For good luck’s sake smile, Ruthita,” said my grandmother. “There you’ve sat all through breakfast lookin’ like a week o’ Sundays, with your face as long as a yard o’ pump water. What’s the matter with you, child? Ain’t you well?”
I saw the brightness come into Ruthita’s eyes and the lashes tremble. I knew by the signs that directly she heard her own voice she would begin to cry, so I answered for her.
“I can tell you what’s the matter. I upset her last night. It was nearly twelve when I got home from my walk with Mrs. Carpenter. Ruthie’d got herself all worked up. Thought we’d been getting drowned again or something, didn’t you, Ruthie? It was too bad of me to keep her sitting up so late.”
A heavy silence fell. Ruthita dropped her eyes, trying to recover her composure. My grandmother’s face masked itself in a non-committal stare. She gazed past me out of the window, and seemed to hold her breath; only the faint tinkling of the gold chain against the jet of her bodice, told how her breath came and went. She had placed her hand on the coffee-pot as I began to speak. When I ended, it stayed there motionless. From the bake-house across the courtyard came the bump, bang, bump of the bakers pounding the dough into bread.
“So you stayed out with Mrs. Carpenter till nearly twelve?”
My grandmother never used dialect when she wished to be impressive. Her tones were icily refined and haughty—
I recognized them as belonging to her company manners. She could be crushingly aloof and dignified when her sense of the moralities was offended. She had practised her talent for “settin’ folks down and makin’ ’em feel like three penn’orth o’ happence” to some purpose on grizzled sea-captains.
“Yes, till nearly twelve. It was pretty late, wasn’t it? We met some interesting people camping on the marshlands—old friends of mine and Ruthita’s.”
“Indeed! And you walked back from the Broads about midnight with a married woman.”
“Oh, no. It wasn’t much after ten when we started back. Time passed quickly; we didn’t realize how late it was getting. It didn’t matter, except for Ruthita. It was bright moonlight. The country looked perfect.”
“It must ha’ done,” said my grandmother sarcastically.
“It did. Some day we must try it all together.”
“And who were your interesting friends? Respectable people, no doubt, to be camping on the marshlands.”
“They weren’t respectable. They were gipsies.” Then, turning to Ruthita, “It was Lilith that we met. You remember Lilith of Epping Forest—that time we ran away to get married. Fancy meeting her after all these years! And just as I left, I saw G’liath drive up. I could swear it was the same old caravan, Ruthie.”
Curiosity and love of romance melted my grandmother’s reserve.
“G’liath! Why, that’s the gipsy family to which Sir Charles’s mother belonged. They must be kind o’ relatives o’ yours.”
“I suppose they must. I never thought of that. I’ll have to ask Lilith about it. They were on their way to Yarminster Fair. We’ll run over and see them.”
Just then the errand boy, who was minding the shop, tapped at the keeping-room door and handed in a note for me. I saw that it was unstamped and addressed in a handwriting that I did not recognize.
“Where did this come from?”
“It war left jist nar acrost the counter by a sarvant-gal.”
“All right.”
Ruthita was telling my grandmother all that she could remember of Lilith. I ripped open the envelope and read:
Something has happened. Must see you at once. Come as soon as you can. Vi.
“Who’s your letter from?”
“From Mrs. Carpenter.”
“Mrs. Carpenter again! What does she want? It’s not more’n nine hours since you saw her.”
“She wants my advice on—on a business matter.”
“Humph! I ’ope she may profit by it.”
As I was sauntering out of the shop Ruthita called after me in her high clear voice, “Going to take me to Yarminster to-day, Dante?”
“Don’t know yet. I’ll tell you later.”
Until I reached the top of the street I strolled jauntily; I was sure I was being watched. I had left an atmosphere of jealous annoyance and baffled suspicion behind. It was absurd to be nursed and guarded by affectionate relatives in the way I was.
I was puzzled by Vi’s note. I worked out all kinds of conjectures as I jostled my way through fisher-girls and sailors up the High Street.
I was shown into the room at the back of the black flint house, which overlooked the sea. The windows were open wide; wind fluttered the curtains. Breakfast things were only partially cleared from the table. Upstairs I could hear Dorrie’s piping voice and, now and then, could catch a phrase of what she was saying.
“Let me thee him too, Vi. Oh, pleath. No, I don’t want to play wiv Annie. I want to play wiv Dante.”
Then I heard the thump, thump, thump of Dorrie stumping from stair to stair by way of protest, and the heavy step of Annie taking her forcibly to the kitchen.
Vi descended a moment later. She entered without eagerness, shutting the door carefully behind her. There was never anything of hurry or neglect in her appearance; she always looked fresh and trimly attired. The high color in her usually pale cheeks was the only sign of perturbation.
She crossed the room towards me with a slow, swaying motion, and halted a foot away, holding out her hand. I took it in mine, pressing it gently. Her mouth was quivering. She was making an effort to be formally polite and was not succeeding. The soft rustling of her skirts, the slow rise and fall of her bosom, her delicate fragrance and timid beauty—everything about her was bewilderingly feminine. What arguments, I wondered, what campaigns of caution, what capitulations of wild desires to duty were going on behind that smooth white forehead? My grip on her hand tightened; I drew her to me. Her cold remoteness added to my yearning.
“What is it? Why did you send for me? You’ve changed since last night.”
She drew her hand free from mine. I saw that, for the first time since I had known her, she was wearing a band of gold upon her wedding-finger.
“It’s all over, Dante.”
She whispered the words, wringing her hands and staring away from me out to sea. I slipped my arm about her shoulder. “It can never be all over, dearest.”
For answer she handed me a letter. It bore a United States stamp and was addressed to her in a bold, emphatic, perpendicular hand which revealed the writer’s vigorous determination of character.
“From my husband. Read it.”
Standing a little apart from her at the window, I drew out a carefully folded letter. It was dated from Sheba, Massachusetts, nine days previous to its arrival. While I read it, I watched her stealthily, how she stood charmingly irresolute, twisting the gold-band off and on her finger.
My dearest Vi:
I have written you many times, asking you to fix definitely the day of your return. You’ve put me off with all kinds of excuses. Latterly you have not even referred to my question. My dear child, don’t think I blame you; you probably have your own reasons for what you are doing. But people are beginning to talk about us here. For your own sake you ought to return. We’ve always tried to play fair by one another. You were always game, Vi; and now it’s up to you.
I’m lonely. I want my little Dorrie. Most of all I want my wife. I can’t stand this absence much longer. On receipt of this send me a cable “Coming,” followed by the date of your sailing. If I don’t receive such a cable within ten days of mailing this letter, I shall jump on a boat and come over. I don’t distrust you, but I’m worn out with waiting. Can’t you understand how I want you? Nothing in the world matters to me, my child, except you.
Your affectionate husband,
Randall.
I re-folded it methodically and returned it to the envelope. I tried to picture this man who had sent it. He was manifestly elderly. Probably he was portly, a trifle pompous and genially paternal in his manners. What volumes his trick of calling her “my child” revealed concerning their relations. I contrasted him with Vi. Vi with her eager youth, her passion to taste life’s rapture, her slim white body so alluring and so gracious, her physical fineness, her possibilities for bestowing and receiving natural joy. If I let her go, she would slowly lose her zest for life. She would forget that she was a woman and would sink prematurely into stolid middle-age. Her possibilities of motherhood would slip from her untaken and never to be renewed. The little rascals, with golden hair and features which should perpetuate her beauty, would never be born to her. Those children should be hers and mine.Hers and mine. How the words beat upon my brain! They were like the fists of little children, battering against the closed doors of existence. It was monstrous that the justice of this husband’s claim to her should be based on his injustice in having married her.
Again I formed my mental picture of him, formed it with the cruel sarcasm of youth. His body was deteriorated; his skin puckered and yellow; the fine lines of suppleness and straightness gone; the muscles flabby and jaded. Then I looked at her: gold and ivory, with poppies for a mouth. Sweet and nobly chaste. A woman to set a man on fire—to drive him to the extremes of sorrow or gladness. A woman to sin for.
I turned from the window and took one step towards her. I could feel her body throbbing against mine. The fierce sweet ecstasy of my delight hurt her. I saw nothing but her eyes. All else in the world was darkness.
“Let me go,” she panted.
“Do you want to go?” I whispered.
She sank her head on my shoulder. Her arms were about my neck. I could only see her golden hair. Her answer came to me broken and muffled. “No, no, no.”
I carried her to the sofa and knelt beside her.
“You won’t ever despise me, will you?”
How absurd her question sounded.
Without any reference to our ultimate purpose, we set about making our plans. We must get away from Ransby. We must not be seen together any more that day. We would meet at the station that evening, and travel up to London together by the train leaving Ransby at six-thirty-eight. Our plans went no further.
Now that all had been arranged, a new embarrassment arose between us—a sweet shamefulness. She clung to me, yet she cast down her eyes, her cheeks encrimsoned, not daring to look me in the face. We touched one another shyly and shuddered at the contact. Our hearts were too full for words, our thoughts too primitively intimate to be expressed. The veils had dropped from our eyes. The mystery of mysteries lay exposed. We saw one another, natural in our passions—exiles from society. No artificial restraints stood between us; in our conduct with one another we were free to be governed by our own desires.
A scurry of little feet in the passage. The sound of heavier ones pursuing. We sprang apart. Dorrie entered, running with her arms stretched out towards me. “Catch me, Dante. Don’t let her get me.”
The rueful face of Annie appeared in the doorway; her plump arms covered to the elbows with flour. “If ’ee please, mum,” she said, “it warn’t no fault o’ mine. She nipped out afore I could get a-holt o’ her, while I war a-makin’ o’ the pudden.”
“You’re juth horwid,” cried Dorrie. “Go ’way. I want to thpeak to Dante.”
She scrambled on my knee, clutching tightly to my coat till Annie had vanished. Then she tossed her curls out of her eyes, and told me all that she and Ruthita had done together on the previous evening. While she was talking, I watched Vi, trying to realize the seemingly impossible truth that she had promised herself to me, and would soon be mine. A host of bewildering images rushed through my mind as I gazed into the future. I was amazed at myself that I should feel no fear of the step which we contemplated.
“Old thtupid,” cried Dorrie in an aggrieved voice, “you weren’t lithening.”
She smoothed her baby fingers up and down my face, coaxing me to give her my attention.
“Sorry, little lady, but I must be going. You must tell me all about it some other time.”
“All wite,” she acquiesced contentedly; “it’s a pwomith.”
Vi accompanied me to the door.
“To-night.”
“To-night.”
“What wath you thaying?” asked Dorrie.
“Nothing, my darling.”
My grandmother was sitting behind her counter, knitting, when I entered. She sank her chin and looked at me humorously over her spectacles. “Well, my man of business, did she take your advice?”
“Of course. Why shouldn’t she? She’s seen my grannie, and knows how she’s profited by it.”
“Clever boy,” she retorted. “Who made your shirt? When a man of business is born among the Cardovers, pears’ll grow on pines. Look at your father. Look at the Spuffler. Look at yourself. I hope she won’t act on it. What was it?”
“Can’t tell you now. I find I’ve got to run up to London to-night and I’ve promised to take Ruthie to Yarminster. There’s only just time.”
“What’s takin’ you to London? You didn’t say anythin’ about it this marnin’.” She dropped her knitting in her lap. “Dante, is it anythin’ to do with her?”
“Partly.”
She beckoned me nearer to her. I leant over the counter. She glanced meaningly towards the door of the keeping-room. I stooped lower till our heads nearly touched. “You’d better stay there, laddie,” she whispered. “I’ve been thinkin’ and usin’ me eyes. This ain’t no place fur you at present. She’s gettin’ too fond of you and you of her. I know.” She nodded. “I’ve been through it. I watched your pa at it.”
“At what?”
“At what you and Mrs. Carpenter are doin’. Don’t pretend you’re a fool, Dante, ’cause you’re not—and neither is your old grannie.”
Just then Ruthita looked out of the keeping-room. I was glad of the excuse to cut this dangerous conversation short. “Hurry up, Ruthie; get on your togs. I’m going to drive you over to Yarminster.”
When she had gone, my grandmother turned to me again. “And there’s another of ’em. Lovers can’t keep their secrets to theirselves nohow—they give theirselves away with every breath. Did ye see the way she flushed wi’ pleasure? She’s a tender little maid. If you made her unhappy, though she’s none o’ my body, I’d never forgive ye, Dante. If you don’t intend to marry ’er, be careful.”
“Rubbish,” I exclaimed and went out into the street to fetch round a dog-cart from the livery-stables.
“Aye, rubbish is well enough,” was my grandmother’s final retort; “but broken eggs can’t be mended. No more can broken hearts.”
There was just room enough on the front-seat to take the two of us. As I drove down the street I saw Ruthita come out of the shop and stand waiting on the pavement. She looked modest and pretty as a sprig of lavender. There was always something quaintly virginal about her, as though she had stepped out of an old English love-song. Her eyes were unusually bright this morning with the pleasure of anticipation. With subtle flattery, she had put on one of the gowns I had bought her. It was her way of saying, “This day is to be mine and yours.”
“Don’t I do you proud?” she laughed, using one of Vi’s Americanisms.
“No, you don’t,” I said, with pretended harshness, “I can’t think where you got such a dunducketty old dress from.”
“A man gave it me. Didn’t he show bad taste?”
“He showed himself a perfect ass. Now, if I were to buy you a dress, Ruthie, which of course I shan’t——”
“Here, get off with you, you rascals. What’re you a-doin’, blockin’ up my pavement?”
Grandmother Cardover stood in the doorway, her hands folded beneath her black satin apron, her keys jangling. The gray cork-screw curls from under her cap were wobbling; her plump little body was shaking with enjoyment. All her crossness and caution on Vi’s account were gone at seeing Ruthita and myself together. We started up at a smart trot. As we turned the corner into the High Street, we looked back. She was still there, gazing after us.
By the road which follows the coast, Yarminster is eight miles from Ransby. I turned inland by a roundabout route; I wanted to pass through Woadley.
My spirits ran high with the thought of what was to happen shortly. I was in a mood to be gay. Clouds were flying high. The country lay windswept and golden in the sunshine. The air had the sharp tang of autumn—the acrid fragrance which foretells the decay of foliage. A pleasant melancholy lurked in the reds and yellows of woods and hedges. Tops of trees were already growing thin of leaves where the gales had harried them. Pasturing in harvested fields, flocks of sheep lent a touch of grayness to the landscape. Here and there overhead gulls hovered, or slid down the sky on poised wings, as though brooding on the summer that was gone.
Ruthita and I spoke of Lilith, recalling childhood’s days. We laughed over our amazement at discovering that her back was no longer humpy—that her baby had left her. Then we fell to wondering whether she had ever been married and what was her story. Our conversation became intimate and confessional. I had never known much of Ruthita’s secret thoughts.
“Dante,” she cried, “why did they leave us to find out everything?”
I slowed the horse down to a walk. “I know what you mean, Ruthie. They brought us up on fables. They left us to fight with all kinds of fantastic imaginings. They allowed us to infer that so many things were shameful. D’you remember what a fuss they made when they found that the Bantam had kissed you?”
She nodded, casting down her eyes. “I’ve never got over it. It’s made me awkward with men—self-conscious and afraid of...”
“And yet they were kind to us, Ruthie.”
“But they never treated us honestly,” she said sadly.
That same intense look, a look almost of hunger, which transformed her, came into her face—the look which the flash-light had revealed to me that night on the denes. Sudden fear of what we might say next made me shake up the horse. The jolting of the wheels prevented us from conversing save by raising our voices.
We passed a man on the road. He shouted after us.
At first I thought he was chaffing. He kept on shouting.
“Why don’t you stop?” said Ruthita. “We may have dropped something.”
We had turned a bend. I looked back, but could not see him. I halted until he should come up. A big-framed man in a shooting-jacket, gaiters, and knickerbockers came swinging round the corner. I was surprised to recognize in him Lord Halloway.
“Halloa,” he shouted, “you’re going in my direction. Would you mind giving me a lift as far as Woadley?”
“Not at all,” I said. “This horse is restive. I can’t leave the reins. I suppose you can lower the back-seat without help.”
He drew level on the far-side from me and stood with his hand resting on the splashboard, gazing at Ruthita. “My sister,” I said shortly.
While he lowered the back and drew but the seat, he explained himself. “I’m going to Woadley to look after some farms my father owns round there.” What he was really saying was, “I’m not going to try to cut you out with Sir Charles, so you needn’t fear me.”
His manner was friendly. He had gained a high color with his walking. He looked brilliantly handsome and manly, with just that touch of indolence about him that gave him his charm. Without being warned, no one would have guessed that he was a rake. In his presence even I disbelieved half the wild tales of dissipation I had heard narrated of him. Yet, when my distrust of him was almost at rest, he would arouse it with his inane, high-pitched laugh.
When he had clambered in and we had started, I began to tell him, for the sake of conversation, where we were traveling. At the mention of Lilith, he interrupted.
“Lilith! Lilith! Seem to remember the name. Was she ever in these parts before? There was a little girl named Lilith, who used to camp with the Goliaths, the gipsies, on Woadley Ham. They haven’t been there for years. I recall her distinctly. She was wild and dark. I used to watch her breaking in ponies when I was a boy stopping with Sir Charles.”
“She must be the same.”
“You might tell her that you met me, when you see her,” he said. “She was the pluckiest little horsewoman for her age I ever saw. She could ride anything. I can see her now, gripping a young hunter I had with her brown bare legs, fighting his head off. It’s odd that you should have mentioned her.”
He tailed off into his giggling girlish laugh.
Little by little he commenced to address his remarks exclusively to Ruthita. This was natural, for I could not turn round to converse with him because of attending to the horse. I observed him out of the corner of my eye, and began to understand the secret of his power over women. For one thing he talked entirely to a woman, bestowing on her an intensity of attention which many would consider flattering. Then again he put a woman at her ease, drawing her out and speaking of things which were within her depth. Most of the topics which he drifted into were personal. When he mentioned himself, he lowered his voice as if he were confessing. When he mentioned her, his tones became earnest.
I was surprised to see how Ruthita, usually so reticent, lowered her guard to his attack. She twisted round on her seat, that she might watch him. Her face grew merry and her eyes twinkled with fun and laughter. She was being, what she had declared she never was—natural with a man.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw one thing which displeased me immensely. With apparent unconsciousness, Halloway’s arm was slipping farther and farther along the back of the seat against which Ruthita rested. A little more, and it would have encircled her. But before that was accomplished, he stopped short, leaving nothing to complain of. He was simply steadying himself in a jolting dog-cart.
We entered Woadley and passed the tall gates of the Park. I had a glimpse of the Hall through the trees, and the peacocks strutting where the gardens began and the meadowland left off. I smiled to myself as I wondered what would happen if Sir Charles should meet Halloway and myself together. Two miles out of Woadley Ruthita and my cousin were still industriously chatting. I had my suspicions as to the urgency of his errand. Then the arm slid an inch further along the back-rail of the seat. That inch made his attitude barely pardonable. I reined in.
“Didn’t you say you were going to Woadley?”
“Why, yes,” he laughed. “I have to get out at the next cross-road and walk. The farms are over in that direction.”
He swept a belt of woodland vaguely. He lied consummately. His face told me nothing.
“Well, here’s the next cross-road.”
My manner was churlish. He refused to acknowledge anything hostile in my tones.
“I’m awfully grateful to you,” he said; “you’ve saved me a long walk and I’ve enjoyed your company immensely.” As he spoke the last words he smiled directly into the eyes of Ruthita. “I shall hope to meet Miss Cardover again—perhaps at Oxford.”
I did not think it necessary to tell him that Ruthita’s surname was not Cardover but Favart. We watched him stride away, clean-limbed and splendid—a man who had sinned discreetly and bore no physical marks of his shortcomings.
At last Ruthita spoke. “I don’t think I like him.”
“You didn’t let him know it.”
“He made me forget. He made me remember I was a woman. No man’s ever spoken to me as he spoke.”
“He’s a clever fellow to make you forget the esplanade and Lottie.”
“Now you’re angry,” she laughed, and snuggled closer.
We entered the old marketplace of Yarminster where the Fair was being held. Leaving our horse atThe Anchorto be baited, we threaded our way between booths and whirligo-rounds. Presently I heard a familiar cry, “Two shies a penny. Two shies a penny. Every ball ’its a cocoanut. Down she goes. Walk up. Walk up. Two shies a penny.”
Dodging up and down behind the pitch, was G’liath, not much altered. The gaudy woman was absent; it was Lilith who was serving out the balls to the country bumpkins.
“Here’s Ruthita,” I said. “You remember the little girl in the Forest?”
She went on catching the wooden balls which G’liath returned to her. Trade was busy. Between reiterating his call, she conversed with us.
“I remember. (Two shies a penny). It doesn’t seem long ago. (Every ball ’its a cocoanut. Walk up). How long is it?”
“The best part of fourteen years.”
It was difficult to carry on a conversation under the circumstances.
“I wanted to ask you about last night,” I whispered. “When’ll you be free?”
“Not until midnight.”
I saw Ruthita listening, so I changed the subject. “By the way, we met someone who knew you when you were a girl at Woadley. He wanted to be remembered to you.”
Her handsome face darkened. “A man?” she asked.
“My cousin, Lord Halloway.”
She halted and looked round on me in proud astonishment. “Oh!” she gasped, and renewed her calling.
Ruthita broke in to tell her of my good fortune. She did not pay much attention at first. Then it seemed to dawn on her. “So he’s out of it, and you’ll be master at Woadley Hall?”
“Yes.” I lowered my voice. “And then you must come back to Woadley Ham. You were good to me once, Lilith.”
“I never forget.” There was a look of the old kindness in her eyes as she said it. “When you need me, I shall come.”
The crowd pressed about us, curious to overhear, surprised at seeing gentlefolks so chatty with a gipsy hussy. She signed to us to go. We drew off a few paces, looking on, recalling that night at Epping, when we fled from Dot-and-Carry-One and came to G’liath’s encampment.
Shortly after that the clock of St. Nicholas boomed three, and we departed.
Ruthita was anxious to accompany me to the station.
“I don’t want you,” I told her. “Women always make a fuss over partings.”
“But not sensible women,” she protested, smiling. “Let me come. There’s a dear.”
“You’ll try to kiss me. You’ll make a grab at my neck just as the train is moving. I shall feel embarrassed. You’ll probably slip off the platform and get both your legs cut off. A nice memory to take with me to London! No, thank you.”
“But I won’t try to kiss you, and I won’t grab at your neck. I’ll be most careful about my legs. And I don’t think it’s nice of you to mention them so callously, Dante.”
“I always tell folks,” put in my grandmother, “that, if there wer’n’t no partin’s, there’d be no meetin’s. It’s just come and go in this life. If he don’t want you, my dear, don’t bother ’im.”
“But he does want me,” Ruthita persisted. “I’ve always seen him off. I used to run beside the trap till I was ready to drop when Uncle Obad drove him away to the Red House. He’s only making fun.”
“No, really, Ruthie, I’d much rather say good-by to you here in the shop.”
“If you’re going to catch the six-thirty-eight, you’ll have to run,” said my grandmother.
Ruthita looked hurt. She could not understand me. She felt that something was wrong. I picked up my bag. They hurriedly embraced and followed me out on to the pavement to watch me down the road. I looked back.
There they stood waving and crying after me, “Good-by. God bless you. Good-by.”
In passing the chemist’s shop I glanced in at the clock. It was five minutes faster than my watch. I turned into the High Street at something between a trot and a walk.
On entering the station I saw that the London train was ready to depart. The guard had the flag in his hand and the whistle to his lips, about to give the signal. The porters were banging the doors of the carriages. I had yet to buy my ticket. Rushing to the office, I pushed my money through. “’Fraid you won’t get the six-thirty-eight,” said the clerk.
I reached the barrier, where the collector was standing, just as the guard blew his whistle.
“Too late,” growled the collector, closing the gate in my face with all the impersonal incivility of a man whose action is supported by law.
“There’s a lady and a little girl on board,” I panted; “they’re expecting me.”
“Sorry,” said the man; “should ’ave got ’ere sooner.”
Just then the train began to move and I recognized the uselessness of further argument. As the tail of it vanished out of the station, the collector slid back the gate. Now that there was no danger of my disobeying him, he could afford to be human. “It’s h’orders, yer know, sir, else I wouldn’t ha’ done it.”
Friends who had been seeing their travelers off came laughing and chatting toward the barrier. As the crowd thinned, half way down the platform I caught sight of Vi. She was standing apart, with her hand-baggage scattered beside her in disorder. Dorrie was hanging to her skirts, looking up into her face, asking questions. Neither of them saw me.
“Hulloa!”
When I spoke to her, Vi started. Her eyes brimmed. There shone through her tears a doubtful gladness. “I thought—I thought you wer’n’t coming. I thought——”
“Vi dearest! Was that likely?”
Her fingers closed about my arm warningly as I called her dearest. She cast a scared look at Dorrie. “Not before her,” she whispered.
I shrugged my shoulders. The position was queer. For a man and a woman in our situation there was no readymade standard of conduct. I began to feel lost in the freedom we were making for ourselves. There were no landmarks. Even now we were beyond the conventional walls of right and wrong which divide society from the outcast. We were running away to seek our happiness—and we were taking Dorrie!
I began to explain hurriedly how I happened to miss the train.
“Ruthita wanted to come to the station. I lost time in dissuading her. When I got away, I discovered that my watch was slow by five minutes. And then to crown all, when I could have caught the train, the man at the gate...”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said generously. “How long before the next train starts?”
“About half-an-hour.”
“That’ll do nearly as well. My boxes have gone on, but I can claim them in London.”
“We don’t want to stand in this stuffy station,” I said. “Let’s go for a walk.”
She began to speak, and then stopped.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Shan’t—shan’t we be recognized?”
“Not if we go round the harbor. We shan’t be likely to meet anyone there who knows us.”
It was odd, this keeping up of respectable appearances to the last. Ruthita, Grandmother Cardover, Sir Charles, my father—all the world would know to-morrow. They would spread their hands before their faces and look shocked, and peek out at us through their fingers.
“No one ever thpeaks to me.” Dorrie was reproachfully calling our attention to her presence.
“We’ll both thpeak to you now,” I said. “Give me your hand, Dorrie.”
Leaving our baggage with a porter, we went out of the station to the harbor, which lay just across the station-yard. Vi manouvered herself to the other side of me, so that the child walked between us.
The heavy autumn dusk was falling. Lanterns were being run up the masts. The town shone hospitably with street-lamps. Groping their way round the pier-head came a part of the Scotch herring fleet. We could see how their prows danced and nodded by the way the light from their lamps lengthened and shortened across the water. Soon the ripple against the piles near to where we were standing quickened with the disturbance caused by their advance. Then we heard the creaking of ropes against blocks as sails were lowered.
Leaning against the wall of the quay we watched them, casting furtive glances now and then at the illumined face of the station-clock.
Dorrie asked questions, to which we returned indifferent answers. It had begun to dawn on her that I was going up to London with them. She construed our secretiveness to mean that our plot was for her special benefit; people only acted like that with her when they were concealing something pleasant. Her innocent curiosity embarrassed us.
Why were we going to London? she asked us. We had not dared to answer that question even to one another. For my part I tried not to hear her; she roused doubts—phantoms of future consequence. I pictured the scene of long ago, when Ransby was rather more than twenty years younger, and another man and woman had slipped away unnoticed, daring the world for their love’s preservation. Had they had these same thoughts—these hesitations and misgivings? Or had they gone out bravely to meet their destiny, reckless in their certainty of one another?
Behind us, as we bent above the water, rose the shuffling clamor of numberless feet. Up and down the harbor groups of fisher-girls were sauntering abreast, in rows of three and four. Now and then we caught phrases in broad Scotch dialect.. They had been brought down from their homes in the north, many hundreds of them, for the kippering. They paraded bareheaded, with rough woolen shawls across their shoulders, knitting as they walked. I was thankful for them; they distracted attention from ourselves. Vi and I said nothing to one another; our hearts were too full for small-talk. The child was a barrier between us.
A man halted near us. He had a heavy box on his back, covered with American-cloth. He set it down and became busy. In a short time he had lighted a lantern and hung it on a pole. He mounted a stool, from which he could command the crowd, raising the lamp aloft. Fisher-girls, still knitting, stopped in their sauntering and gathered round him. Several smacksmen and sailors, with pipes in their mouths, and hands deep in pockets, loitered up.
The man began to talk, at first at random, like a cheap-jack, trying to catch his hearers’ attention with a laugh. Then, when his audience was sufficiently interested, he unrolled a sheet upon which the words of a hymn were printed. He held it before him like a bill-board, so that all could see and the light fell on it. He sang the first verse himself in a strong, gusty baritone. One by one the crowd caught the air and joined in with him.
They sang four verses, each verse followed by a chorus. The man allowed the sheet to drop, and handed the pole with the lantern to a bystander.
His brows puckered. His eyes concentrated. His somewhat brutal jaw squared itself. His face had become impassioned and earnest all of a sudden. It had been coarse and rather stupid before; now a certain eagerness of purpose gave it sharpness. He began to talk with vehemence, making crude, forceful gestures, thrashing the air with his arms, bringing down his clenched right-fist into the open palm of his left-hand when a remark called for emphasis. His thick throat swelled above the red knotted handkerchief which took the place of a collar. He spoke with a kind of savage anger. He mauled his audience with brutal eloquence. His way of talking was ignorant. He was displeasing, yet compelling. There were fifteen minutes until the train started. I watched him with cynicism as a diversion from my thoughts.
“Brothers and sisters,” he shouted, “we are ’ere met in the sight of h’Almighty Gawd. It was ’im as brought us together. Yer didn’t know that when yer started out this starlit h’evenin’ for yer walk. It was ’im as sent me ’ere ter tell yer this evenin’ that the wages o’ sin is death. I know wot h’I’m a-saying of, for I was once a sinner. But blessed be Gawd, ’e ’as saved me and washed me white h’in ’is son’s precious blood. ’E can do that for you ter-night, an ’e sent me’ere ter tell yer.”
Some of the Cornish Methodists, in Ransby for the herring season, began to warm to the orator’s enthusiasm. They urged him to further fervor by ejaculating texts and crying, “Amen!”
“Blessed be ’is name!”
“Glory!” etc.
The man sank his voice from the roaring monotone in which he had started. “The wages o’ sin is death,” he repeated. “Oh, my friends, h’I speak as a dyin’ man to dyin’ men. Yer carn’t h’escape them wages nohow. The fool ’as said in ’is ’eart, ‘There ain’t no Gawd.’ ’Ave you said that? Wot’ll yer say when yer ’ave ter take the wages? Now yer say, ‘No one’s lookin’. They’ll never find out. H’everyone’s as bad as I h’am, only they doan’t let me know it. I’ll h’injoy myself. There ain’t no Gawd.’ I tells yer, my friends, yer wrong. ’E’s a-watchin’ yer now, lookin’ down from them blessed stars. ’E looks inter yer ’eart and sees the sin yer a-meditatin’ and a-planning. ’E knows the wages yer’ll ’ave ter take for it. ’E sees the conserquences. And the conserquences is death. Death ter self-respec’! Death ter ’uman h’affection! Death ter the woman and children yer love! Death ter ’ope and purity! Damnation ter yer soul! ’Ave yer thought o’ that? Death! Death! Death!”
He hissed the words, speaking slower and slower. His voice died away in an awestruck whisper. In the pause that followed, the quiet was broken by a shrill laugh. All heads turned. On the outskirts of the crowd stood “Lady Halloway.” She had evidently been drinking. A foolish smile played about her mouth. Her lips were swollen. She mimicked the evangelist in a hoarse, cracked voice, “Death! Death! Death!”
I signed to Vi. Going first, carrying Dorrie in my arms, I commenced to force a passage. We had become wedged against the wall. Our going caused a ripple of disturbance. Attention was distracted from “Lady Halloway” to ourselves. She turned her glazed eyes on us. Stupid with drink, she did not recognize me at first. I had to pass beneath the lantern quite near her. As the light struck across my face, she saw who I was. “’E’s got another gal,” she tittered so all could hear her. “It’s easy come and easy go-a. Love ’ere ter-day and thar ter-morrer. Good-evenin’, Sir Dante Cardover, that is ter be. And ’oo’s yer noo sweet-’art? Is she as pretty h’as me? Let a poor gal ’ave a look at ’er.”
I pushed by her roughly. She would have followed, but some of the crowd restrained her. She made a grab at Vi. I could hear Vi’s dress rending. “So I ain’t good ’nough!” she shouted. “I ain’t good ’nough for yer! And ’oo are you ter despise me, I’d like ter h’arsk?”
She said a lot more, but her voice was drowned in a protesting clamor. I turned my head as I crossed the station-yard. Beneath the evangelist’s lantern I saw her arms tossing. Her hair had broken loose. Her eyes followed us. I entered the station and saw no more. Not until we had slipped through the barrier on to the platform did we slacken. Even while loathing her for her display of bestiality, my grandmother’s words came back to me, “She was as nice and kind a little girl as there was in Ransby, until that rascal, Lord Halloway, ruined her.”
We found that the porter, with whom we had left our luggage, had secured three seats for us. Two of them were corners. I took mine with my back to the engine, so that Vi and I sat facing one another. Dorrie sat beside Vi for a few minutes, uncomfortably, with her legs dangling. Then she slipped to the floor and climbing up my knees, snuggled herself down in my arms.
“We’ll have fine timeth in London together, won’t we?” she questioned. “I’m tho glad you’s toming.”
It was strange how difficult I found it to speak to Vi. I wanted to say so much. I knew I ought to say something. Yet all I could think to mention was some reference to what had happened beside the harbor—and that was so contaminating that I wanted to forget it. Luckily, just then, an old countrywoman bundled in with a basket on her arm.
“Gooing ter Lun’non, me dear?” she asked of Vi. “Well, ter be sure, I intend ter goo ter Lun’non some day. I get out at Beccles, the nex’ stop.” Lowering her voice, “That your little gal, and ’usband, bor? Not your ’usband! Well, ’e do seem fond o’ your little gal, now doan’t ’e, just the same as if ’e wuz ’er father?”
The train began to move. The lights of Ransby flashed by, twinkling and growing smaller. We thundered across the bridge which separates the Broads from the harbor.
Vi and the countrywoman were talking, or rather the countrywoman was talking and Vi was paying feigned attention. Dorrie, her flaxen curls falling across my shoulder, began to nod. Of the other passengers, one was drowsing and the other, a fierce be-whiskered little man, was reading a paper, leaning forward to catch the glimmering light which fell from the lamp in the center of the carriage. I was left alone with my thoughts.
They were not pleasant. The religious commonsense of the man by the harbor disturbed me. The face of “Lady Halloway” proved the truth of his assertions. His words would not be silenced. Strident and accusing, they rose, above the rumbling of the train, and wove themselves into a maddening chorus: “The wages of sin is death; the wages of sin is death; the wages of sin is death.” A man whose intellect I despised, to whose opinions I should ordinarily pay no attention, had spoken truth—and I had heard it.
At Beccles the train stopped. The countrywoman alighted. The drowsy man woke up and followed her. The fierce little man curled himself up in his corner and spread his paper over his face to shut out the light. There were four hours more until we reached London. The train resumed its journey through the dark.
I dared not stir for fear of waking Dorrie.
“Comfortable, Vi?”
She nodded and leant her face against the cushioned back of the carriage, closing her eyes. I watched her pure profile—the arched eyebrows, the heavy eyelids, the straight nose, the full and pouting mouth, the rounded chin, the long, sensuous curve of the graceful neck. I traced the small blue veins beneath the transparent whiteness of her temples. I studied her beauty, committing it to memory. Then I commenced to compare her with Dorrie, discovering the likeness. I wondered whether I had first felt drawn to her because she was so like Dorrie, or only for herself.
I looked up from Dorrie, and found Vi gazing at me.
I had thought her sleeping.
“Just wakened?”
“I’ve been awake all the time. I’ve been thinking.”
“Of what?”
“Last night. How different it was! We didn’t have to hide. No one was looking.”
“Then we’ll go again to where no one is looking.”
“We can’t always do that. But I was thinking of something else.”
“What was it this time?”
She pressed her cheek against the glass of the window, gazing out into the night. Then she leant over to me, clasping her hands. “How cruel it was, what he said to us!”
“Who?”
“The man there in Ransby.”
“But he didn’t speak to us. He was one of those people who shout at street-corners because they like to hear their own voices.”
“He was speaking to me,” she said, “though he didn’t know it.”
“Vi, you’re not growing nervous?”
“That isn’t the word. I’m looking forward and thinking how horrid it would be to have to hide always.”
“We shan’t.”
She looked at Dorrie, making no reply.
Presently she spoke again. “Dante, have you ever thought of it? I’m four years older than you are.”
“No, I’ve never thought of it.”
“You ought to.”
“Why?”
“Because four years makes a lot of difference in a woman. You’ll look still young when I’m turning forty.”
“Pooh!”
She ignored my attempt to turn from the topic. “If—if we should ever do anything rash, people would say that I was a scheming woman; that I’d taken advantage of you; that, being the elder, I ought to have known better.”
The idea of Vi leading me astray was so supremely ridiculous that I laughed outright. Dorrie stirred, and gazed up in my face. “Dear Dante!” she muttered, and sank back again.
“Her father will be waiting for the cable,” said Vi.
I wondered if this was the kind of conversation my father and mother had carried on all those years ago when they ran away. I felt that if my arms were only free to place about her, all would be well.
“We shall have to tell him, Vi,” I whispered.
She pretended not to hear me. Her eyes were closed. One hand shaded them from the light. She was again playing hide-and-seek with the purpose of our errand.
The rumble of the wheels droned on. I planned for what I would do when the train reached London and the moment of decision should arrive.
Perhaps two hours passed in silence. The glare of London was growing in the distance. Towns and houses became more frequent. One had glimpses of illumined windows and silhouettes against the blinds. Each house meant a problem as large to someone as mine was to me. The fact that life was so teeming and various robbed my crisis of its isolated augustness. Locals met us with a crash like thunder. As we flashed by, I could glance into their carriages and see men and women, all of whom, at some time in their existence, would decide just such problems of love and self-fulfilment—to each one of them the decision would seem vital to the universe, and in each case it would be relatively trivial. How easy to do what one liked unnoticed in such a crowded world! How preposterous that theory of the man by the harbor! As if any God could have time to follow the individual doings of such a host of cheese-mites!
Our fellow-traveler in the corner woke and removed the paper from before his eyes.
“Wife tired?”
“Yes, it’s a tedious journey.”
It was too much trouble to correct him as to our exact relations.
He cleared the misty panes and looked out at a vanishing station. “Stratford. We’ll be there in a quarter of an hour. Live in London?”
“Yes. At least, sometimes.”
He commenced to get his baggage together, keeping up his desultory volley of questions.
We entered the last tunnel. I touched Vi’s hand.
“We’re pulling into Liverpool Street. Do you want to claim your boxes to-night or to-morrow?”
“To-morrow’ll do,” she said.
A porter jumped on the step of our carriage. Our fellow-traveler alighted, refusing his assistance. The man climbed in and, shouldering our luggage, inquired whether we wanted a cab.
“Where to?” he asked.
I turned to Vi. “Where’ll we stay?”
She slipped her arm through mine and drew me aside. The porter went forward to engage the cabby.
“Give me one more night alone with Dorrie,” she whispered. “Everything has been so—so hurried. You understand, dearest, don’t you?”
I helped her into the four-wheeler and lifted Dorrie after her. Having told the man to drive to theCecil, I was about to enter. She checked me. “We shall be able to get on all right.” Then, in the darkness of the cab, her arms went passionately about my neck, and, all pretense abandoned, I felt her warm lips pressed against my mouth.
As the door banged Dorrie roused. Seeing me standing on the platform, she stretched her arms out of the window, crying, “Oh, I fought you was toming wiv’ us, Dante.”
“Not to-night, darling,” said Vi.
“To-morrow,” I promised her. Then to Vi, “I’ll be round at theCecilshortly after ten. Will that do?”
She nodded. I watched them drive away, after which I jumped into a hansom and set off to pay Pope Lane a surprise visit.
I could not sleep that night; was making plans. The haste with which this step had been approached and taken had terrified Vi. I had been unwise. Her sensitiveness had been shocked by the raw way in which a desire takes shape in action. And the man by the harbor had upset her. I must get her away to a cottage in the country, where we could be alone, and where she would have time to grow accustomed to our altered relations.
Next morning, full of these arrangements, I sought her at theHotel Cecil.
She was not there; the office had no record of her. I remembered that her boxes had been left at Liverpool Street overnight. When I got there and made inquiries of the clerk, I found that the lady I described had been to the baggage-room an hour before me and had claimed them. After much difficulty I hunted out the cabman who had driven her. He showed me alcoholic sympathy, at once divining the irregularity of our relations, and told me that the lady had countermanded my orders and instructed him to drive her to theHotel Thackeray. I arrived at theHotel Thackerayin time to be informed that she had already left.
Four days later I received a letter which had been sent on from Ransby. It was from Vi, despatched with the pilot from the ship on which she was sailing to America.
She had not dared to see me again, she said. She was running away from the temptation to be selfish. She had reckoned up the price which her husband, Dorrie, and myself would have to pay that she might gain her happiness; she had no right to exact it. As far as her husband and Dorrie were concerned, if we had done what we had contemplated, we should have shattered something for them which we could never replace. She was going back to do her duty. That the task might not be made too difficult, she begged me not to write.