CHAPTER XACCELERANDO
SHE waited fully ten minutes in the drawing-room at “Claremont.” “Mr. Verreker will be here directly,” the maid had said, and Catherine had time to look about her. It was a lovely May evening: the windows were wide open at the bottom, and from the garden came the rich cloying scent of wallflowers. Somebody was working a lawn-mower.
He came in two minutes after the sound of the lawn-mower had ceased. There were scraps of grass about the fringes of his trousers.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he announced briskly.
“Don’t mention it,” she murmured, with perhaps a trace of sarcasm.
“I oughtn’t to, really, ought I?” he then said, “since you kept me waiting an hour last Saturday.”
She said nothing, but the atmosphere was definitely hostile.
He asked her what pieces she played. She told him. He took a sheet of paper, and scribbled them down as she recited them. He made no comment till she had said, “and a few others.”
“Ambitious!” he muttered, pondering over the list.
“Oh yes, I am, very.” She thought she would seize this opportunity of letting him know.
“Well, play the Debussy,” he said.
She did so.
“H’m!” he said, when she had finished.
After he had told her her faults (which took some time) and given her something definite to practise, the hour was nearly up, and he gavesundry indications that the lesson was finished.
“By the way,” he said, as she was on the way to the door, “didyou forget last Saturday?”
She might easily have said yes. Or she might have told the strict truth, viz. that she had forgotten the hour he had fixed. But she did neither.
“No,” she said, “I just didn’t come.”
He looked at her very much as Miss Forsdyke had looked at her when she had been impudent.
“Oh!” he replied, with a gesture that might have meant anything. “Well, the next time you intend to ’cut’ one of my lessons, drop me a card beforehand, then I shan’t be kept waiting for you. My time’s valuable.”
Curt!
And as she passed the table in the hall he suddenly gathered up a heap of some dozen letters, and said: “By the way, you might shove these in the pillar-box down the road as you go by.”
Before she realized the situation the letters were in her hands.
“Thanks!” he replied, opening the front door. “Good evening!”
If she had had the presence of mind she would have flung them all back at him. “I’m not your office-boy,” she might have said.
But presence of mind did not come to her till she was half-way down the Ridgeway.
She occupied her time as far as the pillar-box by reading the addresses on all the envelopes....
Slowly the perspectives of her life were changing. The old childish ideas and prejudices ceased to apply. In the matter of George Trant, for instance....
It is curious, but the more she realized that she was not in love with him, the more she realized also his essential good nature. At one time he had been a villain of undepictable blackness, and now, in the reaction from this melodramatic ideal, he appeared perhapsmore favourably than he deserved. At any rate, he was to all intents a perfectly honest, well-intentioned young fellow, slightly clever and of prepossessing manner. Whether he had changed, or whether she herself had changed, Catherine could not with certainty decide. But their attitude was fundamentally different from what it had been when Catherine had met him at Bockley Station after her domestic squall. Then he had appeared to her malignant, cruel, desirous of entrapping all innocent girls that came his way. He had been the real villain of the piece. Now it seemed incredible that she could ever have taken him so seriously. For he was a very ordinary young man. The glamour had fallen away from him—that glamour which might have made him a hero, but which, by irony of circumstances, had made him a villain instead. Catherine perceived that it was only her crude idealism that had invested him with Satanic characteristics. She had not a shred of evidence to convict him of ill-treatment of her. The famous note which he had sent her from Manchester, and which she had read on the top of a crowded tram-car, had unfortunately been sacrificed to the dramatic requirements of the situation, but Catherine, only half remembering its contents, had a feeling that if she were to read them in the perspective of several years they would seem wholly inadequate to justify the profound significance she had given them.
It was apparent now to her that George was hopeless as a villain. He said cynical things occasionally, but that was only an affectation. In reality he was a typical example of the rather superior season-ticket holder. His utmost criminality would not transcend the riding of a bicycle without a rear light....
Of course his position was immensely complicated by the fact that he had fallen in love with her....
One day (they had met upon the platform at Upton Rising Station) she tackled him directly.
“Look here,” she said, “you remember that letter you wrote me fromManchester? You enclosed it in Helen’s letter.Doyou remember it?”
“Yes,” he said.
“What did you mean by it?”
He seemed puzzled.
“Well, it’s a long time ago, and I scarcely remember what it was like.... I dare say it was rather fatuously clever: I used to think myself a dab hand at letter-writing in those days.”
That was as reasonable an explanation as she could have expected. She switched on to another line of questioning.
“You remember that time we were on the balcony at the Forest Hotel—just before the others came up?”
“Yes.”
“You—I believe—you were trying to apologize to me—for something. Now, what was it?”
He seemed embarrassed as well as puzzled.
“Well,” he began hesitatingly, “of course I may have been wrong—probably I was—but I always understood—I mean I had gathered that—that there had been a sort of—er, misunderstanding between us.”
“Why should you apologize for that?”
“Well, if there had been one it might have been my own fault. So I thought I’d apologize——”
“From whom did you gather there had been a misunderstanding?”
“I believe it was Helen who——”
“Oh, I see.”
He emboldened himself to start a cross-examination of her.
“May I ask if there ever was a misunderstanding?” he said.
Catherine lied, splendidly, regally, with magnificent disdain. It was clearly an opportunity to demonstrate (to herself chiefly) how completely the tables had been turned.
“I’m sure I don’t know what the misunderstanding you’ve been talking about is or was supposed to be. But so far as I am aware there never was such a thing.”
He tried to grasp all the significations of this. Then he resumed the enquiry.
“Why have you been asking me about these things?”
“Merely curiosity,” she replied, with an undercurrent of implication which said: “Do you suppose for one moment that my reasons could have been any other than those of mere curiosity?”
Yet he wilfully ignored the implication. All day in the stuffy accountant’s office in Leadenhall Street he kept pausing in his work and treating himself to the riotous luxury of the thought: “I don’t believe itwascuriosity. Why should she have asked about that letter? And besides, Helen sticks to it she was in love with me in those days! After all, it’s extremely unlikely it was only curiosity.... Of course, she had to say it was. She couldn’t easily have said anything else. At least ...”
So that the position was really complicated instead of being cleared up. And Catherine’s lie was perhaps excusable. That people should fall in love with her was natural enough, but that she should display a similar weakness was extremely undignified, to say the least. And besides, she was not even sure shehadbeen in love with George Trant. Was not there in her an instinct which had said (in effect, if not in so many words): “This is mere sentimental flapdoodle. Wallow as much as you like in its painful ecstasy, but don’t imagine for a moment that it’s the real stuff ...?”
George Trant was a member of the Upton Arts Club.
In the room over Burlington’s Music Emporium the Upton Arts Club met on Sunday evenings at 8.30.
One Sunday during the discussion following a paper on “Cézanne and the Modernists,” George drawled sleepily from his arm-chair by the fire:
“Of course, as a staunch Conservative in politics, I——” A startled hush fell upon the assembly. “Disraelian, I need hardly say,” he added, and the amazement was more profound....
George Trant was also a member of the Upton Rising Conservative and Unionist Association.
The Upton Rising Conservative and Unionist Association existed from 8 a.m. till 12 midnight every day for the purpose of playing billiards, drinking whisky, and reading sporting newspapers. Occasionally its members would talk politics. It was on one of these comparatively rare occasions (the topic was Mr. Lloyd George’s Land Tax) that George announced quietly from behind his evening paper:
“Of course, as a convinced Socialist in the matter of landed property, I——” The elderly white-whiskered gentlemen were thrilled. “Not Marxian, I need scarcely add,” resumed George placidly, and the conviction grew that George Trant was a very strange young man.
The Disraelian Conservative and un-Marxian Socialist acquired the reputation of being somewhat bewilderingly clever.... TheBockley Advertiserreported in full his secondings of votes of thanks. The Arts Club were proud to hear his exposition of “Ibsen: the Man and the Prophet.” It was in the days when to read Ibsen was to be modern. And the Conservative Club were never more conscious of their brazen Philistinism than when he talked to them easily of Scriabin and Ravel and César Franck.
“And of course one must not forget the Spanish School. There is a great tendency to ignore the Spanish School nowadays. But it’s wholly unfair. Such men as ... for instance.”
Even in politics he could be mystifyingly erudite. A reference to Jeremy Bentham or Ricardo or Huskisson would floor them absolutely...
“Queer chap,” was their verdict. “Must read a lot, I suppose....” And, content with that explanation, they resumed their billiards or their whisky or theirPink ’Un....
It happened that upon a certain bright morning in August a smart motor-cycle with side-car attachment went teuf-teufing along the highroad in the direction of the Forest. The side-car was occupied by a girl with violently red hair, and the whole installation was manœuvred by an individual in mackintosh overalls, who was (although you might never have guessed it by looking at him) a Disraelian Conservative and an un-Marxian Socialist....
Catherine, incidentally, was riding in a side-car for the first time in her life.
George, incidentally, was driving a motor-cycle, if not for the first time, at any rate for the third or fourth time in his life. The machine was brand-new. One or two lessons on a friend’s motor-bike (to which there was no side-car) had convinced George that he was capable of taking a young lady for a hundred miles’ spin in the country without undue risks. Accordingly, he had purchased a machine out of the accumulated savings of several years, and had written to Catherine the following note:
DEAR CATHIE,I have just bought a motor-bike and side-car. I shall run it round a bit next Saturday, if fine, and should be pleased to take you if you care to come.
DEAR CATHIE,
I have just bought a motor-bike and side-car. I shall run it round a bit next Saturday, if fine, and should be pleased to take you if you care to come.
And when he had met her (by arrangement) at the corner of the Ridgeway, he had said, offhand:
“You see, there must be somebody in the side-car or else you don’t give the thing a fair chance.”
And the implication was: “You are nothing but ballast, my dear girl; a sack of potatoes would have done just as well, only you are more easily procurable.”
Somehow the beautiful shining enamelled creature bristling with taps and levers and handles made him talk with a cultivated brusqueness. It was as if the machine occupied the first place in his attentions and she came next. At the moment this may very likely have been true. She seated herself snugly in the torpedo-shaped car, and watched him manipulate levers and buttons. He looked very strong and masculine in his overalls. For several minutes he tried in vain to induce a liveliness in the engine. The policeman on point duty at the corner (who knew Catherine) smiled; some street urchins shouted facetiousremarks. After five minutes of intense examination he pounced upon an apparently vulnerable part of the mechanism and performed a subtle and invisible operation. Then he pushed off, and the engine woke into clamorous applause. They began to move. The street urchins cheered ironically.
“I thought that would do it,” he shouted to her triumphantly above the din, with the air of one who had performed a masterpiece of mechanical surgery.
Yet to himself he blushed. For he had forgotten to admit the petrol from the tank!
When they reached Epping, George told himself: “It’s absurdly easy to drive a motor-bike and side-car. Absolutely nothing in it. I’ll put the pace on a bit between here and Stortford.” The thirteen miles to Bishop’s Stortford were done in twenty-eight minutes. At Stortford they had early lunch.
Afternoon saw them jostling in and out amongst the crowded streets of Cambridge. They garaged the machine, and went to a café for tea.
He was full of a kind of boisterous arrogance.
“Stiff little bit from Stortford.... But, of course, we took it awfully slow.... Road’s not so bad.... Ever been on the road from Aberystwyth to Dolgelly?”
Catherine had not. (Nor had George for that matter.)
“Awful bit of road, that....” (It occurred to him as being a strip of road that might conceivably be awful.)
She could see that he was showing off to her. He was proud of his machine, proud of the white dust on his shoes, of his sun-tanned face, of his goggles, his gauntlet gloves, and his earflaps. He was superbly proud of having piloted himself and her from the corner of Bockley High Street and the Ridgeway to the streets of Cambridge without hitch or mishap. Six hours ago they were in Bockley. Now they were in aself-sufficing and exceedingly provincial University town, the very antithesis of suburbia. And the miracle was his! His hands, his nerve, his eye had wrought it! He was excusably pleased with himself.
But she was conscious of a curious sense of disappointment. It was now three months since that evening when he had taken her to Gifford Road in a taxi. It was three months since she had divined intuitively that he was in love with her. And during those three months he had been marvellously reticent, exasperatingly discreet. She had almost begun to doubt the reliability of her instinct. And though she knew she did not in the least reciprocate his feelings, she was fascinated by the idea that she was something incalculable and vital to him. Perhaps it was sheer pride of conquest, perhaps it was merely her love of compliments and her extreme gratification at this, the supreme compliment of all. Or perhaps it was just her own inexplicable perversity.
He was anxious to get back before lighting-up time, and she, for no very definite reason, was inclined to prefer a quick run under the cool moonlight. She deliberately delayed him by showing fastidiousness in the selection of a café. Then she got him talking about the Arts Club.
“I hear you’re going to speak next Sunday.”
“Oh yes—just read a paper, that’s all. On Ibsen’sWild Duck.... Of course, you’ve read it?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t read any Ibsen.”
“Really? ... Oh, you must read him. Awfully good, you know. Stimulating; modern; very modern.Doll’s House, you know.RosmersholmandLittle Eyolf.... And, of course,Ghosts. Absolute biological nightmare—Ghosts... but terrifically clever.... I’ll lend you the whole lot if you’ll promise to read them.”
“Right,” she said. And she thought: “Doesn’t he like to show he knows more than I know? But if heisin love with me it won’t matter about that.” (And she could not properly have explained that thought either.)
But she kept him talking because she saw it was getting late.
On the return journey they stopped to light the lamps at a lonely spot called Stump Cross, some ten miles out of Cambridge. She watched him as he stood in front of the machine with the acetylene glare lighting up his face and his goggles and his earflaps and his gauntlet gloves and his overalls, and, above all, his expression of stern delight. They were two solitary figures with hills rolling up and down on either side of them, and nothing in view save dim distant ridges and a gaunt sign-post which said: “To London, by Stortford, 45½ miles.”
“We’ll put on a spurt,” he said, clambering into the saddle....
As they entered the outskirts of Bishop’s Stortford at a speed of just over thirty miles an hour the full moon swept from behind a bank of clouds and lay in pools over the landscape....
It was in the narrow and congested portion of the main street that something happened. (As a matter of fact they need not have gone through the town at all: there is a loop road, but George was unwilling to tackle a road he had not encountered by daylight.) There is no doubt that George was feeling very conscious of himself as he honk-honked his way through the crowded roadway. It was a Saturday night, and the streets were full. As they swerved round the corner of the George Hotel the huge acetylene beams lit up a sea of faces. Men and women passed them on the kerb as in a dream: girls with bright eyes and laughing faces, and men with the unmistakable Saturday night expression flitted past them shadow-like. It was ecstasy to be swirling past them all at a pace which, though not fast, had just a spice of danger in it. George, in his overalls and headgear, looked like a Viking steering his galley through heavy seas. What was more, he knew he was looking like that, and was trying desperately to look more like that than ever.
And then, at the point where the main highway narrows and begins an S turn, with numerous side-streets complicating the problem, George espied a vehicle proceeding slowly in the same direction as he. It was a market-booth on four wheels, shuttered up at the sides, returning to its stabling after the night’s market. On the side in painted crimson lettering ran the inscription: “H. Bullock. Temperance Liquors and Fruit Beverages.” The whole was drawn by a tired, meditative horse. The existence of this equipage in the middle of the road created a problem. George was rapidly overtaking it, and of course he should have passed by on the right or off-side. But that would have meant checking pace and honk-honking vigorously to clear people out of the way. Whereas he was driving close to the kerb and could see a space between it and the vehicle which seemed ample for passage. Besides, it was rather stylish to “nip in” between vehicles and the kerb. People would stare back at him and mutter, “Reckless fellow!” and by the time they had resumed their walk he would be on the outskirts of the town. Accordingly, summoning his features for an intensely Viking expression, he decided to “nip in.” The road was narrowing, and he knew he would have to put on a spurt. The accelerator moved, and they went forward with a bound. Blurred mists of passing faces swept by along the kerb.... There was a sudden jar. The side-car wheel had mounted the pavement, which was here only an inch or so above the roadway. Nevertheless, no harm had yet been done. And then the appalling vision of a lamp-post seized hold of George and wrought havoc with his presence of mind. That lamp-post obsessed him, possessed him, threw him into inarticulate terror. That lamp-post would slice off the wheel of the side-car as a scythe cuts grass. It was therefore necessary at all costs to avoid that lamp-post. With a mighty sense of the tremendous issues that hung upon the merest fractional movement of his hands, George swerved to the right. Even as he did so he could almost feel the sickening impact of the lamp-post. He waited for what seemed a long minute—waited for the sudden jarand shiver and crumple. Strange to say it did not come.... Then with a feeling of overwhelming relief he perceived that the obstacle had been passed. The lamp-post was already behind him, an unsuccessful syren baulked of its prey. Exquisite moment! Colossal thrill! Magnificent piece of steering! And then ...
A sudden grind of the front wheel, a sort of convulsive jerk which threw him sideways on top of the side-car, and a medley of snapping and shivering and crumpling sounds. Then (it seemed an age before he mastered the situation) he shouted to Catherine, whose ear was not so very far from his mouth: “By Jove, we must have cannoned into that cart!”
His voice was as the voice of one who is immensely interested in a subtle and curious phenomenon....
George was distressed.
He and Catherine were slowly walking to Bishop’s Stortford railway station. The Viking expression had left his features; the motor-cap and goggles and overalls and gloves were tied up in a brown-paper parcel which he carried under his arm. Also, his face was very dirty.
Terrible things had happened to him.
A couple of policemen had taken his full name and address, and made copious entries in notebooks.
Mr. H. Bullock had sworn vividly. In trying to estimate the extent of damage to his front wheel George had tactlessly turned the full glare of the acetylene lamp upon the horse’s eye. The horse had hitherto been uncertain whether the situation justified panic flight or not; now he decided swiftly in the affirmative. He rushed forward precipitately, and in less than a dozen yards had smashed off the wheel of the cart against a pillar-box. The cart sagged despairingly, and streams of bilious lemonade poured through the flooring. Mr. Bullock’s language became terrific.
And then one of the policemen had said: “By the way, got your licence?”
George had blushed (though the fact that he was already a deep red disguised the phenomenon).
“I’m afraid—I—I must have left it at home,” he stammered weakly, diving into his inside pocket and fishing amongst letters and papers.
Yet both Catherine and the policeman knew in that moment that he had not got a licence at all. Something in his voice told them.
And what is more, George knew that both the policeman and Catherine were aware that he had not got a licence at all. Something in their eyes told him.
And then George had wilted under the vivid abuse of Mr. H. Bullock. Spectators called out monotonously: “You were on the wrong side of ’im.” “You was goin’ too fast.” “You didn’t orter ’ave come nippin’ in like thet.” “On the kerb ’e was, a minute before—don’t know ’ow to drive, ’e don’t.” “Didn’t orter be trusted, them soit of cheps.” “Swervin’ abart like anythink: shouldn’ be surprised if he’s drunk.”
And a fierce clergyman in a three-inch collar floored George with the remark: “You ought to be in jail, my man. You are a pest to society.”
And then George had to push the battered machine into a garage (which was fortunately at hand), and pay exorbitantly for leaving it there. The garage proprietor was subtly sarcastic to George.
Then George came back to parley with the policemen. The crowd became hostile. George rather unwisely began to divest himself of his motoring garments. Facetiousness prevailed. Catherine was the subject of much speculation.
“I wouldn’t trust myself to ’im no more,” remarked a bystander. And another wanted to know if her mother knew she was out. (It was in the days of that popular song.)
“’E’s a-tryin’ to murder you, that’s wot ’e is,” said a sour-faced spectator. “’E’s found another gal, an’ wants ter git rid of you.”
And an elderly man with a bizarre sense of humour said: “You look out for yerself, my gal; ’e won’t ’ave no money ter marry you on w’en ’e’s pide ’is fines.”
George caught the sally, and the whole phantasmagoria of the police-court flashed across his mind. Also the fact that this trip to Cambridge was likely to leave him with very little, if any money at all....
And now, on the slope leading up to the railway station, George was distressed. He was physically and mentally unmanned. He could not speak without a tremor. He seemed so physically enfeebled that she took his arm and asked him to lean on her. All at once she realized the extraordinary fact that of the two she was infinitely the stronger. With all his self-confidence and arrogance and aplomb, he was nothing but a pathetic weakling.
The hostility of the crowd had made her vaguely sympathetic with him. She had watched him being browbeaten by policemen and by the owner of the cart, and a strange protective instinct surged up in her. She wanted to stick up for him, to plant herself definitely on his side. She felt she was bound to champion him in adversity. She thought: “I’m with him, and I must look after him. He’s my man, and I’ve got to protect him.”
All the long walk to the station was saturated in this atmosphere of tense sympathy and anxious protection.
“We shall catch the 10.20,” he said. “There’s heaps of time. We shall have over an hour to wait.”
“That’ll be all right,” she said comprehensively.
On the station platform they paced up and down many times in absolute silence. The moon was gorgeously radiant, flinging the goods yard opposite into blotches of light and shadow. The red lamps of the signals quavered ineffectually.
“You know it’s awfully lucky you weren’t hurt,” he said at last.
She nodded. Pause.
Then he broke out: “You know, really, I’m most awfully sorry——”
“Oh, don’t bother about that,” she said lightly. “It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t help it.”
(Yet she knew it was his fault, and that he could have helped it. She also knew that he had no licence.)
And then a strange thing happened.
They were in the shadow of a doorway. He suddenly put his two arms on her shoulders and kissed her passionately on the lips. Her hair was blowing behind her like a trail of flame. He kissed her again with deepening intensity. And then her face, upturned to his, dropped convulsively forward. Her eyes were closed with a great mist, and her hair fell over his hands and hid them from view. There was something terrible in the fierceness with which he bent down and, because he could not kiss her face, kissed her fire-burnished hair. And as he did so again and again she began to cry very softly. His hands could feel the sobs which shook her frame. And he was thrilled, electrified....
“My God!” he whispered....
... Then with a quick movement she drew back. The tears in her eyes were shining like pearls, and her face was white—quite white. Passion was in every limb of her.
“That’s enough,” she said almost curtly, but it was all that she could trust herself to say. For she was overwhelmed, swept out of her depth by this sudden tide.
And all the way to Liverpool Street, with George sitting in the corner opposite to her, her mind and soul were running mad riot....
“Good-bye,” he said later, at the gate of No. 14, Gifford Road, and from the inflexion of his voice she perceived that their relations had undergone a subtle change....
She watched him as he disappeared round the corner. On a sudden impulse she raced after him and caught him up.
“George!” she said.
“Yes?”
“Will you be summoned, d’you think?”
“Oh, certainly.”
“Well—I thought I’d tell you ... if you’re short of money through it ... I’ve got some.... I can lend it to you ... if you’re short, that is....”
“It’s awfully good of you,” he replied. Yet she knew he was thinking of something else.... Her running back to him had reopened the problem of farewell. He was debating: “Shall I kiss her again?” And she was wondering if he would. In a way she hoped not. There would be something cold-blooded in it if he did it too frequently. It would lack the fire, the spontaneity, the glorious impulse of that moment at Bishop’s Stortford railway station. It would assuredly be banal after what had happened. She was slightly afraid. She wished she had not run back to him. Nervousness assailed her.
“Good-night!” she cried, and fled back along Gifford Road. Behind her she heard his voice echoing her farewell and the sound of his footsteps beginning along the deserted highway. It was nearly two a.m....
Undressing in the tiny attic bedroom she discovered a dark bruise on her right shoulder. It must have been where he lurched sideways against her just after the collision. She had not felt it. She had not known anything about it....