Never?' he re-echoed.

There was silence between them for some moments, whilst Louisa continued
to play the piano for their benefit. At last:

'Drat it,' she exclaimed, flouncing round on the piano-stool.

The two looked up at her.

'Ye did run well--what hath hindered you?' laughed Byrne.

'You!' cried Louisa. 'Oh, I can't play any more,' she added, dropping
her arms along her skirt pathetically. Helena laughed quickly.

'Oh I can't, Helen!' pleaded Louisa.

'My dear,' said Helena, laughing briefly, 'you are really under _no_
obligation _whatever_.'

With the little groan of one who yields to a desire contrary to her
self-respect, Louisa dropped at the feet of Helena, laid her arm and her
head languishingly on the knee of her friend. The latter gave no sign,
but continued to gaze in the fire. Byrne, on the other side of the
hearth, sprawled in his chair, smoking a reflective cigarette.

The room was very quiet, silent even of the tick of a clock. Outside,
the traffic swept by, and feet pattered along the pavement. But this
vulgar storm of life seemed shut out of Helena's room, that remained
indifferent, like a church. Two candles burned dimly as on an altar,
glistening yellow on the dark piano. The lamp was blown out, and the
flameless fire, a red rubble, dwindled in the grate, so that the yellow
glow of the candles seemed to shine even on the embers. Still no
one spoke.

At last Helena shivered slightly in her chair, though did not change her
position. She sat motionless.

'Will you make coffee, Louisa?' she asked. Louisa lifted herself, looked
at her friend, and stretched slightly.

'Oh!' she groaned voluptuously. 'This is so comfortable!'

'Don't trouble then, I'll go. No, don't get up,' said Helena, trying to
disengage herself. Louisa reached and put her hands on Helena's wrists.

'I will go,' she drawled, almost groaning with