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diff --git a/15177.txt b/15177.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..80fcef4 --- /dev/null +++ b/15177.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6226 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nocturne, by Frank Swinnerton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Nocturne + +Author: Frank Swinnerton + +Release Date: February 26, 2005 [EBook #15177] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOCTURNE *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + NOCTURNE + + By FRANK SWINNERTON + + 1917 + + + + +TO MARTIN SECKER + +THIS "NOCTURNE" + + + + +INTRODUCTION BY H.G. WELLS + +"'But do I see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times of +happy infancy? And may I--_may_ I?' + +"This May I, meant might he shake hands?" + +--DICKENS, _Great Expectations_. + +I do not know why I should be so overpoweringly reminded of the +immortal, if at times impossible, Uncle Pumblechook, when I sit down to +write a short preface to Mr. Swinnerton's _Nocturne_. Jests come at +times out of the backwoods of a writer's mind. It is part of the +literary quality that behind the writer there is a sub-writer, making a +commentary. This is a comment against which I may reasonably +expostulate, but which nevertheless I am indisposed to ignore. + +The task of introducing a dissimilar writer to a new public has its own +peculiar difficulties for the elder hand. I suppose logically a writer +should have good words only for his own imitators. For surely he has +chosen what he considers to be the best ways. What justification has he +for praising attitudes he has never adopted and commending methods of +treatment from which he has abstained? The reader naturally receives his +commendations with suspicion. Is this man, he asks, stricken with +penitence in the flower of his middle-age? Has he but just discovered +how good are the results that the other game, the game he has never +played, can give? Or has he been disconcerted by the criticism of the +Young? The Fear of the Young is the beginning of his wisdom. Is he +taking this alien-spirited work by the hand simply to say defensively +and vainly: "I assure you, indeed, I am _not_ an old fogy; I _quite_ +understand it." (There it is, I fancy, that the Pumblechook quotation +creeps in.) To all of which suspicions, enquiries and objections, I will +quote, tritely but conclusively: "In my Father's house are many +Mansions," or in the words of Mr. Kipling: + +"There are five and forty ways +Of composing tribal lays +And every blessed one of them is right." + +Indeed now that I come to think it over, I have never in all my life +read a writer of closely kindred method to my own that I have greatly +admired; the confessed imitators give me all the discomfort without the +relieving admission of caricature; the parallel instances I have always +wanted to rewrite; while, on the other hand, for many totally dissimilar +workers I have had quite involuntary admirations. It isn't merely that I +don't so clearly see how they are doing it, though that may certainly be +a help; it is far more a matter of taste. As a writer I belong to one +school and as a reader to another--as a man may like to make optical +instruments and collect old china. Swift, Sterne, Jane Austen, Thackeray +and the Dickens of _Bleak House_ were the idols of my youthful +imitation, but the contemporaries of my early praises were Joseph +Conrad, W.H. Hudson, and Stephen Crane, all utterly remote from that +English tradition. With such recent admirations of mine as James Joyce, +Mr. Swinnerton, Rebecca West, the earlier works of Mary Austen or Thomas +Burke, I have as little kindred as a tunny has with a cuttlefish. We +move in the same medium and that is about all we have in common. + +This much may sound egotistical, and the impatient reader may ask when I +am coming to Mr. Swinnerton, to which the only possible answer is that I +am coming to Mr. Swinnerton as fast as I can and that all this leads as +straightly as possible to a definition of Mr. Swinnerton's position. The +science of criticism is still crude in its classification, there are a +multitude of different things being done that are all lumped together +heavily as novels, they are novels as distinguished from romances, so +long as they are dealing with something understood to be real. All that +they have in common beyond that is that they agree in exhibiting a sort +of story continuum. But some of us are trying to use that story +continuum to present ideas in action, others to produce powerful +excitements of this sort or that, as Burke and Mary Austen do, while +others again concentrate upon the giving of life as it is, seen only +more intensely. Personally I have no use at all for life as it is, +except as raw material. It bores me to look at things unless there is +also the idea of doing something with them. I should find a holiday, +doing nothing amidst beautiful scenery, not a holiday, but a torture. +The contemplative ecstacy of the saints would be hell to me. In the--I +forget exactly how many--books I have written, it is always about life +being altered I write, or about people developing schemes for altering +life. And I have never once "presented" life. My apparently most +objective books are criticisms and incitements to change. Such a writer +as Mr. Swinnerton, on the contrary, sees life and renders it with a +steadiness and detachment and patience quite foreign to my disposition. +He has no underlying motive. He sees and tells. His aim is the +attainment of that beauty which comes with exquisite presentation. Seen +through his art, life is seen as one sees things through a crystal lens, +more intensely, more completed, and with less turbidity. There the +business begins and ends for him. He does not want you or any one to do +anything. + +Mr. Swinnerton is not alone among recent writers in this clear, detached +objectivity. We have in England a writer, Miss Dorothy Richardson, who +has probably carried impressionism in fiction to its furthest limit. I +do not know whether she will ever make large captures of the general +reader, but she is certainly a very interesting figure for the critic +and the amateur of fiction. In _Pointed Roofs_ and _Honeycomb_, for +example, her story is a series of dabs of intense superficial +impression; her heroine is not a mentality, but a mirror. She goes about +over her facts like those insects that run over water sustained by +surface tension. Her percepts never become concepts. Writing as I do at +the extremest distance possible from such work, I confess I find it +altogether too much--or shall I say altogether too little?--for me. But +Mr. Swinnerton, like Mr. James Joyce, does not repudiate the depths for +the sake of the surface. His people are not splashes of appearance, but +living minds. Jenny and Emmy in this book are realities inside and out; +they are imaginative creatures so complete that one can think with ease +of Jenny ten years hence or of Emmy as a baby. The fickle Alf is one of +the most perfect Cockneys--a type so easy to caricature and so hard to +get true--in fiction. If there exists a better writing of vulgar +lovemaking, so base, so honest, so touchingly mean and so touchingly +full of the craving for happiness than this that we have here in the +chapter called _After the Theatre_, I do not know of it. Only a +novelist who has had his troubles can understand fully what a dance +among china cups, what a skating over thin ice, what a tight-rope +performance is achieved in this astounding chapter. A false note, one +fatal line, would have ruined it all. On the one hand lay brutality; a +hundred imitative louts could have written a similar chapter brutally, +with the soul left out, we've loads of such "strong stuff" and it is +nothing; on the other side was the still more dreadful fall into +sentimentality, the tear of conscious tenderness, the redeeming glimpse +of "better things" in Alf or Emmy that would at one stroke have +converted their reality into a genteel masquerade. The perfection of Alf +and Emmy is that at no point does a "nature's gentleman" or a "nature's +lady" show through and demand our refined sympathy. It is only by +comparison with this supreme conversation that the affair of Keith and +Jenny seems to fall short of perfection. But that also is at last +perfected, I think, by Jenny's final, "Keith.... Oh, Keith!..." + +Above these four figures again looms the majestic invention of "Pa." +Every reader can appreciate the truth and humour of Pa, but I doubt if +any one without technical experience can realise how the atmosphere is +made and completed and rounded off by Pa's beer, Pa's needs, and Pa's +accident, how he binds the bundle and makes the whole thing one, and +what an enviable triumph his achievement is. + +But the book is before the reader and I will not enlarge upon its merits +further. Mr. Swinnerton has written four or five other novels before +this one, but none of them compare with it in quality. His earlier books +were strongly influenced by the work of George Gissing; they have +something of the same fatigued greyness of texture and little of the +artistic completeness and intense vision of _Nocturne_. He has also made +two admirable and very shrewd and thorough studies of the work and lives +of Robert Louis Stevenson and George Gissing. Like these two, he has had +great experience of illness. He is a young man of so slender a health, +so frequently ill, that even for the most sedentary purposes of this +war, his country will not take him. It was in connection with his +Gissing volume, for which I possessed some material he needed, that I +first made his acquaintance. He has had something of Gissing's +restricted and grey experiences, but he has nothing of Gissing's almost +perverse gloom and despondency. Indeed he is as gay a companion as he is +fragile. He is a twinkling addition to any Christmas party, and the +twinkle is here in the style. And having sported with him "in his times +of happy infancy," I add an intimate and personal satisfaction to my +pleasant task of saluting this fine work that ends a brilliant +apprenticeship and ranks Swinnerton as Master. This is a book that will +not die. It is perfect, authentic, and alive. Whether a large and +immediate popularity will fall to it I cannot say, but certainly the +discriminating will find it and keep it and keep it alive. If Mr. +Swinnerton were never to write another word I think he might count on +this much of his work living, as much of the work of Mary Austen, W.H. +Hudson, and Stephen Crane will live, when many of the more portentous +reputations of to-day may have served their purpose in the world and +become no more than fading names. + +DECEMBER, 1917 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +PART ONE: EVENING + +CHAPTER + + I. SIX O'CLOCK + + II. THE TREAT + + III. ROWS + + IV. THE WISH + + +PART TWO: NIGHT + + V. THE ADVENTURE + + VI. THE YACHT + + VII. MORTALS + + VIII. PENALTIES + + IX. WHAT FOLLOWED + + X. CINDERELLA + + +PART THREE: MORNING + + XI. AFTER THE THEATRE + + XII. CONSEQUENCES + + + + +PART ONE + +EVENING + + + + +CHAPTER I: SIX O'CLOCK + + +i + +Six o'clock was striking. The darkness by Westminster Bridge was +intense; and as the tramcar turned the corner from the Embankment Jenny +craned to look at the thickly running water below. The glistening of +reflected lights which spotted the surface of the Thames gave its rapid +current an air of such mysterious and especially sinister power that she +was for an instant aware of almost uncontrollable terror. She could feel +her heart beating, yet she could not withdraw her gaze. It was nothing: +no danger threatened Jenny but the danger of uneventful life; and her +sense of sudden yielding to unknown force was the merest fancy, to be +quickly forgotten when the occasion had passed. None the less, for that +instant her dread was breathless. It was the fear of one who walks in a +wood, at an inexplicable rustle. The darkness and the sense of moving +water continued to fascinate her, and she slightly shuddered, not at a +thought, but at the sensation of the moment. At last she closed her +eyes, still, however, to see mirrored as in some visual memory the +picture she was trying to ignore. In a faint panic, hardly conscious to +her fear, she stared at her neighbour's newspaper, spelling out the +headings to some of the paragraphs, until the need of such protection +was past. + +As the car proceeded over the bridge, grinding its way through the still +rolling echoes of the striking hour, it seemed part of an endless +succession of such cars, all alike crowded with homeward-bound +passengers, and all, to the curious mind, resembling ships that pass +very slowly at night from safe harbourage to the unfathomable elements +of the open sea. It was such a cold still night that the sliding windows +of the car were almost closed, and the atmosphere of the covered upper +deck was heavy with tobacco smoke. It was so dark that one could not see +beyond the fringes of the lamplight upon the bridge. The moon was in its +last quarter, and would not rise for several hours; and while the +glitter of the city lay behind, and the sky was greyed with light from +below, the surrounding blackness spread creeping fingers of night in +every shadow. + +The man sitting beside Jenny continued to puff steadfastly at his pipe, +lost in the news, holding mechanically in his further hand the return +ticket which would presently be snatched by the hurrying tram-conductor. +He was a shabby middle-aged clerk with a thin beard, and so he had not +the least interest for Jenny, whose eye was caught by other beauties +than those of assiduous labour. She had not even to look at him to be +quite sure that he did not matter to her. Almost, Jenny did not care +whether he had glanced sideways at herself or not. She presently gave a +quiet sigh of relief as at length the river was left behind and the +curious nervous tension--no more lasting than she might have felt at +seeing a man balancing upon a high window-sill--was relaxed. She +breathed more deeply, perhaps, for a few instants; and then, quite +naturally, she looked at her reflection in the sliding glass. That hat, +as she could see in the first sure speedless survey, had got the droops. +"See about you!" she said silently and threateningly, jerking her head. +The hat trembled at the motion, and was thereafter ignored. Stealthily +Jenny went back to her own reflection in the window, catching the +clearly-chiselled profile of her face, bereft in the dark mirror of all +its colour. She could see her nose and chin quite white, and her lips as +part of the general colourless gloom. A little white brooch at her neck +stood boldly out; and that was all that could be seen with any +clearness, as the light was not directly overhead. Her eyes were quite +lost, apparently, in deep shadows. Yet she could not resist the delight +of continuing narrowly to examine herself. The face she saw was hardly +recognisable as her own; but it was bewitchingly pale, a study in black +and white, the kind of face which, in a man, would at once have drawn +her attention and stimulated her curiosity. She had longed to be pale, +but the pallor she was achieving by millinery work in a stuffy room was +not the marble whiteness which she had desired. Only in the sliding +window could she see her face ideally transfigured. There it had the +brooding dimness of strange poetic romance. You couldn't know about that +girl, she thought. You'd want to know about her. You'd wonder all the +time about her, as though she had a secret.... The reflection became +curiously distorted. Jenny was smiling to herself. + +As soon as the tramcar had passed the bridge, lighted windows above the +shops broke the magic mirror and gave Jenny a new interest, until, as +they went onward, a shopping district, ablaze with colour, crowded with +loitering people, and alive with din, turned all thoughts from herself +into one absorbed contemplation of what was beneath her eyes. So +absorbed was she, indeed, that the conductor had to prod her shoulder +with his two fingers before he could recover her ticket and exchange it +for another. "'Arf asleep, some people!" he grumbled, shoving aside the +projecting arms and elbows which prevented his free passage between the +seats. "Feyuss please!" Jenny shrugged her shoulder, which seemed as +though it had been irritated at the conductor's touch. It felt quite +bruised. "Silly old fool!" she thought, with a brusque glance. Then she +went silently back to the contemplation of all the life that gathered +upon the muddy and glistening pavements below. + + +ii + +In a few minutes they were past the shops and once again in darkness, +grinding along, pitching from end to end, the driver's bell clanging +every minute to warn carts and people off the tramlines. Once, with an +awful thunderous grating of the brakes, the car was pulled up, and +everybody tried to see what had provoked the sense of accident. There +was a little shouting, and Jenny, staring hard into the roadway, thought +she could see as its cause a small girl pushing a perambulator loaded +with bundles of washing. Her first impulse was pity--"Poor little +thing"; but the words were hardly in her mind before they were chased +away by a faint indignation at the child for getting in the tram's way. +Everybody ought to look where they were going. Ev-ry bo-dy ought to look +where they were go-ing, said the pitching tramcar. Ev-ry bo-dy.... Oh, +sickening! Jenny looked at her neighbour's paper--her refuge. "Striking +speech," she read. Whose? What did it matter? Talk, talk.... Why didn't +they do something? What were they to do? The tram pitched to the refrain +of a comic song: "Actions speak louder than words!" That kid who was +wheeling the perambulator full of washing.... Jenny's attention drifted +away like the speech of one who yawns, and she looked again at her +reflection. The girl in the sliding glass wouldn't say much. She'd think +the more. She'd say, when Sir Herbert pressed for his answer, "My +thoughts are my own, Sir Herbert Mainwaring." What was it the girl in +_One of the Best_ said? "You may command an army of soldiers; but you +cannot still the beating of a woman's heart!" Silly fool, she was. Jenny +had felt the tears in her eyes, burning, and her throat very dry, when +the words had been spoken in the play; but Jenny at the theatre and +Jenny here and now were different persons. Different? Why, there were +fifty Jennys. But the shrewd, romantic, honest, true Jenny was behind +them all, not stupid, not sentimental, bold as a lion, destructively +experienced in hardship and endurance, very quick indeed to single out +and wither humbug that was within her range of knowledge, but innocent +as a child before any other sort of humbug whatsoever. That was why she +could now sneer at the stage-heroine, and could play with the mysterious +beauties of her own reflection; but it was why she could also be led +into quick indignation by something read in a newspaper. + +Tum-ty tum-ty tum-ty tum, said the tram. There were some more shops. +There were straggling shops and full-blazing rows of shops. There were +stalls along the side of the road, women dancing to an organ outside a +public-house. Shops, shops, houses, houses, houses ... light, +darkness.... Jenny gathered her skirt. This was where she got down. One +glance at the tragic lady of the mirror, one glance at the rising smoke +that went to join the general cloud; and she was upon the iron-shod +stairs of the car and into the greasy roadway. Then darkness, as she +turned along beside a big building into the side streets among rows and +rows of the small houses of Kennington Park. + + +iii + +It was painfully dark in these side streets. The lamps drew beams such a +short distance that they were as useless as the hidden stars. Only down +each street one saw mild spots starting out of the gloom, fascinating in +their regularity, like shining beads set at prepared intervals in a body +of jet. The houses were all in darkness, because evening meals were laid +in the kitchens: the front rooms were all kept for Sunday use, excepting +when the Emeralds and Edwins and Geralds and Dorises were practising +upon their mothers' pianos. Then you could hear a din! But not now. Now +all was as quiet as night, and even doors were not slammed. Jenny +crossed the street and turned a corner. On the corner itself was a small +chandler's shop, with "Magnificent Tea, per 2/- lb."; "Excellent Tea, per +1/8d. lb"; "Good Tea, per 1/4d. lb." advertised in great bills upon its +windows above a huge collection of unlikely goods gathered together like +a happy family in its tarnished abode. Jenny passed the dully-lighted +shop, and turned in at her own gate. In a moment she was inside the +house, sniffing at the warm odour-laden air within doors. Her mouth drew +down at the corners. Stew to-night! An amused gleam, lost upon the dowdy +passage, fled across her bright eyes. Emmy wouldn't have thanked her for +that! Emmy--sick to death herself of the smell of cooking--would have +slammed down the pot in despairing rage. + +In the kitchen a table was laid; and Emmy stretched her head back to +peer from the scullery, where she was busy at the gas stove. She did not +say a word. Jenny also was speechless; and went as if without thinking +to the kitchen cupboard. The table was only half-laid as usual; but that +fact did not make her action the more palatable to Emmy. Emmy, who was +older than Jenny by a mysterious period--diminished by herself, but kept +at its normal term of three years by Jenny, except in moments of some +heat, when it grew for purposes of retort,--was also less effective in +many ways, such as in appearance and in adroitness; and Jenny comprised +in herself, as it were, the good looks of the family. Emmy was the +housekeeper, who looked after Pa Blanchard; Jenny was the roving blade +who augmented Pa's pension by her own fluctuating wages. That was +another slight barrier between the sisters. Nevertheless, Emmy was quite +generous enough, and was long-suffering, so that her resentment took the +general form of silences and secret broodings upon their different +fortunes. There was a great deal to be said about this difference, and +the saying grew more and more remote from explicit utterance as thought +of it ground into Emmy's mind through long hours and days and weeks of +solitude. Pa could not hear anything besides the banging of pots, and he +was too used to sudden noises to take any notice of such a thing; but +the pots themselves, occasionally dented in savage dashes against each +other or against the taps, might have heard vicious apostrophes if they +had listened intently to Emmy's ejaculations. As it was, with the +endurance of pots, they mutely bore their scars and waited dumbly for +superannuation. And every bruise stood to Emmy when she renewed +acquaintance with it as mark of yet another grievance against Jenny. For +Jenny enjoyed the liberties of this life while Emmy stayed at home. +Jenny sported while Emmy was engaged upon the hideous routine of kitchen +affairs, and upon the nursing of a comparatively helpless old man who +could do hardly anything at all for himself. + +Pa was in his bedroom,--the back room on the ground-floor, chosen +because he could not walk up the stairs, but must have as little trouble +in self-conveyance as possible,--staggeringly making his toilet for the +meal to come, sitting patiently in front of his dressing-table by the +light of a solitary candle. He would appear in due course, when he was +fetched. He had been a strong man, a runner and cricketer in his youth, +and rather obstreperously disposed; but that time was past, and his +strength for such pursuits was as dead as the wife who had suffered +because of its vagaries. He could no longer disappear on the Saturdays, +as he had been used to do in the old days. His chair in the kitchen, the +horse-hair sofa in the sitting-room, the bed in the bedroom, were the +only changes he now had from one day's end to another. Emmy and Jenny, +pledges of a real but not very delicate affection, were all that +remained to call up the sorrowful thoughts of his old love, and those +old times of virility, when Pa and his strength and his rough +boisterousness had been the delight of perhaps a dozen regular +companions. He sometimes looked at the two girls with a passionless +scrutiny, as though he were trying to remember something buried in +ancient neglect; and his eyes would thereafter, perhaps at the mere +sense of helplessness, fill slowly with tears, until Emmy, smothering +her own rough sympathy, would dab Pa's eyes with a harsh handkerchief +and would rebuke him for his decay. Those were hard moments in the +Blanchard home, for the two girls had grown almost manlike in abhorrence +of tears, and with this masculine distaste had arisen a corresponding +feeling of powerlessness in face of emotion which they could not share. +It was as though Pa had become something like an old and beloved dog, +unable to speak, pitied and despised, yet claiming by his very dumbness +something that they could only give by means of pats and half-bullying +kindness. At such times it was Jenny who left her place at the table and +popped a morsel of food into Pa's mouth; but it was Emmy who best +understood the bitterness of his soul. It was Emmy, therefore, who would +snap at her sister and bid her get on with her own food; while Pa +Blanchard made trembling scrapes with his knife and fork until the mood +passed. But then it was Emmy who was most with Pa; it was Emmy who hated +him in the middle of her love because he stood to her as the living +symbol of her daily inescapable servitude in this household. Jenny +could never have felt that she would like to kill Pa. Emmy sometimes +felt that. She at times, when he had been provoking or obtuse, so shook +with hysterical anger, born of the inevitable days in his society and in +the kitchen, that she could have thrown at him the battered pot which +she carried, or could have pushed him passionately against the +mantelpiece in her fierce hatred of his helplessness and his occasional +perverse stupidity. He was rarely stupid with Jenny, but giggled at her +teasing. + +Jenny was taller than Emmy by several inches. She was tall and thin and +dark, with an air of something like impudent bravado that made her +expression sometimes a little wicked. Her nose was long and straight, +almost sharp-pointed; her face too thin to be a perfect oval. Her eyes +were wide open, and so full of power to show feeling that they seemed +constantly alive with changing and mocking lights and shadows. If she +had been stouter the excellent shape of her body, now almost too thick +in the waist, would have been emphasised. Happiness and comfort, a +decrease in physical as in mental restlessness, would have made her more +than ordinarily beautiful. As it was she drew the eye at once, as though +she challenged a conflict of will: and her movements were so swift and +eager, so little clumsy or jerking, that Jenny had a carriage to +command admiration. The resemblance between the sisters was ordinarily +not noticeable. It would have needed a photograph--because photographs, +besides flattening the features, also in some manner "compose" and +distinguish them--to reveal the likenesses in shape, in shadow, even in +outline, which were momentarily obscured by the natural differences of +colouring and expression. Emmy was less dark, more temperamentally +unadventurous, stouter, and possessed of more colour. She was +twenty-eight or possibly twenty-nine, and her mouth was rather too hard +for pleasantness. It was not peevish, but the lips were set as though +she had endured much. Her eyes, also, were hard; although if she cried +one saw her face soften remarkably into the semblance of that of a +little girl. From an involuntary defiance her expression changed to +something really pathetic. One could not help loving her then, not with +the free give and take of happy affection, but with a shamed hope that +nobody could read the conflict of sympathy and contempt which made one's +love frigid and self-conscious. Jenny rarely cried: her cheeks reddened +and her eyes grew full of tears; but she did not cry. Her tongue was too +ready and her brain too quick for that. Also, she kept her temper from +flooding over into the self-abandonment of angry weeping and +vituperation. Perhaps it was that she had too much pride--or that in +general she saw life with too much self-complacency, or that she was not +in the habit of yielding to disappointment. It may have been that Jenny +belonged to that class of persons who are called, self-sufficient. She +plunged through a crisis with her own zest, meeting attack with +counter-attack, keeping her head, surveying with the instinctive +irreverence and self-protective wariness of the London urchin the +possibilities and swaying fortunes of the fight. Emmy, so much slower, +so much less self-reliant, had no refuge but in scolding that grew +shriller and more shrill until it ended in violent weeping, a withdrawal +from the field entirely abject. She was not a born fighter. She was +harder on the surface, but weaker in powers below the surface. Her long +solitudes had made her build up grievances, and devastating thoughts, +had given her a thousand bitter things to fling into the conflict; but +they had not strengthened her character, and she could not stand the +strain of prolonged argument. Sooner or later she would abandon +everything, exhausted, and beaten into impotence. She could bear more, +endure more, than Jenny; she could bear much, so that the story of her +life might be read as one long scene of endurance of things which Jenny +would have struggled madly to overcome or to escape. But having borne +for so long, she could fight only like a cat, her head as it were +turned aside, her fur upon end, stealthily moving paw by paw, always +keeping her front to the foe, but seeking for escape--until the pride +perilously supporting her temper gave way and she dissolved into +incoherence and quivering sobs. + +It might have been said roughly that Jenny more closely resembled her +father, whose temperament in her care-free, happy-go-lucky way she +understood very well (better than Emmy did), and that while she carried +into her affairs a necessarily more delicate refinement than his she had +still the dare-devil spirit that Pa's friends had so much admired. She +had more humour than Emmy--more power to laugh, to be detached, to be +indifferent. Emmy had no such power. She could laugh; but she could only +laugh seriously, or at obviously funny things. Otherwise, she felt +everything too much. As Jenny would have said, she "couldn't take a +joke." It made her angry, or puzzled, to be laughed at. Jenny laughed +back, and tried to score a point in return, not always scrupulously. +Emmy put a check on her tongue. She was sometimes virtuously silent. +Jenny rarely put a check on her tongue. She sometimes let it say +perfectly outrageous things, and was surprised at the consequences. For +her it was enough that she had not meant to hurt. She sometimes hurt +very much. She frequently hurt Emmy to the quick, darting in one of her +sure careless stabs that shattered Emmy's self-control. So while they +loved each other, Jenny also despised Emmy, while Emmy in return hated +and was jealous of Jenny, even to the point of actively wishing in +moments of furtive and shamefaced savageness to harm her. That was the +outward difference between the sisters in time of stress. Of their +inner, truer, selves it would be more rash to speak, for in times of +peace Jenny had innumerable insights and emotions that would be forever +unknown to the elder girl. The sense of rivalry, however, was acute: it +coloured every moment of their domestic life, unwinking and incessant. +When Emmy came from the scullery into the kitchen bearing her precious +dish of stew, and when Jenny, standing up, was measured against her, +this rivalry could have been seen by any skilled observer. It rayed and +forked about them as lightning might have done about two adjacent trees. +Emmy put down her dish. + +"Fetch Pa, will you!" she said briefly. One could see who gave orders in +the kitchen. + + +iv + +Jenny found her father in his bedroom, sitting before the dressing-table +upon which a tall candle stood in an equally tall candlestick. He was +looking intently at his reflection in the looking-glass, as one who +encounters and examines a stranger. In the glass his face looked red and +ugly, and the tossed grey hair and heavy beard were made to appear +startlingly unkempt. His mouth was open, and his eyes shaded by lowered +lids. In a rather trembling voice he addressed Jenny upon her entrance. + +"Is supper ready?" he asked. "I heard you come in." + +"Yes, Pa," said Jenny. "Aren't you going to brush your hair? Got a fancy +for it like that, have you? My! What a man! With his shirt unbuttoned +and his tie out. Come here! Let's have a look at you!" Although her +words were unkind, her tone was not, and as she rectified his omissions +and put her arm round him Jenny gave her father a light hug. "All right, +are you? Been a good boy?" + +"Yes ... a good boy...." he feebly and waveringly responded. "What's the +noos to-night, Jenny?" + +Jenny considered. It made her frown, so concentrated was her effort to +remember. + +"Well, somebody's made a speech," she volunteered. "They can all do +that, can't they! And somebody's paid five hundred pounds transfer for +Jack Sutherdon ... is it Barnsley or Burnley?... And--oh, a fire at +Southwark.... Just the usual sort of news, Pa. No murders...." + +"Ah, they don't have the murders they used to have," grumbled the old +man. + +"That's the police, Pa." Jenny wanted to reassure him. + +"I don't know how it is," he trembled, stiffening his body and rising +from the chair. + +"Perhaps they hush 'em up!" That was a shock to him. He could not move +until the notion had sunk into his head. "Or perhaps people are more +careful.... Don't get leaving themselves about like they used to." + +Pa Blanchard had no suggestion. Such perilous ideas, so frequently +started by Jenny for his mystification, joggled together in his brain +and made there the subject of a thousand ruminations. They tantalised +Pa's slowly revolving thoughts, and kept these moving through long hours +of silence. Such notions preserved his interest in the world, and his +senile belief in Magic, as nothing else could have done. + +Together, their pace suited to his step, the two moved slowly to the +door. It took a long time to make the short journey, though Jenny +supported her father on the one side and he used a stick in his right +hand. In the passage he waited while she blew out his candle; and then +they went forward to the meal. At the approach Pa's eyes opened wider, +and luminously glowed. + +"Is there dumplings?" he quivered, seeming to tremble with excitement. + +"One for you, Pa!" cried Emmy from the kitchen. Pa gave a small chuckle +of joy. His progress was accelerated. They reached the table, and Emmy +took his right arm for the descent into a substantial chair. Upon Pa's +plate glistened a fair dumpling, a glorious mountain of paste amid the +wreckage of meat and gravy. "And now, perhaps," Emmy went on, smoothing +back from her forehead a little streamer of hair, "you'll close the +door, Jenny...." + +It was closed with a bang that made Pa jump and Emmy look savagely up. + +"Sorry!" cried Jenny. "How's that dumpling, Pa?" She sat recklessly at +the table. + + +v + +To look at the three of them sitting there munching away was a sight not +altogether pleasing. Pa's veins stood out from his forehead, and the two +girls devoted themselves to the food as if they needed it. There was +none of the airy talk that goes on in the houses of the rich while maids +or menservants come respectfully to right or left of the diners with +decanters or dishes. Here the food was the thing, and there was no +speech. Sometimes Pa's eyes rolled, sometimes Emmy glanced up with +unconscious malevolence at Jenny, sometimes Jenny almost winked at the +lithograph portrait of Edward the Seventh (as Prince of Wales) which +hung over the mantelpiece above the one-and-tenpenny-ha'penny clock that +ticked away so busily there. Something had happened long ago to Edward +the Seventh, and he had a stain across his Field Marshal's uniform. +Something had happened also to the clock, which lay upon its side, as if +kicking in a death agony. Something had happened to almost everything in +the kitchen. Even the plates on the dresser, and the cups and saucers +that hung or stood upon the shelves, bore the noble scars of service. +Every time Emmy turned her glance upon a damaged plate, as sharp as a +stalactite, she had the thought: "Jenny's doing." Every time she looked +at the convulsive clock Emmy said to herself: "That was Miss Jenny's +cleverness when she chucked the cosy at Alf." And when Emmy said in this +reflective silence of animosity the name "Alf" she drew a deep breath +and looked straight up at Jenny with inscrutable eyes of pain. + + +vi + +The stew being finished, Emmy collected the plates, and retired once +again to the scullery. Now did Jenny show afresh that curiosity whose +first flush had been so ill-satisfied by the meat course. When, however, +Emmy reappeared with that most domestic of sweets, a bread pudding, +Jenny's face fell once more; for of all dishes she most abominated bread +pudding. Under her breath she adversely commented. + +"Oh lor!" she whispered. "Stew and b.p. What a life!" + +Emmy, not hearing, but second sighted on such matters, shot a malevolent +glance from her place. In an awful voice, intended to be a trifle arch, +she addressed her father. + +"Bready butter pudding, Pa?" she inquired. The old man whinnied with +delight, and Emmy was appeased. She had one satisfied client, at any +rate. She cut into the pudding with a knife, producing wedges with a +dexterous hand. + +"Hey ho!" observed Jenny to herself, tastelessly beginning the work of +laborious demolition. + +"Jenny thinks it's common. She ought to have the job of getting the +meals!" cried Emmy, bitterly, obliquely attacking her sister by talking +at her. "Something to talk about then!" she sneered with chagrin, up in +arms at a criticism. + +"Well, the truth is," drawled Jenny.... "If you want it ... I don't like +bread pudding." Somehow she had never said that before, in all the +years; but it seemed to her that bread pudding was like ashes in the +mouth. It was like duty, or funerals, or ... stew. + +"The stuff's _got_ to be finished up!" flared Emmy defiantly, with a +sense of being adjudged inferior because she had dutifully habituated +herself to the appreciation of bread pudding. "You might think of that! +What else am I to do?" + +"That's just it, old girl. Just why I don't like it. I just _hate_ to +feel I'm finishing it up. Same with stew. I know it's been something +else first. It's not _fresh_. Same old thing, week in, week out. +Finishing up the scraps!" + +"Proud stomach!" A quick flush came into Emmy's cheeks; and tears +started to her eyes. + +"Perhaps it is. Oh, but Em! Don't you feel like that +yourself.... Sometimes? O-o-h!..." She drawled the word wearily. "Oh +for a bit more money! Then we could give stew to the cat's-meat man +and bread to old Thompson's chickens. And then we could have nice things +to eat. Nice birds and pastry ... and trifle, and ices, and wine.... Not +all this muck!" + +"Muck!" cried Emmy, her lips seeming to thicken. "When I'm so +hot.... And sick of it all! _You_ go out; you do just exactly what you +like.... And then you come home and...." She began to gulp. "What about +me?" + +"Well, it's just as bad for both of us!" Jenny did not think so really; +but she said it. She thought Emmy had the bread and butter pudding +nature, and that she did not greatly care what she ate as long as it was +not too fattening. Jenny thought of Emmy as born for housework and +cooking--of stew and bread puddings. For herself she had dreamed a +nobler destiny, a destiny of romance, of delicious unknown things, +romantic and indescribably exciting. She was to have the adventures, +because she needed them. Emmy didn't need them. It was all very well for +Emmy to say "What about me!" It was no business of hers what happened to +Emmy. They were different. Still, she repeated more confidently because +there had been no immediate retort: + +"Well, it's just as bad for both of us! _Just_ as bad!" + +"'Tisn't! You're out all day--doing what you like!" + +"Oh!" Jenny's eyes opened with theatrical wideness at such a perversion +of the facts. "Doing what I like! The millinery!" + +"You are! You don't have to do all the scraping to make things go round, +like I have to. No, you don't! Here have I ... been in this ... place, +slaving! Hour after hour! I wish _you'd_ try and manage better. I bet +you'd be thankful to finish up the scraps some way--any old way! I'd +like to see _you_ do what I do!" + +Momentarily Jenny's picture of Emmy's nature (drawn accommodatingly by +herself in order that her own might be differentiated and exalted by +any comparison) was shattered. Emmy's vehemence had thus the temporary +effect of creating a fresh reality out of a common idealisation of +circumstance. The legend would re-form later, perhaps, and would +continue so to re-form as persuasion flowed back upon Jenny's egotism, +until it crystallised hard and became unchallengeable; but at any rate +for this instant Jenny had had a glimmer of insight into that tamer +discontent and rebelliousness that encroached like a canker upon Emmy's +originally sweet nature. The shock of impact with unpleasant conviction +made Jenny hasten to dissemble her real belief in Emmy's born +inferiority. Her note was changed from one of complaint into one of +persuasive entreaty. + +"It's not that. It's not that. Not at all. But wouldn't you like a +change from stew and bread pudding yourself? Sometimes, I mean. You +_seem_ to like it all right." At that ill-considered suggestion, made +with unintentional savageness, Jenny so worked upon herself that her own +colour rose high. Her temper became suddenly unmanageable. "You talk +about me being out!" she breathlessly exclaimed. "When do I go out? +When! Tell me!" + +"O-o-h! I _like_ that! What about going to the pictures with Alf +Rylett?" Emmy's hands were, jerking upon the table in her anger. "You're +always out with him!" + +"Me? Well I never! I'm not. When--" + +They were interrupted unexpectedly by a feeble and jubilant voice. + +"More bready butter pudding!" said Pa Blanchard, tipping his plate to +show that he had finished. + +"Yes, Pa!" For the moment Emmy was distracted from her feud. In a +mechanical way, as mothers sometimes, deep in conversation, attend to +their children's needs, she put another wedge of pudding upon the plate. +"Well, I say you _are_," she resumed in the same strained voice. "And +tell me when _I_ go out! I go out shopping. That's all. But for that, +I'm in the house day and night. You don't care tuppence about Alf--you +wouldn't, not if he was walking the soles off his boots to come to you. +You never think about him. He's like dirt, to you. Yet you go out with +him time after time...." Her lips as she broke off were pursed into a +trembling unhappy pout, sure forerunner of tears. Her voice was weak +with feeling. The memory of lonely evenings surged into her mind, +evenings when Jenny was out with Alf, while she, the drudge, stayed at +home with Pa, until she was desperate with the sense of unutterable +wrong. "Time after time, you go." + +"Sorry, I'm sure!" flung back Jenny, fairly in the fray, too quick not +to read the plain message of Emmy's tone and expression, too cruel to +relinquish the sudden advantage. "I never guessed you wanted him. I +wouldn't have done it for worlds. You never _said_, you know!" +Satirically, she concluded, with a studiously careful accent, which she +used when she wanted to indicate scorn or innuendo, "I'm sorry. I ought +to have asked if I might!" Then, with a dash into grimmer satire: "Why +doesn't he ask you to go with him? Funny his asking me, isn't it?" + +Emmy grew violently crimson. Her voice had a roughness in it. She was +mortally wounded. + +"Anybody'd know you were a lady!" she said warmly. + +"They're welcome!" retorted Jenny. Her eyes flashed, glittering in the +paltry gaslight. "He's never ... Emmy, I didn't know you were such a +silly little fool. Fancy going on like that ... about a man like him. At +your age!" + +Vehement glances flashed between them. All Emmy's jealousy was in her +face, clear as day. Jenny drew a sharp breath. Then, obstinately, she +closed her lips, looking for a moment like the girl in the sliding +window, inscrutable. Emmy, also recovering herself, spoke again, trying +to steady her voice. + +"It's not what you think. But I can't bear to see you ... playing about +with him. It's not fair. He thinks you mean it. You don't!" + +"Course I don't. I don't mean anything. A fellow like that!" Jenny +laughed a little, woundingly. + +"What's the matter with him?" Savagely, Emmy betrayed herself again. She +was trembling from head to foot, her mind blundering hither and thither +for help against a quicker-witted foe. "It's only _you_ he's not good +enough for," she said passionately. "What's the matter with him?" + +Jenny considered, her pale face now deadly white, all the heat gone from +her cheeks, though the hard glitter remained in her eyes, cruelly +indicating the hunger within her bosom. + +"Oh, he's all right in his way," she drawlingly admitted. "He's clean. +That's in his favour. But he's quiet ... he's got no devil in him. Sort +of man who tells you what he likes for breakfast. I only go with +him ... well, you know why, as well as I do. He's all right enough, as +far as he goes. But he's never on for a bit of fun. That's it: he's got +no devil in him. I don't like that kind. Prefer the other sort." + +During this speech Emmy had kept back bitter interruptions by an +unparalleled effort. It had seemed as though her fury had flickered, +blazing and dying away as thought and feeling struggled together for +mastery. At the end of it, however, and at Jenny's declared preference +for men of devil, Emmy's face hardened. + +"You be careful, my girl," she prophesied with a warning glance of +anger. "If that's the kind you're after. Take care you're not left!" + +"Oh, I can take care," Jenny said, with cold nonchalance. "Trust me!" + + +vii + +Later, when they were both in the chilly scullery, washing up the supper +dishes, they were again constrained. Somehow when they were alone +together they could not quarrel: it needed the presence of Pa Blanchard +to stimulate them to retort. In his rambling silences they found the +spur for their unkind eloquence, and too often Pa was used as a +stalking-horse for their angers. He could hardly hear, and could not +follow the talk; but by directing a remark to him, so that it cannoned +off at the other, each obtained satisfaction for the rivalry that +endured from day to day between them. Their hungry hearts, all the +latent bitternesses in their natures, yearning for expression, found it +in his presence. But alone, whatever their angers, they were generally +silent. It may have been that their love was strong, or that their +courage failed, or that the energy required for conflict was not +aroused. That they deeply loved one another was sure; there was rivalry, +jealousy, irritation between them, but it did not affect their love. +The jealousy was a part of their general discontent--a jealousy that +would grow more intense as each remained frustrate and unhappy. Neither +understood the forces at work within herself; each saw these perversely +illustrated in the other's faults. In each case the cause of unhappiness +was unsatisfied love, unsatisfied craving for love. It was more acute in +Emmy's case, because she was older and because the love she needed was +under her eyes being wasted upon Jenny--if it were love, and not that +mixture of admiration and desire with self-esteem that goes to make the +common formula to which the name of love is generally attached. Jenny +could not be jealous of Emmy as Emmy was jealous of Jenny. She had no +cause; Emmy was not her rival. Jenny's rival was life itself, as will be +shown hereafter: she had her own pain. + +It was thus only natural that the two girls, having pushed Pa's chair to +the side of the kitchen fire, and having loaded and set light to Pa's +pipe, should work together in silence for a few minutes, clearing the +table and washing the supper dishes. They were distant, both aggrieved; +Emmy with labouring breath and a sense of bitter animosity, Jenny with +the curled lip of one triumphant who does not need her triumph and would +abandon it at the first move of forgiveness. They could not speak. The +work was done, and Emmy was rinsing the washing basin, before Jenny +could bring herself to say awkwardly what she had in her mind. + +"Em," she began. "I didn't know you ... you know." A silence. Emmy +continued to swirl the water round with the small washing-mop, her face +averted. Jenny's lip stiffened. She made another attempt, to be the +last, restraining her irritation with a great effort. "If you like I +won't ... I won't go out with him any more." + +"Oh, you needn't worry," Emmy doggedly said, with her teeth almost +clenched. "I'm not worrying about it." She tried then to keep silent; +but the words were forced from her wounded heart. With uncontrollable +sarcasm she said: "It's very good of you, I'm sure!" + +"Em!" It was coaxing. Jenny went nearer. Still there was no reply. +"Em ... don't be a silly cat. If he'd only ask _you_ to go once or twice. +He'd always want to. You needn't worry about me being ... See, I like +somebody else--another fellow. He's on a ship. Nowhere near here. I only +go with Alf because ... well, after all, he's a man; and they're scarce. +Suppose I leave off going with him...." + +Both knew she had nothing but kind intention, as in fact the betrayal of +her own secret proved; but as Jenny could not keep out of her voice the +slightest tinge of complacent pity, so Emmy could not accept anything +so intolerable as pity. + +"Thanks," she said in perfunctory refusal; "but you can do what you +like. Just what you like." She was implacable. She was drying the basin, +her face hidden. "I'm not going to take your leavings." At that her +voice quivered and had again that thread of roughness in it which had +been there earlier. "Not likely!" + +"Well, I can't help it, can I!" cried Jenny, out of patience. "If he +likes me best. If he _won't_ come to you. I mean, if I say I won't go +out with him--will that put him on to you or send him off altogether? +Em, do be sensible. Really, I never knew. Never dreamt of it. I've never +wanted him. It's not as though he'd whistled and I'd gone trotting after +him. Em! You get so ratty about--" + +"Superior!" cried Emmy, gaspingly. "Look down on me!" She was for an +instant hysterical, speaking loudly and weepingly. Then she was close +against Jenny; and they were holding each other tightly, while Emmy's +dreadful quiet sobs shook both of them to the heart. And Jenny, above +her sister's shoulder, could see through the window the darkness that +lay without; and her eyes grew tender at an unbidden thought, which made +her try to force herself to see through the darkness, as though she were +sending a speechless message to the unknown. Then, feeling Emmy still +sobbing in her arms, she looked down, laying her face against her +sister's face. A little contemptuous smile appeared in her eyes, and her +brow furrowed. Well, Emmy could cry. _She_ couldn't. She didn't want to +cry. She wanted to go out in the darkness that so pleasantly enwrapped +the earth, back to the stir and glitter of life somewhere beyond. +Abruptly Jenny sighed. Her vision had been far different from this +scene. It had carried her over land and sea right into an unexplored +realm where there was wild laughter and noise, where hearts broke +tragically and women in the hour of ruin turned triumphant eyes to the +glory of life, and where blinding streaming lights and scintillating +colours made everything seem different, made it seem romantic, +rapturous, indescribable. From that vision back to the cupboard-like +house in Kennington Park, and stodgy Alf Rylett, and supper of stew and +bread and butter pudding, and Pa, and this little sobbing figure in her +arms, was an incongruous flight. It made Jenny's mouth twist in a smile +so painful that it was almost a grimace. + +"Oh lor!" she said again, under her breath, as she had said it earlier. +"_What_ a life!" + + + + +CHAPTER II: THE TREAT + + +i + +Gradually Emmy's tearless sobs diminished; she began to murmur broken, +meaningless ejaculations of self-contempt; and to strain away from +Jenny. At last she pushed Jenny from her, feverishly freeing herself, so +that they stood apart, while Emmy blew her nose and wiped her eyes. All +this time they did not speak to each other, and when Emmy turned blindly +away Jenny mechanically took hold of the kettle, filled it, and set it +to boil upon the gas. Emmy watched her curiously, feeling that her nose +was cold and her eyes were burning. Little dry tremors seemed to shake +her throat; dreariness had settled upon her, pressing her down; making +her feel ashamed of such a display of the long secret so carefully +hoarded away from prying glances. + +"What's that for?" she miserably asked, indicating the kettle. + +"Going to steam my hat," Jenny said. "The brim's all floppy." There was +now only a practical note in her voice. She, too, was ashamed. "You'd +better go up and lie down for a bit. I'll stay with Pa, in case he falls +into the fire. Just the sort of thing he _would_ do on a night like +this. Just because you're upset." + +"I shan't go up. It's too cold. I'll sit by the fire a bit." + +They both went into the kitchen, where the old man was whistling under +his breath. + +"Was there any noos on the play-cards?" he inquired after a moment, +becoming aware of their presence. "Emmy--Jenny." + +"No, Pa. I told you. Have to wait till Sunday. Funny thing there's so +much more news in the Sunday papers: I suppose people are all extra +wicked on Saturdays. They get paid Friday night, I shouldn't wonder; and +it goes to their heads." + +"Silly!" Emmy said under her breath. "It's the week's news." + +"That's all right, old girl," admonished Jenny. "I was only giving him +something to think about. Poor old soul. Now, about this hat: the girls +all go on at me.... Say I dress like a broker's-man. I'm going to +smarten myself up. You never know what might happen. Why, I might get +off with a Duke!" + +Emmy was overtaken by an impulse of gratitude. + +"You can have mine, if you like," she said. "The one you gave me ... on +my birthday." Jenny solemnly shook her head. She did not thank her +sister. Thanks were never given in that household, because they were a +part of "peliteness," and were supposed to have no place in the domestic +arena. + +"Not if I know it!" she humorously retorted. "I made it for you, and it +suits you. Not my style at all. I'll just get out my box of bits. You'll +see something that'll surprise you, my girl." + +The box proved to contain a large number of "bits" of all sizes and +kinds--fragments of silk (plain and ribbed), of plush, of ribbon both +wide and narrow; small sprays of marguerites, a rose or two, some +poppies, and a bunch of violets; a few made bows in velvet and silk; +some elastic, some satin, some feathers, a wing here and there ... the +miscellaneous assortment of odds-and-ends always appropriated (or, in +the modern military slang, "won") by assistants in the millinery. Some +had been used, some were startlingly new. Jenny was more modest in such +acquirements than were most of her associates; but she was affected, as +all such must be, by the prevailing wind. Strangely enough, it was not +her habit to wear very smart hats, for business or at any other time. +She would have told you, in the event of any such remark, that when you +had been fiddling about with hats all day you had other things to do in +the evenings. Yet she had good taste and very nimble fingers when +occasion arose. In bringing her box from the bedroom she brought also +from the stand in the passage her drooping hat, against which she +proceeded to lay various materials, trying them with her sure eye, +seeking to compose a picture, with that instructive sense of cynosure +which marks the crafty expert. Fascinated, with her lips parted in an +expression of that stupidity which is so often the sequel to a fit of +crying, Emmy watched Jenny's proceedings, her eyes travelling from the +hat to the ever-growing heap of discarded ornaments. She was dully +impressed with the swift judgment of her sister in consulting the +secrets of her inner taste. It was a judgment unlike anything in her own +nature of which she was aware, excepting the measurement of ingredients +for a pudding. + +So they sat, all engrossed, while the kettle began to sing and the +desired steam to pour from the spout, clouding the scullery. The only +sound that arose was the gurgling of Pa Blanchard's pipe (for he was +what is called in Kennington Park a wet smoker). He sat remembering +something or pondering the insufficiency of news. Nobody ever knew what +he thought about in his silences. It was a mystery over which the girls +did not puzzle, because they were themselves in the habit of sitting for +long periods without speech. Pa's broodings were as customary to them +as the absorbed contemplativeness of a baby. "Give him his pipe," as +Jenny said; "and he'll be quiet for hours--till it goes out. _Then_ +there's a fuss! My word, what a racket! Talk about a fire alarm!" And on +such occasions she would mimic him ridiculingly, to diminish his +complaints, while Emmy roughly relighted the hubble-bubble and patted +her father once more into a contented silence. Pa was to them, although +they did not know it, their bond of union. Without him, they would have +fallen apart, like the outer pieces of a wooden boot-tree. For his sake, +with all the apparent lack of sympathy shown in their behaviour to him, +they endured a life which neither desired nor would have tolerated upon +her own account. So it was that Pa's presence acted as a check and +served them as company of a meagre kind, although he was less +interesting or expansive than a little dog might have been. + +When Jenny went out to the scullery carrying her hat, after sweeping the +scraps she had declined back into the old draper's cardboard box which +amply contained such treasures and preserved them from dust, Emmy, now +quite quiet again, continued to sit by the fire, staring at the small +glowing strip that showed under the door of the kitchen grate. Every now +and then she would sigh, wearily closing her eyes; and her breast would +rise as if with a sob. And she would sometimes look slowly up at the +clock, with her head upon one side in order to see the hands in their +proper aspect, as if she were calculating. + + +ii + +From the scullery came the sound of Jenny's whistle as she cheerily held +the hat over the steam. Pa heard it as something far away, like a +distant salvationists' band, and pricked up his ears; Emmy heard it, and +her brow was contracted. Her expression darkened. Jenny began to hum: + +"'Oh Liza, sweet Liza, +If you die an old maid you'll have only yourself to blame ...'" + +It was like a sudden noise in a forest at night, so poignant was the +contrast of the radiating silences that succeeded. Jenny's voice stopped +sharply. Perhaps it had occurred to her that her song would be +overheard. Perhaps she had herself become affected by the meaning of the +words she was so carelessly singing. There was once more an air of +oblivion over all things. The old man sank back in his chair, puffing +slowly, blue smoke from the bowl of the pipe, grey smoke from between +his lips. Emmy looked again at the clock. She had the listening air of +one who awaits a bewildering event. Once she shivered, and bent to the +fire, raking among the red tumbling small coal with the bent kitchen +poker. Jenny began to whistle again, and Emmy impatiently wriggled her +shoulders, jarred by the noise. Suddenly she could bear no longer the +whistle that pierced her thoughts and distracted her attention, but went +out to the scullery. + +"How are you getting on?" she asked with an effort. + +"Fine. This gas leaks. Can't you whiff it? Don't know which one it is. +Pa all right?" + +"Yes, he's all right. Nearly finished?" + +"Getting on. Tram nearly ran over a kid to-night. She was wheeling a pram +full of washing on the line. There wasn't half a row about it--shouting +and swearing. Anybody would have thought the kid had laid down on the +line. I expect she was frightened out of her wits--all those men +shouting at her. There, now I'll lay it on the plate rack over the gas +for a bit.... Look smart, shan't I! With a red rose in it and a red +ribbon...." + +"Not going to have those streamers, or any lace, are you?" + +"Not likely. You see the kids round here wearing them; but the kids +round here are always a season late. Same with their costumes. They +don't know any better. I do!" + +Jenny was cheerfully contemptuous. She knew what was being worn along +Regent Street and in Bond Street, because she saw it with her own eyes. +Then she came home and saw the girls of her own district swanking about +like last year's patterns, as she said. She couldn't help laughing at +them. It made her think of the tales of savages wearing top hats with +strings of beads and thinking they were all in the latest European +fashion. That is the constant amusement of the expert as she regards the +amateur. She has all the satisfaction of knowing better, without the +turmoil of competition, a fact which distinguishes the superior spirit +from the struggling helot. Jenny took full advantage of her situation +and her knowledge. + +"Yes, you know a lot," Emmy said dryly. + +"Ah, you've noticed it?" Jenny was not to be gibed at without retort. +"I'm glad." + +"So _you_ think," Emmy added, as though she had not heard the reply. + +There came at this moment a knock at the front door. Emmy swayed, grew +pale, and then slowly reddened until the colour spread to the very edges +of her bodice. The two girls looked at one another, a deliberate +interchange of glances that was at the same time, upon both sides, an +intense scrutiny. Emmy was breathing heavily; Jenny's nostrils were +pinched. + +"Well," at last said Jenny, drawlingly. "Didn't you hear the knock? +Aren't you going to answer it?" She reached as she spoke to the hat +lying upon the plate rack above the gas stove, looking fixedly away from +her sister. Her air of gravity was unchanged. Emmy, hesitating, made as +if to speak, to implore something; but, being repelled, she turned, and +went thoughtfully across the kitchen to the front door. Jenny carried +her hat into the kitchen and sat down at the table as before. The +half-contemptuous smile had reappeared in her eyes; but her mouth was +quite serious. + + +iii + +Pa Blanchard had worked as a boy and man in a large iron foundry. He had +been a very capable workman, and had received as the years went on the +maximum amount (with overtime) to be earned by men doing his class of +work. He had not been abstemious, and so he had spent a good deal of his +earnings in what is in Kennington Park called "pleasure"; but he had +also possessed that common kind of sense which leads men to pay money +into sick and benefit clubs. Accordingly, his wife's illness and burial +had, as he had been in the habit of saying, "cost him nothing." They +were paid by his societies. Similarly, when he had himself been attacked +by the paralytic seizure which had wrecked his life, the societies had +paid; and now, in addition to the pension allowed by his old employers, +he received a weekly dole from the societies which brought his income up +to fifty shillings a week. The pension, of course, would cease upon his +death; but so long as life was kept burning within him nothing could +affect the amounts paid weekly into the Blanchard exchequer. Pa was +fifty-seven, and normally would have had a respectable number of years +before him; his wants were now few, and his days were carefully watched +over by his daughters. He would continue to draw his pensions for +several years yet, unless something unexpected happened to him. +Meanwhile, therefore, his pipe was regularly filled and his old pewter +tankard appeared at regular intervals, in order that Pa should feel as +little as possible the change in his condition. + +Mrs. Blanchard had been dead ten years. She had been very much as Emmy +now was, but a great deal more cheerful. She had been plump and +fresh-coloured, and in spite of Pa Blanchard's ways she had led a happy +life. In the old days there had been friends and neighbours, now all +lost in course of removals from one part of London to another, so that +the girls were without friends and knew intimately no women older than +themselves. Mrs. Blanchard, perhaps in accord with her cheerfulness, had +been a complacent, selfish little woman, very neat and clean, and +disposed to keep her daughters in their place. Jenny had been her +favourite; and even so early had the rivalry between them been +established. Besides this, Emmy had received all the rebuffs needed to +check in her the same complacent selfishness that distinguished her +mother. She had been frustrated all along, first by her mother, then by +her mother's preference for Jenny, finally (after a period during which +she dominated the household after her mother's death) by Jenny herself. +It was thus not upon a pleasant record of personal success that Emmy +could look back, but rather upon a series of chagrins of which each was +the harder to bear because of the history of its precursors. Emmy, +between eighteen and nineteen at the time of her mother's death, had +grasped her opportunity, and had made the care of the household her lot. +She still bore, what was a very different reading of her ambition, the +cares of the household. Jenny, as she grew up, had proved unruly; Pa +Blanchard's illness had made home service compulsory; and so matters +were like to remain indefinitely. Is it any wonder that Emmy was restive +and unhappy as she saw her youth going and her horizons closing upon her +with the passing of each year? If she had been wholly selfish that fact +would have been enough to sour her temper. But another, emotionally +more potent, fact produced in Emmy feelings of still greater stress. To +that fact she had this evening given involuntary expression. Now, how +would she, how could she, handle her destiny? Jenny, shrewdly thinking +as she sat with her father in the kitchen and heard Emmy open the front +door, pondered deeply as to her sister's ability to turn to account her +own sacrifice. + + +iv + +Within a moment Alf Rylett appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, Emmy +standing behind him until he moved forward, and then closing the door +and leaning back against it. His first glance was in the direction of +Jenny, who, however, did not rise as she would ordinarily have done. He +glanced quickly at her face and from her face to her hands, so busily +engaged in manipulating the materials from which she was to re-trim her +hat. Then he looked at Pa Blanchard, whom he touched lightly and +familiarly upon the shoulder. Alf was a rather squarely built young man +of thirty, well under six feet, but not ungainly. He had a florid, +reddish complexion, and his hair was of a common but unnamed colour, +between brown and grey, curly and crisp. He was clean-shaven. Alf was +obviously one who worked with his hands: in the little kitchen he +appeared to stand upon the tips of his toes, in order that his walk +might not be too noisy. That fact might have suggested either mere +nervousness or a greater liking for life out of doors. When he walked it +was as though he did it all of a piece, so that his shoulders moved as +well as his legs. The habit was shown as he lunged forward to grip +Jenny's hand. When he spoke he shouted, and he addressed Pa as a boy +might have done who was not quite completely at his ease, but who +thought it necessary to pretend that he was so. + +"Good evening, Mr. Blanchard!" he cried boisterously. "Sitting by the +fire, I see!" + +Pa looked at him rather vacantly, apparently straining his memory in +order to recognise the new-comer. It was plain that as a personal matter +he had no immediate use for Alf Rylett; but he presently nodded his +head. + +"Sitting by the fire," he confirmed. "Getting a bit warm. It's cold +to-night. Is there any noos, Alf Rylett?" + +"Lots of it!" roared Alf, speaking as if it had been to a deaf man or a +foreigner. "They say this fire at Southwark means ten thousand pounds +damage. Big factory there--gutted. Of course, no outside fire escapes. +_As_ usual. Fully insured, though. It'll cost them nothing. You can't +help wondering what causes these fires when they're heavily insured. Eh? +Blazing all night, it was. Twenty-five engines. Twenty-five, mind you! +That shows it was pretty big, eh? I saw the red in the sky, myself. +'Well,' I thought to myself, 'there's somebody stands to lose +something,' I thought. But the insurance companies are too wide to stand +all the risk themselves. They share it out, you know. It's a mere +flea-bite to them. And ... a ... well then there's a ... See, then +there's a bigamy case." + +"Hey?" cried Pa sharply, brightening. "What's that about?" + +"Nothing much. Only a couple of skivvies. About ten pound three and +fourpence between the pair of them. That was all he got." Pa's interest +visibly faded. He gurgled at his pipe and turned his face towards the +mantelpiece. "And ... a ... let's see, what else is there?" Alf racked +his brains, puffing a little and arching his brows at the two girls, who +seemed both to be listening, Emmy intently, as though she were repeating +his words to herself. He went on: "Tram smash in Newcastle. Car went off +the points. Eleven injured. Nobody killed...." + +"I don't call _that_ much," said Jenny, critically, with a pin in her +mouth. "Not much more than I told him an hour ago. He wants a murder, or +a divorce. All these little tin-pot accidents aren't worth printing at +all. What he wants is the cross-examination of the man who found the +bones." + +It was comical to notice the change on Alf at Jenny's interruption. +From the painful concentration upon memory which had brought his +eyebrows together there appeared in his expression the most delighted +ease, a sort of archness that made his face look healthy and honest. + +"What's that you're doing?" he eagerly inquired, forsaking Pa, and +obviously thankful at having an opportunity to address Jenny directly. +He came over and stood by the table, in spite of the physical effort +which Emmy involuntarily made to will that he should not do so. Emmy's +eyes grew tragic at his intimate, possessive manner in speaking to +Jenny. "I say!" continued Alf, admiringly. "A new hat, is it? Smart! +Looks absolutely A1. Real West End style, isn't it? Going to have some +chiffong?" + +"Sit down, Alf." It was Emmy who spoke, motioning him to a chair +opposite to Pa. He took it, his shoulder to Jenny, while Emmy sat by the +table, looking at him, her hands in her lap. + +"How is he?" Alf asked, jerking his head at Pa. "Perked up when I said +'bigamy,' didn't he!" + +"He's been very good, I will say," answered Emmy. "Been quiet all +day. And he ate his supper as good as gold." Jenny's smile and little +amused crouching of the shoulders caught her eye. "Well, so he did!" +she insisted. Jenny took no notice. "He's had his--mustn't say it, +because he _always_ hears that word, and it's not time for his +evening ... Eight o'clock he has it." + +"What's that?" said Alf, incautiously. "Beer?" + +"Beer!" cried Pa. "Beer!" It was the cry of one who had been malignantly +defrauded, a piteous wail. + +"There!" said both the girls, simultaneously. Jenny added: "Now you've +done it!" + +"All right, Pa! Not time yet!" But Emmy went to the kitchen cupboard as +Pa continued to express the yearning that filled his aged heart. + +"Sorry!" whispered Alf. "Hold me hand out, naughty boy!" + +"He's like a baby with his titty bottle," explained Emmy. "Now he'll be +quiet again." + +Alf fidgeted a little. This contretemps had unnerved him. He was less +sure of himself. + +"Well," he said at last, darkly. "What I came in about ... Quarter to +eight, is it? By Jove, I'm late. That's telling Mr. Blanchard all the +news. The fact is, I've got a couple of tickets for the theatre down the +road--for this evening, I thought ... erum ..." + +"Oh, extravagance!" cried Jenny, gaily, dropping the pin from between +her lips and looking in an amused flurry at Emmy's anguished face +opposite. It was as though a chill had struck across the room, as though +both Emmy's heart and her own had given a sharp twist at the shock. + +"Ah, that's where you're wrong. That's what cleverness does for you." +Alf nodded his head deeply and reprovingly. "Given to me, they were, by +a pal o' mine who works at the theatre. They're for to-night. I +thought--" + +Jenny, with her heart beating, was stricken for an instant with panic. +She bent her head lower, holding the rose against the side of her hat, +watching it with a zealous eye, once again to test the effect. He +thought she was coquetting, and leaned a little towards her. He would +have been ready to touch her face teasingly with his forefinger. + +"Oh," Jenny exclaimed, with a hurried assumption of matter of fact ease +suddenly ousting her panic. "That's very good. So you thought you'd take +_Emmy_! That was a very good boy!" + +"I thought ..." heavily stammered Alf, his eyes opening in a surprised +way as he found himself thus headed off from his true intention. He +stared blankly at Jenny, until she thought he looked like the bull on +the hoardings who has "heard that they want more." Emmy stared at her +also, quite unguardedly, a concentrated stare of agonised doubt and +impatience. Emmy's face grew pinched and sallow at the unexpected strain +upon her nerves. + +"That was what you thought, wasn't it?" Jenny went on impudently, +shooting a sideways glance at him that made Alf tame with helplessness. +"Poor old Em hasn't had a treat for ever so long. Do her good to go. You +did mean that, didn't you?" + +"I ..." said Alf. "I ..." He was inclined for a moment to bluster. He +looked curiously at Jenny's profile, judicial in its severity. Then some +kind of tact got the better of his first impulse. "Well, I thought _one_ +of you girls ..." he said. "Will you come, Em? Have to look sharp." + +"Really?" Emmy jumped up, her face scarlet and tears of joy in her eyes. +She did not care how it had been arranged. Her pride was unaroused; the +other thought, the triumph of the delicious moment, was overwhelming. +Afterwards--ah, no no! She would not think. She was going. She was +actually going. In a blur she saw their faces, their kind eyes.... + +"Good boy!" cried Jenny. "Buck up, Em, if you're going to change your +dress. Seats! My word! How splendid!" She clapped her hands quickly, +immediately again taking up her work so as to continue it. Into her eyes +had come once more that strange expression of pitying contempt. Her +white hands flashed in the wan light as she quickly threaded her needle +and knotted the silk. + + + + +CHAPTER III: ROWS + + +i + +After Emmy had hurried out of the room to change her dress, Alf stood, +still apparently stupefied at the unscrupulous rush of Jenny's feminine +tactics, rubbing his hand against the back of his head. He looked +cautiously at Pa Blanchard, and from him back to the mysterious unknown +who had so recently defeated his object. Alf may or may not have +prepared some kind of set speech of invitation on his way to the house. +Obviously it is a very difficult thing, where there are two girls in a +family, to invite one of them and not the other to an evening's orgy. If +it had not previously occurred to Alf to think of the difficulty quite +as clearly as he was now being made to do, that must have been because +he thought of Emmy as imbedded in domestic affairs. After all, damn it, +as he was thinking; if you want one girl it is rotten luck to be fobbed +off with another. Alf knew quite well the devastating phrase, at one +time freely used as an irresistible quip (like "There's hair" or "That's +all right, tell your mother; it'll be ninepence") by which one suggested +disaster--"And that spoilt his evening." The phrase was in his mind, +horrible to feel. Yet what could he have done in face of the direct +assault? "_Must_ be a gentleman." He could hardly have said, before +Emmy: "No, it's _you_ I want!" He began to think about Emmy. She was all +right--a quiet little piece, and all that. But she hadn't got Jenny's +cheek! That was it! Jenny had got the devil's own cheek, and this was an +example of it. But this was an unwelcome example of it. He ruminated +still further; until he found he was standing on one foot and rubbing +the back of his head, just like any stage booby. + +"Oh, damn!" he cried, putting his raised foot firmly on the ground and +bringing his wandering fist down hard into the open palm of his other +hand. + +"Here, here!" protested Jenny, pretending to be scandalised. "That's not +the sort of language to use before Pa! He's not used to it. We're +_awfully_ careful what we say when Pa's here!" + +"You're making a fool of me!" spluttered Alf, glaring at her. "That's +about the size of it!" + +"What about your pa and ma!" she inquired, gibing at him. "I've done +nothing. Why don't you sit down. Of course you feel a fool, standing. I +always do, when the manager sends for me. Think I'm going to get the +sack." She thought he was going to bellow at her: "I hear they want +more!" The mere notion of it made her smile, and Alf imagined that she +was still laughing at her own manoeuvre or at her impertinent jest. + +"What did you do it for?" he asked, coming to the table. + +"Cause it was all floppy. What did you think? Why, the girls all talk +about me wearing it so long." + +"I'm not talking about that," he said, in a new voice of exasperated +determination. "You know what I'm talking about. Oh, yes, you do! I'm +talking about those tickets. And me. And you!" + +Jenny's eyes contracted. She looked fixedly at her work. Her hands +continued busy. + +"Well, you're going to take Emmy, aren't you!" she prevaricated. "You +asked her to go." + +"No!" he said. "I'm going with her, because she's said she'll go. But it +was you that asked her." + +"Did I? How could I? They weren't mine. You're a man. You brought the +tickets. You asked her yourself." Jenny shook her head. "Oh, no, Alf +Rylett. You mustn't blame me. Take my advice, my boy. You be very glad +Emmy's going. If you mean me, I should have said 'No,' because I've got +to do this hat. Emmy's going to-night. You'll enjoy yourself far more." + +"Oh ----!" He did not use an oath, but it was implied. "What did you do +it for? Didn't you want to come yourself? No, look here, Jenny: I want +to know what's going on. You've always come with me before." He glared +at her in perplexity, puzzled to the depths of his intelligence by a +problem beyond its range. Women had always been reported to him as a +mystery; but he had never heeded. + +"It's Emmy's turn, then," Jenny went on. She could not resist the +display of a sisterly magnanimity, although it was not the true +magnanimity, and in fact had no relation to the truth. "Poor old Em gets +stuck in here day after day," she pleaded. "She's always with Pa till he +thinks she's a fixture. Well, why shouldn't she have a little pleasure? +You get her some chocs ... at that shop. ... _You_ know. It'll be the +treat of her life. She'll be as grateful to you for it. ... Oh, I'm very +glad she's got the chance of going. It'll keep her happy for days!" +Jenny, trying with all her might to set the affair straight and satisfy +everybody, was appealing to his vanity to salve his vanity. Alf saw +himself recorded as a public benefactor. He perceived the true sublimity +of altruism. + +"Yes," he said, doggedly, recovering himself and becoming a man, +becoming Alf Rylett, once again. "That's all bally fine. Sounds well as +you put it; but you knew as well as I did that I came to take _you_. I +say nothing against Em. She's a good sort; but--" + +Jenny suddenly kindled. He had never seen her so fine. + +"She's the best sort!" she said, with animation. "And don't you forget +it, Alf. Me--why, I'm as selfish as ... as _dirt_ beside her. Look a +little closer, my lad. You'll see Em's worth two of me. Any day! You +think yourself jolly lucky she's going with you. That's all I've got to +say to you!" + +She had pushed her work back, and was looking up at him with an air of +excitement. She had really been moved by a generous impulse. Her +indifference to Alf no longer counted. It was swept away by a feeling of +loyalty to Emmy. The tale she had told, the plea she had advanced upon +Emmy's behalf, if it had not influenced him, had sent a warm thrill of +conviction through her own heart. When she came thus to feel deeply she +knew as if by instinct that Emmy, irritable unsatisfied Emmy, was as +much superior to Alf as she herself was superior to him. A wave of +arrogance swept her. Because he was a man, and therefore so delectable +in the lives of two lonely girls, he was basely sure of his power to +choose from among them at will. He had no such power at that moment, in +Jenny's mind. He was the clay, for Emmy or herself to mould to their own +advantage. + +"You can think yourself _jolly_ lucky; my lad!" she repeated. "I can +tell you that much!" + + +ii + +Jenny leant back in her chair exhausted by her excitement. Alf reached +round for the chair he had left, and brought it to the table. He sat +down, his elbows on the table and his hands clasped; and he looked +directly at Jenny as though he were determined to explode this false +bubble of misunderstanding which she was sedulously creating. As he +looked at her, with his face made keen by the strength of his resolve, +Jenny felt her heart turn to water. She was physically afraid of him, +not because he had any power to move her, but because in sheer +bullock-like strength he was too much for her, as in tenacity he had +equally an advantage. As a skirmisher, or in guerrilla warfare, in which +he might always retire to a hidden fastness, baffling pursuers by +innumerable ruses and doublings, Jenny could hold her own. On the plain, +in face of superior strength, she had not the solid force needed to +resist strong will and clear issues. Alf looked steadily at her, his +reddish cheeks more red, his obstinate mouth more obstinate, so that she +could imagine the bones of his jaws cracking with his determination. + +"It won't do, Jen," he said. "And you know it." + +Jenny wavered. Her eyes flinched from the necessary task of facing him +down. Where women of more breeding have immeasurable resources of +tradition behind them, to quell any such inquisition, she was by +training defenceless. She had plenty of pluck, plenty of adroitness; but +she could only play the sex game with Alf very crudely because he was +not fine enough to be diverted by such finesse as she could employ. All +Jenny could do was to play for safety in the passage of time. If she +could beat him off until Emmy returned she could be safe for to-night; +and if she were safe now--anything might happen another day to bring +about her liberation. + +"Bullying won't do. I grant that," she retorted defiantly. "You needn't +think it will." She jerked her head. + +"We're going to have this out," Alf went on. Jenny darted a look of +entreaty at the kicking clock which lay so helplessly upon its side. If +only the clock would come to her aid, forgetting the episode of the +tea-cosy! + +"Take you all your time," she said swiftly. "Why, the theatre's all full +by now. The people are all in. They're tuning up for the overture. Look +at it!" She pointed a wavering finger at the clock. + +"We're going to have this out--now!" repeated Alf. "You know why I +brought the tickets here. It was because I wanted to take _you_. It's no +good denying it. That's enough. Somehow--I don't know why--you don't +want to go; and while I'm not looking you shove old Em on to me." + +"That's what you say," Jenny protested. Alf took no notice of her +interruption. He doggedly proceeded. + +"As I say, Em's all right enough. No fault to find with her. But she's +not you. And it's you I wanted. Now, if I take her--" + +"You'll enjoy it very much," she weakly asserted. "Ever so much. +Besides, Alf,"--she began to appeal to him, in an attempt to +wheedle--"Em's a real good sort.... You don't know half the things ..." + +"I know all about Em. I don't need you to tell me what she is. I can see +for myself." Alf rocked a little with an ominous obstinacy. His eyes +were fixed upon her with an unwinking stare. It was as though, having +delivered a blow with the full weight of party bias, he were desiring +her to take a common-sense view of a vehement political issue. + +"What can you see?" With a feeble dash of spirit, Jenny had attempted +tactical flight. The sense of it made her feel as she had done, as a +little girl, in playing touch; when, with a swerve, she had striven to +elude the pursuer. So tense were her nerves on such occasions that she +turned what is called "goosey" with the feel of the evaded fingers. + +Alf rolled his head again, slightly losing his temper at the +inconvenient question, which, if he had tried to answer it, might have +diverted him from the stern chase upon which he was engaged. The sense +of that made him doubly resolved upon sticking to the point. + +"Oh, never you mind," he said, stubbornly. "Quite enough of that. Now +the question is--and it's a fair one,--why did you shove Em on to me!" + +"I didn't! You did it yourself!" + +"Well, that's a flat lie!" he cried, slapping the table in a sudden +fury, and glaring at her. "That's what that is." + +Jenny crimsoned. It made the words no better that Alf had spoken truly. +She was deeply offended. They were both now sparkling with temper, +restless with it, and Jenny's teeth showing. + +"I'm a liar, am I!" she exclaimed. "Well, you can just lump it, then. +I shan't say another word. Not if you call me a liar. You've come +here ..." Her breath caught, and for a second she could not speak. +"You've come here _kindly_ to let us lick your boots, I suppose. Is that +it? Well, we're not going to do it. We never have, and we never will. +Never! It's a drop for you, you think, to take Emmy out. A bit of +kindness on your part. She's not up to West End style. That it? But you +needn't think you're too good for her. There's no reason, I'm sure. +You're not!... All because you're a man. Auch! I'm sick of the men! You +think you've only got to whistle. Yes, you do! You think if you crook +your little finger.... Oh no, my lad. That's where you're wrong. You're +making a big mistake there. We can look after ourselves, thank you! No +chasing after the men! Pa's taught us that. We're not quite alone. We +haven't got to take--we've neither of us got to take--whatever's offered +to us ... as you think. We've got Pa still!" + +Her voice had risen. An unexpected interruption stopped the argument for +the merest fraction of time. + +"Aye," said Pa. "They've got their old Pa!" He had taken his pipe out of +his mouth and was looking towards the combatants with an eye that for +one instant seemed the eye of perfect comprehension. It frightened Jenny +as much as it disconcerted Alf. It was to both of them, but especially +to Alf, like the shock of a cold sponge laid upon a heated brow. + +"I never said you hadn't!" he sulkily said, and turned round to look +amazedly at Pa. But Pa had subsided once more, and was drinking with +mournful avidity from his tankard. Occupied with the tankard, Pa had +neither eye nor thought for anything else. Alf resumed after the baffled +pause. "Yes. You've got him all right enough...." Then: "You're trying +to turn it off with your monkey tricks!" he said suddenly. "But I see +what it is. I was a fool not to spot it at once. You've got some other +fellow in tow. I'm not good enough for you any longer. Got no use for me +yourself; but you don't mind turning me over to old Em...." He shook his +head. "Well, I don't understand it," he concluded miserably. "I used to +think you was straight, Jen." + +"I am!" It was a desperate cry, from her heart. Alf sighed. + +"You're not playing the game, Jen old girl," he said, more kindly, more +thoughtfully. "That's what's the matter. I don't know what it is, or +what you're driving at; but that's what's wrong. What's the matter with +me? Anything? I know I'm not much of a one to shout the odds about. I +don't expect you to do that. Never did. But I never played you a trick +like this. What is it? What's the game you think you're playing?" When +she did not answer his urgent and humble appeal he went on in another +tone: "I shall find out, mind you. It's not going to stop here. I shall +ask Emmy. I can trust her." + +"You _can't_ ask her!" Jenny cried. It was wrung from her. "You just +dare to ask her. If she knew you hadn't meant to take her to-night, it +ud break her heart. It would. There!" Her voice had now the ring of +intense sincerity. She was not afraid, not defiant. She was a woman, +defending another woman's pride. + +Alf groaned. His cheeks became less ruddy. He looked quickly at the +door, losing confidence. + +"No: I don't know what it is," he said again. "I don't understand it." +He sat, biting his under lip, miserably undetermined. His grim front had +disappeared. He was, from the conquering hero, become a crestfallen +young man. He could not be passionate with Pa there. He felt that if +only she were in his arms she could not be untruthful, could not resist +him at all; but with the table between them she was safe from any +attack. He was powerless. And he could not say he loved her. He would +never be able to bring himself to say that to any woman. A woman might +ask him if he loved her, and he would awkwardly answer that of course he +did; but it was not in his nature to proclaim the fact in so many words. +He had not the fluency, the dramatic sense, the imaginative power to +sink and to forget his own self-consciousness. And so Jenny had won that +battle--not gloriously, but through the sheer mischance of +circumstances. Alf was beaten, and Jenny understood it. + +"Don't _think_ about me," she whispered, in a quick pity. Alf still +shook his head, reproachfully eyeing her with the old bull-like concern. +"I'm not worth thinking about. I'm only a beast. And you say you can +trust Emmy.... She's ever so ..." + +"Ah, but she can't make me mad like you do!" he said simply. "Jen, will +you come another night ... Do!" He was beseeching her, his hands +stretched towards her across the table, as near to making love as he +would ever be. It was his last faint hope for the changing of her heart +towards him. But Jenny slowly shook her head from side to side, a judge +refusing the prisoner's final desperate entreaties. + +"No," she said. "It's no good, Alf. It'll never be any good as long as I +live." + + +iii + +Alf put out his hand and covered Jenny's hand with it; and the hand he +held, after a swift movement, remained closely imprisoned. And just at +that moment, when the two were striving for mastery, the door opened and +Emmy came back into the room. She was fully dressed for going out, her +face charmingly set off by the hat she had offered earlier to Jenny, her +eyes alight with happiness, her whole bearing unutterably changed. + +"_Now_ who's waiting!" she demanded; and at the extraordinary sight +before her she drew a quick breath, paling. It did not matter that the +clinging hands were instantly apart, or that Alf rose hurriedly to meet +her. "What's that?" she asked, in a trembling tone. "What are you +doing?" As though she felt sick and faint, she sat sharply down upon her +old chair near the door. Jenny rallied. + +"Only a kid's game," she said. "Nothing at all." Alf said nothing, +looking at neither girl. Emmy tried to speak again; but at first the +words would not come. Finally she went on, with dreadful understanding. + +"Didn't you want to take me, Alf? Did you want her to go?" + +It was as though her short absence, perhaps even the change of costume, +had worked a curious and cognate change in her mind. Perhaps it was that +in her flushed happiness she had forgotten to be suspicious, or had +blindly misread the meanings of the earlier colloquy, as a result of +which the invitation had been given. + +"Don't be so silly!" quickly cried Jenny. "Of course he wanted you to +go!" + +"Alf!" Emmy's eyes were fixed upon him with a look of urgent entreaty. +She looked at Alf with all the love, all the extraordinary intimate +confidence with which women of her class do so generally regard the men +they love, ready to yield judgment itself to his decision. When he did +not answer, but stood still before them like a red-faced boy, staring +down at the floor, she seemed to shudder, and began despairingly to +unfasten the buttons of her thick coat. Jenny darted up and ran to check +the process. + +"Don't be a fool!" she breathed. "Like that! You've got no time for a +scene." Turning to Alf, she motioned him with a swift gesture to the +door. "Look sharp!" she cried. + +"I'm not going!" Emmy struggled with Jenny's restraining hands. "It's no +good fussing me, Jenny.... I'm not going. He can take who he likes. But +it's not me." + +Alf and Jenny exchanged angry glances, each bitterly blaming the other. + +"Em!" Jenny shouted. "You're mad!" + +"No, I'm not. Let me go! Let me go! He didn't want me to go. He wanted +you. Oh, I knew it. I was a fool to think he wanted me." Then, looking +with a sort of crazed disdain at Jenny, she said coolly, "Well, how is +it you're not ready? Don't you see your _substitute's_ waiting! Your +_land_ lover!" + +"Land!" cried Alf. "Land! A sailor!" He flushed deeply, raising his arms +a little as if to ward off some further revelation. Jenny, desperate, +had her hands higher than her head, protestingly quelling the scene. In +a loud voice she checked them. + +"Do ... not ... be ... fools!" she cried. "What's all the fuss about? +Simply because Alf's a born booby, standing there like a fool! I can't +go. I wouldn't go--even if he wanted me. But he wants you!" She again +seized Emmy, delaying once more Emmy's mechanical unfastening of the big +buttons of her coat. "Alf! Get your coat. Get her out of the house! I +never heard such rubbish! Alf, say ... tell her you meant her to go! Say +it wasn't me!" + +"I shouldn't believe him," Emmy said, clearly. "I know I saw him holding +your hand." + +Jenny laughed hysterically. + +"What a fuss!" she exclaimed. "He's been doing palmistry--reading it. +All about ... what's going to happen to me. Wasn't it, Alf!" + +Emmy disregarded her, watching Alf's too-transparent uneasiness. + +"You always _were_ a little lying beast," she said, venomously. "A +trickster." + +"You see?" Jenny said, defiantly to Alf. "What my own sister says?" + +"So you were. With your _sailor_.... And playing the fool with Alf!" +Emmy's voice rose. "You always were.... I wonder Alf's never seen it +long ago...." + +At this moment, with electrifying suddenness, Pa put down his tankard. + +"What, ain't you gone yet?" he trembled. "I thought you was going out!" + +"How did he know!" They all looked sharply at one another, sobered. So, +for one instant, they stood, incapable of giving any explanation to the +meekly inquiring old man who had disturbed their quarrel. Alf, so +helpless before the girls, was steeled by the interruption. He took two +steps towards Emmy. + +"We'll have this out later on," he said. "Meanwhile ... Come on, Em! +It's just on eight. Come along, there's a good girl!" He stooped, took +her hands, and drew her to her feet. Then, with uncommon tenderness, he +re-buttoned her coat, and, with one arm about her, led Emmy to the door. +She pressed back, but it was against him, within the magic circle of his +arm, suddenly deliriously happy. + +Jenny, still panting, stood as she had stood for the last few minutes, +and watched their departure. She heard the front door close as they left +the house; and with shaky steps went and slammed the door of the +kitchen. Trembling violently, she leant against the door, as Emmy had +done earlier. For a moment she could not speak, could not think or feel; +and only as a clock in the neighbourhood solemnly recorded the eighth +hour did she choke down a little sob, and say with the ghost of her +bereaved irony: + +"That's _done_ it!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV: THE WISH + + +i + +Waiting until she had a little recovered her self-control, Jenny +presently moved from the door to the fireplace, and proceeded +methodically to put coals on the fire. She was still shaking slightly, +and the corners of her mouth were uncontrollably twitching with +alternate smiles and other raiding emotions; so that she did not yet +feel in a fit state to meet Pa's scrutiny. He might be the old fool he +sometimes appeared to be, and, inconveniently, he might not. Just +because she did not want him to be particularly bright it was quite +probable that he would have a flourish of brilliance. That is as it +occasionally happens, in the dullest of mortals. So Jenny was some time +in attending to the fire, until she supposed that any undue redness of +cheek might be imagined to have been occasioned by her strenuous +activities. She then straightened herself and looked down at Pa with a +curious mixture of protectiveness and anxiety. + +"Pleased with yourself, aren't you?" she inquired, more to make +conversation which might engage the ancient mind in ruminant pastime +than to begin any series of inquiries into Pa's mental states. + +"Eh, Jenny?" said Pa, staring back at her. "Ain't you gone out? Is it +Emmy that's gone out? What did that fool Alf Rylett want? He was +shouting.... I heard him." + +"Yes, Pa; but you shouldn't have listened," rebuked Jenny, with a fine +colour. + +Pa shook his shaggy head. He felt cunningly for his empty tankard, +hoping that it had been refilled by his benevolent genius. It was not +until the full measure of his disappointment had been revealed that he +answered her. + +"I wasn't listening," he quavered. "I didn't hear what he said.... Did +Emmy go out with him?" + +"Yes, Pa. To the theatre. Alf brought tickets. Tickets! Tickets for +seats.... Oh, dear! _Why_ can't you understand! Didn't have to pay at +the door...." + +Pa suddenly understood. + +"Oh ah!" he said. "Didn't have to pay...." There was a pause. "That's +like Alf Rylett," presently added Pa. Jenny sat looking at him in +consternation at such an uncharitable remark. + +"It's not!" she cried. "I never _knew_ you were such a wicked old man!" + +Pa gave an antediluvian chuckle that sounded like a magical and +appalling rattle from the inner recesses of his person. He was getting +brighter and brighter, as the stars appear to do when the darkness +deepens. + +"See," he proceeded. "Did Alf say there was any noos?" He admitted an +uncertainty. Furtively he looked at her, suspecting all the time that +memory had betrayed him; but in his ancient way continuing to trust to +Magic. + +"Well, you didn't seem to think much of what he _did_ bring. But I'll +tell you a bit of news, Pa. And that is, that you've got a pair of the +rummiest daughters I ever struck!" + +Pa looked out from beneath his bushy grey eyebrows, resembling a worn +and dilapidated perversion of Whistler's portrait of Carlyle. His +eyelids seemed to work as he brooded upon her announcement. It was as +though, together, these two explored the Blanchard archives for +confirmation of Jenny's sweeping statement. The Blanchards of several +generations might have been imagined as flitting across a fantastic +horizon, keening for their withered laurels, thrown into the shades by +these more brighter eccentrics. It was, or it might have been, a +fascinating speculation. But Pa did not indulge this antique vein for +very long. The moment and its concrete images beguiled him back to the +daughter before him and the daughter who was engaged in an unexpected +emotional treat. He said: + +"I know," and gave a wide grin that showed the gaps in his teeth as +nothing else could have done--not even the profoundest yawn. Jenny was +stunned by this evidence of brightness in her parent. + +"Well, you're a caution!" she cried. "And to think of you sitting there +saying it! And I reckon they've got a pretty rummy old Pa--if the truth +was only known." + +Pa's grin, if possible, stretched wider. Again that terrible chuckle, +which suggested a derangement of his internal parts, or the running-down +of an overwound clock, wheezed across the startled air. + +"Maybe," Pa said, with some unpardonable complacency. "Maybe." + +"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Jenny. She could not be sure, when his manner +returned to one of vacancy, and when the kitchen was silent, whether Pa +and she had really talked thus, or whether she had dreamed their talk. +To her dying day she was never sure, for Pa certainly added nothing to +the conversation thereafter. Was it real? Or had her too excited brain +played her a trick? Jenny pinched herself. It was like a fairy tale, in +which cats talk and little birds humanly sing, or the tiniest of fairies +appear from behind clocks or from within flower-pots. She looked at Pa +with fresh awe. There was no knowing where you had him! He had the +interest, for her, of one returned by miracle from other regions, +gifted with preposterous knowledges.... He became at this instant +fabulous, like Rip Van Winkle, or the Sleeping Beauty ... or the White +Cat.... + +In her perplexity Jenny fell once more into a kind of dream, an +argumentative dream. She went back over the earlier rows, re-living +them, exaggerating unconsciously the noble unselfishness of her own acts +and the pointed effectiveness of her speeches, until the scenes were +transformed. They now appeared in other hues, in other fashionings. This +is what volatile minds are able to do with all recent happenings +whatsoever, re-casting them in form altogether more exquisite than the +crude realities. The chiaroscuro of their experiences is thus so +constantly changing and recomposing that--whatever the apparent result +of the scene in fact--the dreamer is in retrospect always victor, in the +heroic limelight. With Jenny this was a mood, not a preoccupation; but +when she had been moved or excited beyond the ordinary she often did +tend to put matters in a fresh aspect, more palatable to her self-love, +and more picturesque in detail than the actual happening. That is one of +the advantages of the rapidly-working brain, that its power of +improvisation is, in solitude, very constant and reassuring. It is as +though such a grain, upon this more strictly personal side, were a +commonwealth of little cell-building microbes. The chief microbe comes, +like the engineer, to estimate the damage to one's _amour propre_ and to +devise means of repair. He then summons all his necessary workmen, who +are tiny self-loves and ancient praises and habitual complacencies and +the staircase words of which one thinks too late for use in the scene +itself; and with their help he restores that proportion without which +the human being cannot maintain his self-respect. Jenny was like the +British type as recorded in legend; being beaten, she never admitted it; +but even, five minutes later, through the adroitness of her special +engineer and his handymen, would be able quite seriously to demonstrate +a victory to herself. + +Defeat? Never! How Alf and Emmy shrank now before her increasing skill +in argument. How were they shattered! How inept were their feebleness! +How splendid Jenny had been, in act, in motive, in speech, in +performance! + +"Er, yes!" Jenny said, beginning to ridicule her own highly coloured +picture. "Well, it was _something_ like that!" She had too much sense of +the ridiculous to maintain for long unquestioned the heroic vein as +natural to her own actions. More justly, she resumed her consideration +of the scenes, pondering over them in their nakedness and their +meanings, trying to see how all these stupid little feelings had burst +their way from overcharged hearts, and how each word counted as part of +the mosaic of misunderstanding that had been composed. + +"Oh, blow!" Jenny impatiently ejaculated, with a sinking heart at the +thought of any sequel. A sequel there was bound to be--however muffled. +It did not rest with her. There were Emmy and Alf, both alike burning +with the wish to avenge themselves--upon her! If only she could +disappear--just drop out altogether, like a man overboard at night in a +storm; and leave Emmy and Alf to settle together their own trouble. She +couldn't drop out; nobody could, without dying, though they might often +wish to do so; and even then their bodies were the only things that were +gone, because for a long time they stubbornly survived in memory. No: +she couldn't drop out. There was no chance of it. She was caught in the +web of life; not alone, but a single small thing caught in the general +mix-up of actions and inter-actions. She had just to go on as she was +doing, waking up each morning after the events and taking her old place +in the world; and in this instance she would have, somehow, to smooth +matters over when the excitements and agitations of the evening were +past. It would be terribly difficult. She could not yet see a clear +course. If only Emmy didn't live in the same house! If only, by throwing +Alf over as far as concerned herself, she could at the same time throw +him into Emmy's waiting arms. Why couldn't everybody be sensible? If +only they could all be sensible for half-an-hour everything could be +arranged and happiness could be made real for each of them. No: +misunderstandings were bound to come, angers and jealousies, conflicting +desires, stupid suspicions.... Jenny fidgeted in her chair and eyed Pa +with a sort of vicarious hostility. Why, even that old man was a +complication! Nay, he was the worst thing of all! But for him, she +_could_ drop out! There was no getting away from him! He was as much +permanently there as the chair upon which he was drowsing. She saw him +as an incubus. And then Emmy being so fussy! Standing on her dignity +when she'd give her soul for happiness! And then Alf being so ... What +was Alf? Well, Alf was stupid. That was the word for Alf. He was stupid. +As stupid as any stupid member of his immeasurably stupid sex could be! + +"Great booby!" muttered Jenny. Why, look at the way he had behaved when +Emmy had come into the room. It wasn't honesty, mind you; because he +could tell any old lie when he wanted to. It was just funk. He hadn't +known where to look, or what to say. Too slow, he was, to think of +anything. What could you do with a man like that? Oh, what stupids men +were! She expected that Alf would feel very fine and noble as he walked +old Em along to the theatre--and afterwards, when the evening was over +and he had gone off in a cloud of glory. He would think it all over and +come solemnly to the conclusion that the reason for his mumbling +stupidity, his toeing and heeling, and all that idiotic speechlessness +that set Emmy on her hind legs, was sheer love of the truth. He couldn't +tell a lie--to a woman. That would be it. He would pretend that Jenny +had chivvied him into taking Em, that he was too noble to refuse to take +Em, or to let Em really see point-blank that he didn't want to take her; +but when it came to the pinch he hadn't been able to screw himself into +the truly noble attitude needed for such an act of self-sacrifice. He +had been speechless when a prompt lie, added to the promptitude and +exactitude of Jenny's lie, would have saved the situation. Not Alf! + +"I cannot tell a lie," sneered Jenny. "To a woman. George Washington. I +_don't_ think!" + +Yes; but then, said her secret complacency, preening itself, and +suggesting that possibly a moment or two of satisfied pity might be at +this point in place, he'd really wanted to take Jenny. He had taken the +tickets because he had wanted to be in Jenny's company for the evening. +Not Emmy's. There was all the difference. If you wanted a cream bun and +got fobbed off with a scone! There was something in that. Jenny was +rather flattered by her happy figure. She even excitedly giggled at the +comparison of Emmy with a scone. Jenny did not like scones. She thought +them stodgy. She had also that astounding feminine love of cream buns +which no true man could ever acknowledge or understand. So Emmy became a +scone, with not too many currents in it. Jenny's fluent fancy was +inclined to dwell upon this notion. She a little lost sight of Alf's +grievance in her pleasure at the figures she had drawn. Her mind was +recalled with a jerk. Now: what was it? Alf had wanted to take +her--Jenny. Right! He had taken Emmy. Because he had taken Emmy, he had +a grievance. Right! But against whom? Against Emmy? Certainly not. +Against himself? By no means. Against Jenny? A horribly exulting and yet +nervously penitent little giggle shook Jenny at her inability to answer +this point as she had answered the others. For Alf _had_ a grievance +against Jenny, and she knew it. No amount of ingenious thought could +hoodwink her sense of honesty for more than a debater's five minutes. No +Alf had a grievance. Jenny could not, in strict privacy, deny the fact. +She took refuge in a shameless piece of bluster. + +"Well, after all!" she cried, "he had the tickets given to him. It's not +as though they _cost_ him anything! So what's all the row about?" + + +ii + +Thereafter she began to think of Alf. He had taken her out several +times--not as many times as Emmy imagined, because Emmy had thought +about these excursions a great deal and not only magnified but +multiplied them. Nevertheless, Alf had taken Jenny out several times. To +a music hall once or twice; to the pictures, where they had sat and +thrilled in cushioned darkness while acrobatic humans and grey-faced +tragic creatures jerked and darted at top speed in and out of the most +amazingly telescoped accidents and difficulties. And Alf had paid more +than once, for all Pa said. It is true that Jenny had paid on her +birthday for both of them; and that she had occasionally paid for +herself upon an impulse of sheer independence. But there had been other +times when Alf had really paid for both of them. He had been very decent +about it. He had not tried any nonsense, because he was not a +flirtatious fellow. Well, it had been very nice; and now it was all +spoilt. It was spoilt because of Emmy. Emmy had spoilt it by wanting Alf +for herself. Ugh! thought Jenny. Em had always been a jealous cat: if +she had just seen Alf somewhere she wouldn't have wanted him. That was +it! Em saw that Alf preferred Jenny; she saw that Jenny went out with +him. And because she always wanted to do what Jenny did, and always +wanted what Jenny had got, Em wanted to be taken out by Alf. Jenny, with +the cruel unerringness of an exasperated woman, was piercing to Emmy's +heart with fierce lambent flashes of insight. And if Alf had taken Em +once or twice, and Jenny once or twice, not wanting either one or the +other, or not wanting one of them more than the other, Em would have +been satisfied. It would have gone no further. It would still have been +sensible, without nonsense. But it wouldn't do for Em. So long as Jenny +was going out Emmy stayed at home. She had said to herself: "Why should +Jenny go, and not me ... having all this pleasure?" That had been the +first stage--Jenny worked it all out. First of all, it had been envy of +Jenny's going out. Then had come stage number two: "Why should Alf +Rylett always take Jenny, and not me?" That had been the first stage of +jealousy of Alf. And the next time Alf took Jenny, Em had stayed at +home, and thought herself sick about it, supposing that Alf and Jenny +were happy and that she was unhappy, supposing they had all the fun, +envying them the fun, hating them for having what she had not got, +hating Jenny for monopolising Alf, hating Alf had monopolising Jenny; +then, as she was a woman, hating Jenny for being a more pleasing woman +than herself, and having her wounded jealousy moved into a strong +craving for Alf, driven deeper and deeper into her heart by +long-continued thought and frustrated desire. And so she had come to +look upon herself as one defrauded by Jenny of pleasure--of +happiness--of love--of Alf Rylett. + +"And she calls it love!" thought Jenny bitterly. "If that's love, I've +got no use for it. Love's giving, not getting. I know that much. Love's +giving yourself; wanting to give all you've got. It's got nothing at all +to do with envy, or hating people, or being jealous...." Then a swift +feeling of pity darted through her, changing her thoughts, changing +every shade of the portrait of Emmy which she had been etching with her +quick corrosive strokes of insight. "Poor old Em!" she murmured. "She's +had a rotten time. I know she has. Let her have Alf if she wants. I +don't want him. I don't want anybody ... except ..." She closed her eyes +in the most fleeting vision. "Nobody except just Keith...." + +Slowly Jenny raised her hand and pressed the back of her wrist to her +lips, not kissing the wrist, but holding it against her lips so that +they were forced hard back upon her teeth. She drew, presently, a deep +breath, releasing her arm again and clasping her hands over her knees as +she bent lower, staring at the glowing heart of the fire. Her lips were +closely, seriously, set now; her eyes sorrowful. Alf and Emmy had +receded from her attention as if they had been fantastic shadows. Pa, +sitting holding his exhausted hubble-bubble, was as though he had no +existence at all. Jenny was lost in memory and the painful aspirations +of her own heart. + + +iii + +How the moments passed during her reverie she did not know. For her it +seemed that time stood still while she recalled days that were +beautified by distance, and imagined days that should be still to come, +made to compensate for that long interval of dullness that pressed her +each morning into acquiescence. She bent nearer to the fire, smiling to +herself. The fire showing under the little door of the kitchener was a +bright red glowing ash, the redness that came into her imagination when +the words "fire" or "heat" were used--the red heart, burning and +consuming itself in its passionate immolation. She loved the fire. It +was to her the symbol of rapturous surrender, that feminine ideal that +lay still deeper than her pride, locked in the most secret chamber of +her nature. + +And then, as the seconds ticked away, Jenny awoke from her dream and saw +that the clock upon the mantelpiece said half-past eight. Half-past +eight was what, in the Blanchard home, was called "time." When Pa was +recalcitrant Jenny occasionally shouted very loud, with what might have +appeared to some people an undesirable knowledge of customs, "Act of +Parliament, gentlemen, please"--which is a phrase sometimes used in +clearing a public-house. To-night there was no need for her to do that. +She had only to look at Pa, to take from his hand the almost empty pipe, +to knock out the ashes, and to say: + +"Time, Pa!" Obediently Pa held out his right hand and clutched in the +other his sturdy walking-stick. Together they tottered into the bedroom, +stood a moment while Jenny lighted the peep of gas which was Pa's +guardian angel during the night, and then made their way to the bed. Pa +sat upon the bed, like a child. Jenny took off Pa's collar and tie, and +his coat and waistcoat; she took off his boots and his socks; she laid +beside him the extraordinary faded scarlet nightgown in which Pa slept +away the darkness. Then she left him to struggle out of his clothes as +well as he could, which Pa did with a skill worthy of his best days. The +cunning which replaces competence had shown him how the braces may be +made to do their own work, how the shirt may with one hand be so +manipulated as to be drawn swiftly over the head... Pa was adept at +undressing. He was in bed within five minutes, after a panting, +exhausted interval during which he sat in a kind of trance, and was then +proudly as usual knocking upon the floor with his walking-stick for +Jenny to come and tuck him in for the night. + +Jenny came, gave him a big kiss, and went back to the kitchen, where she +resumed work upon her hat. It had lost its interest for her. She +stitched quickly and roughly, not as one interested in needlework or +careful for its own sake of the regularity of the stitch. Ordinarily she +was accurate: to-night her attention was elsewhere. It had come back to +the rows, because there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes +it ever so much more important than it really is. Loneliness with happy +thoughts is perhaps an ideal state; but no torment could be greater than +loneliness with thoughts that wound. Jenny's thoughts wounded her. The +mood of complacency was gone: that of shame and discontent was upon her. +Distress was uppermost in her mind--not the petulant wriggling of a +spoilt child, but the sober consciousness of pain in herself and in +others. In vain did Jenny give little gasps of annoyance, intended by +her humour to disperse the clouds. The gasps and exclamations were +unavailing. She was angry, chagrined, miserable. ...At last she could +bear the tension no longer, but threw down her work, rose, and walked +impatiently about the kitchen. + +"Oh, _do_ shut up!" she cried to her insistent thoughts. "Enough to +drive anybody off their nut. And they're not worth it, either of them. +Em's as stupid as she can be, thinking about herself.... And as for +Alf--anybody'd think I'd tricked him. I haven't. I've gone out with him; +but what's that? Lots of girls go out with fellows for months, and +nobody expects them to marry. The girls may want it; but the fellows +don't. They don't want to get settled down. And I don't blame them. Why +is Alf different? I suppose it's me that's different. I'm not like other +girls...." That notion cheered her. "No: I'm not like other girls. I +want my bit of fun. I've never had any. And just because I don't want to +settle down and have a lot of kids that mess the place to bits, of +course I get hold of Alf! It's too bad! Why can't he choose the right +sort of girl? Why can't he choose old Em? She's the sort that _does_ +want to get settled. She knows she'll have to buck up about it, too. She +said I should get left. That's what she's afraid of, herself; only she's +afraid of getting left on the shelf.... I wonder why it is the marrying +men don't get hold of the marrying girls! They do, sometimes, I +suppose...." Jenny shrugged restlessly and stood looking at nothing. +"Oh, it's sickening! You can't do anything you like in this world. +Nothing at all! You've always got to do what you _don't_ like. They say +it's good for you. It's your 'duty.' Who to? And who are 'they,' to say +such a thing? What are they after? Just to keep people like me in their +place--do as you're told. Well, I'm not going to do as I'm told. They +can lump it! That's what they can do. What does it matter--what happens +to me? I'm me, aren't I? Got a right to live, haven't I? Why should I be +somebody's servant all my life? I _won't!_ If Alf doesn't want to marry +Emmy, he can go and whistle somewhere else. There's plenty of girls +who'd jump at him. But just because I don't, he'll worry me to death. If +I was to be all over him--see Alf sheer off! He'd think there was +something funny about me. Well, there is! I'm Jenny Blanchard; and I'm +going to keep Jenny Blanchard. If I've got no right to live, then +nobody's got any right to keep me from living. If there's no rights, +other people haven't got any more than I have. They can't make me do +anything--by any right they've got. People--managing people--think that +because there isn't a corner of the earth they haven't collared they can +tell you what you've got to do. Give you a ticket and a number, get up +at six, eat so much a day, have six children, do what you're told. That +may do for some people; but it's slavery. And I'm not going to do it. +See!" She began to shout in her excited indignation. "See!" she cried +again. "Just because I'm poor, I'm to do what I'm told. They seem to +think that because they like to do what they're told, everybody ought to +be the same. They're afraid. They're afraid of themselves--afraid of +being left alone in the dark. They think everybody ought to be +afraid--in case anybody should find out that they're cowards! But I'm +not afraid, and I'm not going to do what I'm told.... I won't!" + +In a frenzy she walked about the room, her eyes glittering, her face +flushed with tumultuous anger. This was her defiance to life. She had +been made into a rebel through long years in which she had unconsciously +measured herself with others. Because she was a human being, Jenny +thought she had a right to govern her own actions. With a whole +priesthood against her, Jenny was a rebel against the world as it +appeared to her--a crushing, numerically overwhelming pressure that +would rob her of her one spiritual reality--the sense of personal +freedom. + +"Oh, I can't stand it!" she said bitterly. "I shall go mad! And Em +taking it all in, and ready to have Alf's foot on her neck for life. And +Alf ready to have Em chained to his foot for life. The fools! Why, I +wouldn't ... not even to Keith.... No, I wouldn't.... Fancy being boxed +up and pretending I liked it--just because other people say they like +it. Do as you're told. Do like other people. All be the same--a sticky +mass of silly fools doing as they're told! All for a bit of bread, +because somebody's bagged the flour for ever! And what's the good of it? +If it was any good--but it's no good at all! And they go on doing it +because they're cowards! Cowards, that's what they all are. Well, I'm +not like that!" + +Exhausted, Jenny sat down again; but she could not keep still. Her feet +would not remain quietly in the place she, as the governing +intelligence, commanded. They too were rebels, nervous rebels, +controlled by forces still stronger than the governing intelligence. She +felt trapped, impotent, as though her hands were tied; as though only +her whirling thoughts were unfettered. Again she took up the hat, but +her hands so trembled that she could not hold the needle steady. It made +fierce jabs into the hat. Stormily unhappy, she once more threw the work +down. Her lips trembled. She burst into bitter tears, sobbing as though +her heart were breaking. Her whole body was shaken with the deep and +passionate sobs that echoed her despair. + + +iv + +Presently, when she grew calmer, Jenny wiped her eyes, her face quite +pale and her hands still convulsively trembling. She was worn out by +the stress of the evening, by the vehemence of her rebellious feelings. +When she again spoke to herself it was in a shamed, giggling way that +nobody but Emmy had heard from her since the days of childhood. She gave +a long sigh, looking through the blur at that clear glow from beneath +the iron door of the kitchen grate. Miserably she refused to think +again. She was half sick of thoughts that tore at her nerves and +lacerated her heart. To herself Jenny felt that it was no good--crying +was no good, thinking was no good, loving and sympathising and giving +kindness--all these things were in this mood as useless as one another. +There was nothing in life but the endless sacrifice of human spirit. + +"Oh!" she groaned passionately. "If only something would happen. I don't +care _what!_ But something ... something new ... exciting. Something +with a bite in it!" + +She stared at the kicking clock, which every now and again seemed to +have a spasm of distaste for its steady record of the fleeting seconds. +"Wound up to go all day!" she thought, comparing the clock with herself +in an angry impatience. + +And then, as if it came in answer to her poignant wish for some untoward +happening, there was a quick double knock at the front door of the +Blanchard's dwelling, and a sharp whirring ring at the push-bell below +the knocker. The sounds seemed to go violently through and through the +little house in rapid waves of vibrant noise. + + + + +PART TWO + +NIGHT + + + + +CHAPTER V: THE ADVENTURE + + +i + +So unexpected was this interruption of her loneliness that Jenny was for +an instant stupefied. She took one step, and then paused, dread firmly +in her mind, paralysing her. What could it be? She could not have been +more frightened if the sound had been the turning of a key in the lock. +Were they back already? Had her hope been spoiled by some accident? +Surely not. It was twenty minutes to nine. They were safe in the theatre +by now. Oh, she was afraid! She was alone in the house--worse than +alone! Jenny cowered. She felt she could not answer the summons. +Tick-tick-tick said the clock, striking across the silences. Again Jenny +made a step forward. Then, terrifying her, the noise began once +more--the thunderous knock, the ping-ping-ping-whir of the bell.... + +Wrenching her mind away from apprehensiveness she moved quickly to the +kitchen door and into the dimly-lighted dowdy passage-way. Somewhere +beyond the gas flicker and the hat-stand lay--what? With all her +determination she pushed forward, almost running to the door. Her hand +hovered over the little knob of the lock: only horror of a renewal of +that dreadful sound prompted her to open the door quickly. She peered +into the darkness, faintly silhouetted against the wavering light of the +gas. A man stood there. + +"Evening, miss," said the man. "Miss Jenny Blanchard?" + +She could see there something white. He was holding it out to her. A +letter! + +"For me," she asked, her voice still unsteady. She took the letter, a +large square envelope. Mechanically she thanked the man, puzzling at the +letter. From whom could a letter be brought to her? + +"There's an answer," she heard. It came from ever so far away, in the +dim distance beyond her vague wonderings. Jenny was lost, submerged in +the sensations through which she had passed during the evening. She was +quite unlike herself, timid and fearful, a frightened girl alone in an +unhappy house. + +"Wait a bit!" she said. "Will you wait there?" + +"Yes," answered the man, startlingly enough. "I've got the car here." + +The car! What did it mean? She caught now, as her eyes were more used to +the darkness, the sheen of light upon a peaked cap such as would be worn +by a chauffeur. It filled her mind that this man was in uniform. But if +so, why? From whom should the letter come? He had said "Miss Jenny +Blanchard." + +"You _did_ say it was for me? I'll take it inside. ..." She left the +door unfastened, but the man pulled it right to, so that the catch +clicked. Then Jenny held the letter up under the flame of the passage +gas. She read there by this meagre light her own name, the address, +written in a large hand, very bold, with a sharp, sweeping stroke under +all, such as a man of impetuous strength might make. There was a blue +seal fastening the flap--a great pool of solid wax. Trembling so that +she was hardly able to tear the envelope, Jenny returned to the kitchen, +again scanning the address, the writing, the blue seal with its Minerva +head. Still, in her perplexity, it seemed as though her task was first +to guess the identity of the sender. Who could have written to her? It +was unheard of, a think for wondering jest, if only her lips had been +steady and her heart beating with normal pulsation. With a shrug, she +turned back from the seal to the address. She felt that some curious +mistake had been made, that the letter was not for her at all, but for +some other Jenny Blanchard, of whom she had never until now heard. Then, +casting such a fantastic thought aside with another impatient effort, +she tore the envelope, past the seal, in a ragged dash. Her first +glance was at the signature. "Yours always, KEITH." + +Keith! Jenny gave a sob and moved swiftly to the light. Her eyes were +quite blurred with shining mist. She could not read the words. Keith! +She could only murmur his name, holding the letter close against her. + + +ii + +"MY DEAR JENNY," said the letter. "Do you remember? I said I should +write to you when I got back. Well, here I am. I can't come to you +myself. I'm tied here by the leg, and mustn't leave for a moment. But +you said you'd come to me. Will you? Do! If you can come, you'll be a +most awful dear, and I shall be out of my wits with joy. Not really out +of my wits. _Do_ come, there's a dear good girl. It's my only chance, as +I'm off again in the morning. The man who brings this note will bring +you safely to me in the car, and will bring you quite safely home again. +_Do_ come! I'm longing to see you. I trust you to come. I will explain +everything when we meet. Yours always, KEITH." + +A long sigh broke from Jenny's lips as she finished reading. She +was transfigured. Gone was the defiant look, gone were the sharpnesses +that earlier had appeared upon her face. A soft colour flooded her +cheeks; her eyes shone. Come to him! She would go to the end of the +world.... Keith! She said it aloud, in a voice that was rich with her +deep feeling, magically transformed. + +"Come to you, my dear!" said Jenny. "As if you need ask!" + +Then she remembered that Emmy was out, that she was left at home to look +after her father, that to desert him would be a breach of trust. Quickly +her face paled, and her eyes became horror-laden. She was shaken by the +conflict of love and love, love that was pity and love that was the +overwhelming call of her nature. The letter fluttered from her fingers, +swooping like a wounded bird to the ground, and lay unheeded at her +feet. + + +iii + +"What _shall_ I do?" Nobody to turn to; no help from any hand. To stay +was to give up the chance of happiness. To go--oh, she couldn't go! If +Keith was tied, so was Jenny. Half demented, she left the letter where +it had fallen, a white square upon the shabby rug. In a frenzy she wrung +her hands. What could she do? It was a cry of despair that broke from +her heart. She couldn't go, and Keith was waiting. That it should have +happened upon this evening of all others! It was bitter! To send back a +message, even though it be written with all her love, which still she +must not express to Keith in case he should think her lightly won, would +be to lose him for ever. He would never stand it. She saw his quick +irritation, the imperious glance. ... He was a king among men. She must +go! Whatever the failure in trust, whatever the consequences, she must +go. She couldn't go! Whatever the loss to herself, her place was here. +Emmy would not have gone to the theatre if she had not known that Jenny +would stay loyally there. It was too hard! The months, the long months +during which Keith had not written, were upon her mind like a weariness. +She had had no word from him, and the little photograph that he had +laughingly offered had been her only consolation. Yes, well, why hadn't +he written? Quickly her love urged his excuse. She might accuse him of +having forgotten her, but to herself she explained and pardoned all. +That was not for this moment. Keith was not in fault. It was this +dreadful difficulty of occasion, binding her here when her heart was +with him. To sit moping here by the fire when Keith called to her! +Duty--the word was a mockery. "They" would say she ought to stay. Hidden +voices throbbed the same message into her consciousness. But every eager +impulse, winged with love, bade her go. To whom was her heart given? To +Pa? Pity ... pity. ... She pitied him, helpless at home. If anything +happened to him! Nothing would happen. What could happen? Supposing she +had gone to the chandler's shop: in those few minutes all might happen +that could happen in all the hours she was away. Yet Emmy often ran out, +leaving Pa alone. He was in bed, asleep; he would not awaken, and would +continue to lie there at rest until morning. Supposing she had gone to +bed--she would still be in the house; but in no position to look after +Pa. He might die any night while they slept. It was only the idea of +leaving him, the superstitious idea that just _because_ she was not +there something would happen. Suppose she didn't go; but sat in the +kitchen for two hours and then went to bed. Would she ever forgive +herself for letting slip the chance of happiness that had come direct +from the clouds'? Never! But if she went, and something _did_ happen, +would she ever in that event know self-content again in all the days of +her life? Roughly she shouldered away her conscience, those throbbing +urgencies that told her to stay. She was to give up everything for a +fear? She was to let Keith go for ever? Jenny wrung her hands, drawing +sobbing breaths in her distress. + +Something made her pick the letter swiftly up and read it through a +second time. So wild was the desire to go that she began to whimper, +kissing the letter again and again, holding it softly to her cold +cheek. Keith! What did it matter? What did anything matter but her love? +Was she never to know any happiness? Where, then, was her reward? A +heavenly crown of martyrdom? What was the good of that? Who was the +better for it? Passionately Jenny sobbed at such a mockery of her +overwhelming impulse. "They" hadn't such a problem to solve. "They" +didn't know what it was to have your whole nature craving for the thing +denied. "They" were cowards, enemies to freedom because they liked the +music of their manacles! They could not understand what it was to love +so that one adored the beloved. Not blood, but water ran in their veins! +They didn't know. ... They couldn't feel. Jenny knew, Jenny felt; Jenny +was racked with the sweet passion that blinds the eyes to consequences. +She _must_ go! Wickedness might be her nature: what then? It was a sweet +wickedness. It was her choice! + +Jenny's glance fell upon the trimmed hat which lay upon the table. +Nothing but a cry from her father could have prevented her from taking +it up and setting it upon her head. The act was her defiance. She was +determined. As one deaf and blind, she went out of the kitchen, and to +the hall-stand, fumbling there for her hatpins. She pinned her hat as +deliberately as she might have done in leaving the house any morning. +Her pale face was set. She had flung the gage. There remained only the +acts consequential. And of those, since they lay behind the veil of +night, who could now speak? Not Jenny! + + +iv + +There was still Pa. He was there like a secret, lying snug in his warm +bed, drowsily coaxing sleep while Jenny planned a desertion. Even when +she was in the room, her chin grimly set and her lips quivering, a +shudder seemed to still her heart. She was afraid. She could not forget +him. He lay there so quiet in the semi-darkness, a long mound under the +bedclothes; and she was almost terrified at speaking to him because her +imagination was heightened by the sight of his dim outline. He was so +helpless! Ah, if there had only been two Jennies, one to go, one to +stay. The force of uncontrollable desire grappled with her pity. She +still argued within herself, a weary echo of her earlier struggle. He +would need nothing, she was sure. It would be for such a short time that +she left him. He would hardly know she was not there. He would think she +was in the kitchen. But if he needed her? If he called, if he knocked +with his stick, and she did not come, he might be alarmed, or stubborn, +and might try to find his way through the passage to the kitchen. If he +fell! Her flesh crept as she imagined him helpless upon the floor, +feebly struggling to rise.... It was of no use. She was bound to tell +him.... + +Jenny moved swiftly from the room, and returned with his nightly glass +and jug of water. There could be nothing else that he would want during +the night. It was all he ever had, and he would sleep so until morning. +She approached the bed upon tiptoe. + +"Pa," she whispered. "Are you awake?" He stirred, and looked out from +the bedclothes, and she was fain to bend over him and kiss the tumbled +hair. "Pa, dear ... I want to go out. I've got to go out. Will you be +all right if I leave you? Sure? You'll be a good boy, and not move! I +shall be back before Emmy, and you won't be lonely, or frightened--will +you!" She exhorted him. "See, I've _got_ to go out; and if I can't leave +you.... You _are_ awake, Pa?" + +"Yes," breathed Pa, half asleep. "A good boy. Night, Jenny, my dearie +girl." + +She drew back from the bed, deeply breathing, and stole to the door. One +last glance she took, at the room and at the bed, closed the door and +stood irresolute for a moment in the passage. Then she whipped her coat +from the peg and put it on. She took her key and opened the front door. +Everything was black, except that upon the roofs opposite the rising +moon cast a glittering surface of light, and the chimney pots made +slanting broad markings upon the silvered slates. The road was quite +quiet but for the purring of a motor, and she could now, as her eyes +were clearer, observe the outline of a large car drawn to the left of +the door. As the lock clicked behind her and as she went forward the +side lights of the motor blazed across her vision, blinding her again. + +"Are you there?" she softly called. + +"Yes, miss." The man's deep voice came sharply out of the darkness, and +he jumped down from his seat to open the door of the car. The action +startled Jenny. Why had the man done that? + +"Did you know I was coming?" she suddenly asked, drawing back with a +sort of chill. + +"Yes, miss," said the man. Jenny caught her breath. She half turned +away, like a shy horse that fears the friendly hand. He had been sure of +her, then. Oh, that was a wretched thought! She was shaken to the heart +by such confidence. He had been sure of her! There was a flash of time +in which she determined not to go; but it passed with dreadful speed. +Too late, now, to draw back. Keith was waiting: he expected her! The +tears were in her eyes. She was more unhappy than she had been yet, and +her heart was like water. + +The man still held open the door of the car. The inside was warm and +inviting. His hand was upon her elbow; she was lost in the soft +cushions, and drowned in the sweet scent of the great nosegay of flowers +which hung before her in a shining holder. And the car was purring more +loudly, and moving, moving as a ship moves when it glides so gently from +the quay. Jenny covered her face with her hands, which cooled her +burning cheeks as if they had been ice. Slowly the car nosed out of the +road into the wider thoroughfare. Her adventure had begun in earnest. +There was no drawing back now. + + + + +CHAPTER VI: THE YACHT + + +i + +To lie deep among cushions, and gently to ride out along streets and +roads that she had so often tramped in every kind of weather, was enough +to intoxicate Jenny. She heard the soft humming of the engine, and saw +lamps and other vehicles flashing by, with a sense of effortless speed +that was to her incomparable. If only she had been mentally at ease, and +free from distraction, she would have enjoyed every instant of her +journey. Even as it was, she could not restrain her eagerness as they +overtook a tramcar, and the chauffeur honked his horn, and they glided +nearer and nearer, and passed, and seemed to leave the tram standing. +Each time this was in process of happening Jenny gave a small excited +chuckle, thinking of the speed, and the ease, and of how the people in +the tram must feel at being defeated in the race. Every such encounter +became a race, in which she pressed physically forward as if to urge her +steed to the final effort. Never had Jenny teen so eager for victory, so +elated when its certainty was confirmed. It was worth while to live for +such experience. How she envied her driver! With his steady hands upon +the steering wheel.... Ah, he was like a sailor, like the sailor of +romance, with the wind beating upon his face and his eyes ever-watchful. +And under his hand the car rode splendidly to Keith. + +Jenny closed her eyes. She could feel her heart beating fast, and the +blood heating her cheeks, reddening them. The blood hurt her, and her +mouth seemed to hurt, too, because she had smiled so much. She lay back, +thinking of Keith and of their meetings--so few, so long ago, so +indescribably happy and beautiful. She always remembered him as he had +been when first he had caught her eye, when he had stood so erect among +other men who lounged by the sea, smoking and lolling at ease. He was +different, as she was different. And she was going to him. How happy she +was! And why did her breath come quickly and her heart sink? She could +not bother to decide that question. She was too excited to do so. In all +her life she had never known a moment of such breathless anticipation, +of excitement which she believed was all happiness. + +There was one other thought that Jenny shirked, and that went on +nevertheless in spite of her inattention, plying and moulding somewhere +deep below her thrilling joy. The thought was, that she must not show +Keith that she loved him, because while she knew--she felt sure--that He +loved her, she must not be the smallest fraction of time before him in +confession. She was too proud for that. He would tell her that he loved +her; and the spell would be broken. Her shyness would be gone; her +bravado immediately unnecessary. But until then she must beware. It was +as necessary to Keith's pride as to her own that he should win her. The +Keith she loved would not care for a love too easily won. The +consciousness of this whole issue was at work below her thoughts; and +her thoughts, from joy and dread, to the discomfort of doubt, raced +faster than the car, speedless and headlong. Among them were two that +bitterly corroded. They were of Pa and of Keith's confidence that she +would come. Both were as poison in her mind. + + +ii + +And then there came a curious sense that something had happened. The car +stopped in darkness, and through the air there came in the huge tones of +Big Ben the sound of a striking hour. It was nine o'clock. They were +back at Westminster. Before her was the bridge, and above was the +lighted face of the clock, like some faded sun. And the strokes rolled +out in swelling waves that made the whole atmosphere feel soundladen. +The chauffeur had opened the door of the car, and was offering his free +hand to help Jenny to step down to the ground. + +"Are we _there?_" she asked in a bewildered way, as if she had been +dreaming. "How quick we've been!" + +"Yes, miss. Mr. Redington's down the steps. You see them steps. Mr. +Redington's down there in the dinghy. Mind how you go, miss. Hold tight +to the rail...." He closed the door of the car and pointed to the steps. + +The dinghy! Those stone steps to the black water! Jenny was shaken by a +shudder. The horror of the water which had come upon her earlier in the +evening returned more intensely. The strokes of the clock were the same, +the darkness, the feeling of the sinister water rolling there beneath +the bridge, resistlessly carrying its burdens to the sea. If Keith had +not been there she would have turned and run swiftly away, overcome by +her fear. She timidly reached the steps, and stopped, peering down +through the dimness. She put her foot forward so that it hung dubiously +beyond the edge of the pavement. + +"What a coward!" she thought, violently, with self-contempt. It drove +her forward. And at that moment she could see below, at the edge of the +lapping water, the outline of a small boat and of a man who sat in it +using the oars against the force of the current so as to keep the boat +always near the steps. She heard a dear familiar voice call out with a +perfect shout of welcome: + +"Jenny! Good girl! How are you! Come along; be careful how you come. +That's it.... Six more, and then stop!" Jenny obeyed him--she desired +nothing else, and her doubtings were driven away in a breath. She went +quickly down. The back water lapped and wattled against the stone and +the boat, and she saw Keith stand up, drawing the dinghy against the +steps and offering her his hand. He had previously been holding up a +small lantern that gilded the brown mud with a feeble colour and made +the water look like oil. "Now!" he cried quickly. "Step!" The boat +rocked, and Jenny crouched down upon the narrow seat, aflame with +rapture, but terrified of the water. It was so near, so inescapably +near. The sense of its smooth softness, its yieldingness, and the danger +lurking beneath the flowing surface was acute. She tried more +desperately to sit exactly in the middle of the boat, so that she should +not overbalance it. She closed her eyes, sitting very still, and heard +the water saying plup-plup-plup all round her, and she was afraid. It +meant soft death: she could not forget that. Jenny could not swim. She +was stricken between terror and joy that overwhelmed her. Then: + +"That's my boat," Keith said, pointing. "I say, you _are_ a sport to +come!" Jenny saw lights shining from the middle of the river, and could +imagine that a yacht lay there stubbornly resisting the current of the +flowing Thames. + + +iii + +Crouching still, she watched Keith bend to his oars, driving the boat's +nose beyond the shadowy yacht because he knew that he must allow for the +current. Her eyes devoured him, and her heart sang. Plup-plup-plup-plup +said the water. The oars plashed gently. Jenny saw the blackness gliding +beside her, thick and swift. They might go down, down, down in that +black nothingness, and nobody would know of it.... The oars ground +against the edge of the dinghy--wood against wood, grumbling and echoing +upon the water. Behind everything she heard the roaring of London, and +was aware of lights, moving and stationary, high above them. How low +upon the water they were! It seemed to be on a level with the boat's +edges. And how much alone they were, moving there in the darkness while +the life of the city went on so far above. If the boat sank! Jenny +shivered, for she knew that she would be drowned. She could imagine a +white face under the river's surface, lanterns flashing, and +then--nothing. It would be all another secret happening, a mystery, the +work of a tragic instant; and Jenny Blanchard would be forgotten for +ever, as if she had never been. It was a horrid sensation to her as she +sat there, so near death. + +And all the time that Jenny was mutely enduring these terrors they were +slowly nearing the yacht, which grew taller as they approached, and more +clearly outlined against the sky. The moon was beginning to catch all +the buildings and to lighten the heavens. Far above, and very pale, were +stars; but the sky was still murky, so that the river remained in +darkness. They came alongside the yacht. Keith shipped his oars, caught +hold of something which Jenny could not see; and the dinghy was borne +round, away from the yacht's side. He half rose, catching with both his +hands at an object projecting from the yacht, and hastily knotting a +rope. Jenny saw a short ladder hanging over the side, and a lantern +shining. + +"There you are!" Keith cried. "Up you go! It's quite steady. Hold the +brass rail...." + +After a second in which her knees were too weak to allow of her moving, +Jenny conquered her tremors, rose unsteadily in the boat, and cast +herself at the brass rail that Keith had indicated. To the hands that +had been so tightly clasped together, steeling her, the rail was +startlingly cold; but the touch of it nerved her, because it was firm. +She felt the dinghy yield as she stepped from it, and she seemed for one +instant to be hanging precariously in space above the terrifying +waters. Then she was at the top of the ladder, ready for Keith's +warning shout about the descent to the deck. She jumped down. She was +aboard the yacht; and as she glanced around Keith was upon the deck +beside her, catching her arm. Jenny's triumphant complacency was so +great that she gave a tiny nervous laugh. She had not spoken at all +until this moment: Keith had not heard her voice. + +"Well!" said Jenny. "_That's_ over!" And she gave an audible sigh of +relief. "Thank goodness!" + +"And here you are!" Keith cried. "Aboard the _Minerva_." + + +iv + +He led her to a door, and down three steps. And then it seemed to Jenny +as if Paradise burst upon her. She had never before seen such a room as +this cabin. It was a room such as she had dreamed about in those +ambitious imaginings of a wondrous future which had always been so +vaguely irritating to Emmy. It seemed, partly because the ceiling was +low, to be very spacious; the walls and ceiling were of a kind of dusky +amber hue; a golden brown was everywhere the prevailing tint. The tiny +curtains, the long settees into which one sank, the chairs, the shades +of the mellow lights--all were of some variety of this delicate golden +brown. In the middle of the cabin stood a square table; and on the +table, arrayed in an exquisitely white tablecloth, was laid a wondrous +meal. The table was laid for two: candles with amber shades made silver +shine and glasses glitter. Upon a fruit stand were peaches and +nectarines; upon a tray she saw decanters; little dishes crowding the +table bore mysterious things to eat such as Jenny had never before seen. +Upon a side table stood other dishes, a tray bearing coffee cups and +ingredients for the provision of coffee, curious silver boxes. +Everywhere she saw flowers similar to those which had been in the motor +car. Under her feet was a carpet so thick that she felt her shoes must +be hidden in its pile. And over all was this air of quiet expectancy +which suggested that everything awaited her coming. Jenny gave a deep +sigh, glanced quickly at Keith, who was watching her, and turned away, +her breath catching. The contrast was too great: it made her unhappy. +She looked down at her skirt, at her hands; she thought of her hat and +her hidden shoes. She thought of Emmy, the bread and butter pudding, of +Alf Rylett ... of Pa lying at home in bed, alone in the house. + + +v + +Keith drew her forward slightly, until she came within the soft radiance +of the cabin lights. + +"I say, it _is_ sporting of you to come!" he said. "Let's have a look at +you--do!" + +They stood facing one another. Keith saw Jenny, tall and pale, looking +thin in her shabby dress, but indescribably attractive and beautiful +even in her new shyness. And Jenny saw the man she loved: her eyes were +veiled, but they were unfathomably those of one deeply in love. She did +not know how to hide the emotions with which she was so painfully +struggling. Pride and joy in him; shyness and a sort of dread; hunger +and reserve--Keith might have read them all, so plainly were they +written. Yet her first words were wounded and defiant. + +"The man ... that man.... He _knew_ I was coming," she said, in a voice +of reproach. "You were pretty sure I should come, you know." + +Keith said quietly: + +"I _hoped_ you would." And then he lowered his eyes. She was disarmed, +and they both knew. + +Keith Redington was nearly six feet in height. He was thin, and even +bony; but he was very toughly and strongly built, and his face was as +clean and brown as that of any healthy man who travels far by sea. He +was less dark than Jenny, and his hair was almost auburn, so rich a +chestnut was it. His eyes were blue and heavily lashed; his hands were +long and brown, with small freckles between the knuckles. He stood with +incomparable ease, his hands and arms always ready, but in perfect +repose. His lips, for he was clean-shaven, were keen and firm. His +glance was fearless. As the phrase is, he looked every inch a sailor, +born to challenge the winds and the waters. To Jenny, who knew only +those men who show at once what they think or feel, his greater breeding +made Keith appear inscrutable, as if he had belonged to a superior race. +She could only smile at him, with parted lips, not at all the baffling +lady of the mirror, or the contemptuous younger sister, or the daring +franctireur of her little home at Kennington Park. Jenny Blanchard she +remained, but the simple, eager Jenny to whom these other Jennies were +but imperious moods. + +"Well, I've come," she said. "But you needn't have been so sure." + +Keith gave an irrepressible grin. He motioned her to the table, shaking +his head at her tone. + +"Come and have some grub," he said cheerfully. "I was about as sure as +you were. You needn't worry about that, old sport. There's so little +time. Come and sit down; there's a good girl. And presently I'll tell +you all about it." He looked so charming as he spoke that Jenny +obediently smiled in return, and the light came rushing into her eyes, +chasing away the shadows, so that she felt for that time immeasurably +happy and unsuspicious. She sat down at the laden table, smiling again +at the marvels which it carried. + +"My word, what a feast!" she said helplessly. "Talk about the Ritz!" + +Keith busied himself with the dishes. The softly glowing cabin threw +over Jenny its spell; the comfort, the faint slow rocking of the yacht, +the sense of enclosed solitude, lulled her. Every small detail of ease, +which might have made her nervous, merged with the others in a +marvellous contentment because she was with Keith, cut off from the +world, happy and at peace. If she sighed, it was because her heart was +full. But she had forgotten the rest of the evening, her shabbiness, +every care that troubled her normal days. She had cast these things off +for the time and was in a glow of pleasure. She smiled at Keith with a +sudden mischievousness. They both smiled, without guilt, and without +guile, like two children at a reconciliation. + + +vi + +"Soup?" said Keith, and laid before her a steaming plate. "All done by +kindness." + +"Have you been cooking?" Some impulse made Jenny motherly. It seemed a +strange reversal of the true order that he should cook for her. "It's +like _The White Cat_ to have it...." + +"It's a secret," Keith laughed. "Tell you later. Fire away!" He tasted +the soup, while Jenny looked at five little letter biscuits in her own +plate. She spelt them out E T K I H--KEITH. He watched her, enjoying the +spectacle of the naive mind in action as the light darted into her face. +"I've got JENNY," he said, embarrassed. She craned, and read the letters +with open eyes of marvel. They both beamed afresh at the primitive +fancy. + +"How did you do it?" Jenny asked inquisitively. "But it's nice." They +supped the soup. Followed, whitebait: thousands of little fish.... Jenny +hardly liked to crunch them. Keith whipped away the plates, and dived +back into the cabin with a huge pie that made her gasp. "My gracious!" +said Jenny. "I can never eat it!" + +"Not _all_ of it," Keith admitted. "Just a bit, eh?" He carved. + +"Oh, thank goodness it's not stew and bread and butter pudding!" cried +Jenny, as the first mouthful of the pie made her shut her eyes tightly. +"It's like heaven!" + +"If they have pies there." Jenny had not meant that: she had meant only +that her sensations were those of supreme contentment. "Give me the old +earth; and supper with Jenny!" + +"Really?" Jenny was all brimming with delight. + +"What will you have to drink? Claret? Burgundy?" Keith was again upon +his feet. He poured out a large glass of red wine and laid it before +her. Jenny saw with marvel the reflections of light on the wine and of +the wine upon the tablecloth. She took a timid sip, and the wine ran +tingling into her being. + +"High life," she murmured. "Don't make me tipsy!" They exchanged +overjoyed and intimate glances, laughing. + +There followed trifle. Trifle had always been Jenny's dream; and this +trifle was her dream come true. It melted in the mouth; its flavours +were those of innumerable spices. She was transported with happiness at +the mere thought of such trifle. As her palate vainly tried to unravel +the secrets of the dish, Keith, who was closely observant, saw that she +was lost in a kind of fanatical adoration of trifle. + +"You like it?" he asked. + +"I shall never forget it!" cried Jenny. "Never as long as I live. When +I'm an old ... great-aunt...." She had hesitated at her destiny. "I +shall bore all the kids with tales about it. I shall say 'That night on +the yacht ... when I first knew what trifle meant....' They won't half +get sick of it. But I shan't." + +"You'll like to think about it?" asked Keith. "Like to remember +to-night?" + +"Will _you_?" parried Jenny. "The night you had Jenny Blanchard to +supper?" Their eyes met, in a long and searching glance, in which +candour was not unmixed with a kind of measuring distrust. + + +vii + +Keith's face might have been carven for all the truth that Jenny got +from it then. There darted across her mind the chauffeur's certainty +that she was to be his passenger. She took another sip of wine. + +"Yes," she said again, very slowly. "You _were_ sure I was coming. You +got it all ready. Been a bit of a sell if I hadn't come. You'd have had +to set to and eat it yourself.... Or get somebody else to help you." + +She meant "another girl," but she did not know she meant that until the +words were spoken. Her own meaning stabbed her heart. That icy knowledge +that Keith was sure of her was bitterest of all. It made her happiness +defiant rather than secure. He was the only man for her. How did she +know there were not other women for Keith! How could she ever know that? +Rather, it sank into her consciousness that there must be other women. +His very ease showed her that. The equanimity of his laughing expression +brought her the unwelcome knowledge. + +"I should have looked pretty small if I'd made no preparations, +shouldn't I?" Keith inquired in a dry voice. "If you'd come here and +found the place cold and nothing to eat you'd have made a bit of a +shindy." + +A reserve had fallen between them. Jenny knew she had been unwise. It +pressed down upon her heart the feeling that he was somehow still a +stranger to her. And all the time they had been apart he had not seemed +a stranger, but one to whom her most fleeting and intimate thoughts +might freely have been given. That had been the wonderful thought to +her--that they had met so seldom and understood each other so well. She +had made a thousand speeches to him in her dreams. Together, in these +same dreams, they had seen and done innumerable things together, always +in perfect confidence, in perfect understanding. Yet now, when she saw +him afresh, all was different. Keith was different. He was browner, +thinner, less warm in manner; and more familiar, too, as though he were +sure of her. His clothes were different, and his carriage. He was not +the same man. It was still Keith, still the man Jenny loved; but as +though he were also somebody else whom she was meeting for the first +time. Her love, the love intensified by long broodings, was as strong; +but he was a stranger. All that intimacy which seemed to have been +established between them once and for ever was broken by the new contact +in unfamiliar surroundings. She was shy, uncertain, hesitating; and in +her shyness she had blundered. She had been unwise, and he was offended +when she could least afford to have him so offended. It took much +resolution upon Jenny's part to essay the recovery of lost ground. But +the tension was the worse for this mistake, and she suffered the more +because of her anxious emotions. + +"Oh, well," she said at last, as calmly as she could. "I daresay we +should have managed. I mightn't have come. But I've come, and you had +all these beautiful things ready; and...." Her courage to be severe +abruptly failed; and lamely she concluded: "And it's simply like +fairyland.... I'm ever so happy." + +Keith grinned again, showing perfect white teeth. For a moment he +looked, Jenny thought, quite eager. Or was that only her fancy because +she so desired to see it? She shook her head; and that drew Keith's eye. + +"More trifle?" he suggested, with an arch glance. Jenny noticed he wore +a gold ring upon the little finger of his right hand. It gleamed in the +faint glow of the cabin. So, also, did the fascinating golden hairs upon +the back of his hand. Gently the cabin rose and fell, rocking so slowly +that she could only occasionally be sure that the movement was true. She +shook her head in reply. + +"I've had one solid meal to-night," she explained. "Wish I hadn't! If +I'd known I was coming out I'd have starved myself all day. Then you'd +have been shocked at me!" + +Keith demurely answered, as if to reassure her: + +"Takes a lot to shock me. Have a peach?" + +"I must!" she breathed. "I can't let the chance slip. O-oh, what a +scent!" She reached the peach towards him. "Grand, isn't it!" Jenny +discovered for Keith's quizzical gaze an unexpected dimple in each pale +cheek. He might have been Adam, and she the original temptress. + +"Shall I peel it?" + +"Seems a shame to take it off!" Jenny watched his deft fingers as he +stripped the peach. The glowing skin of the fruit fell in lifeless +peelings upon his plate, dying as it were under her eyes, Keith had +poured wine for her in another, smaller, glass. She shook her head. + +"I shall be drunk!" she protested. "Then I should sing! Horrible, it +would be!" + +"Not with a little port ... I'm not pressing you to a lot. Am I?" He +brought coffee to the table, and she began to admire first of all the +pattern of the silver tray. Jenny had never seen such a tray before, +outside a shop, nor so delicately porcelain a coffee-service. It helped +to give her the sense of strange, unforgettable experience. + +"You didn't say if you'd remember this evening," she slowly reflected. +Keith looked sharply up from the coffee, which he was pouring, she saw, +from a thermos flask. + +"Didn't I?" he said. "Of course I shall remember it. I've done better. +I've looked forward to it. That's something you've not done. I've looked +forward to it for weeks. You don't think of that. We've been in the +Mediterranean, coasting about. I've been planning what I'd do when we +got back. Then Templecombe said he'd be coming right up to London; and I +planned to see you." + +"Templecombe?" Jenny queried. "Who's he?" + +"He's the lord who owns this yacht. Did you think it was my yacht?" + +"No.... I hoped it wasn't...." Jenny said slowly. + + +viii + +Keith's eyes were upon her; but she looked at her peach stone, her hand +still lightly holding the fruit knife, and her fingers half caught by +the beam of a candle which stood beside her. He persisted: + +"Well, Templecombe took his valet, who does the cooking; and my +hand--my sailorman--wanted to go and visit his wife ... and that left me +to see after the yacht. D'you see? I had the choice of keeping Tomkins +aboard, or staying aboard myself." + +"You might almost have given me longer notice," urged Jenny. "It seems +to me." + +"No. I'm under instructions. I'm not a free man," said Keith soberly. "I +was once; but I'm not now. I'm captain of a yacht. I do what I'm told." + +Jenny fingered her port-wine glass, and in looking at the light upon the +wine her eyes became fixed. + +"Will you ever do anything else?" she asked. Keith shrugged slightly. + +"You want to know a lot," he said. + +"I don't know very much, do I?" Jenny answered, in a little dead voice. +"Just somewhere about nothing at all. I have to pretend the rest." + +"D'you want to know it?" + +Jenny gave a quick look at his hands which lay upon the table. She could +not raise her eyes further. She was afraid to do so. Her heart seemed to +be beating in her throat. + +"It's funny me having to ask for it, isn't it!" she said, suddenly +haggard. + + + + +CHAPTER VII: MORTALS + + +i + +Keith did not answer. That was the one certainty she had; and her heart +sank. He did not answer. That meant that really she was nothing to him, +that he neither wanted nor trusted her. And yet she had thought a moment +before--only a moment before--that he was as moved as herself. They had +seemed to be upon the brink of confidences; and now he had drawn back. +Each instant deepened her sense of failure. When Jenny stealthily looked +sideways, Keith sat staring before him, his expression unchanged. She +had failed. + +"You don't trust me," she said, with her voice trembling. There was +another silence. Then: + +"Don't I?" Keith asked, indifferently. He reached his hand out and +patted hers, even holding it lightly for an instant. "I think I do. You +don't think so?" + +"No." She merely framed the word, sighing. + +"You're wrong, Jenny." Keith's voice changed. He deliberately looked +round the table at the little dishes that still lay there untouched. +"Have some of these sweets, will you.... No?" Jenny could only draw her +breath sharply, shaking her head. "Almonds, then?" She moved +impatiently, her face distorted with wretched exasperation. As if he +could see that, and as if fear of the outcome hampered his resolution, +Keith hurried on. "Well, look here: we'll clear the table together, if +you like. Take the things through the other cabin--_that_ one--to the +galley; root up the table by its old legs--I'll show you how its' +done;--and then we can have a talk. I'll ... I'll tell you as much as I +can about everything you want to know. That do?" + +"I can't stay long. I've left Pa in bed." She could not keep the note of +roughness from her pleading voice, although shame at being petulant was +struggling with her deeper feeling. + +"Well, he won't want to get up again yet, will he?" Keith answered +composedly. Oh, he had nerves of steel! thought Jenny. "I mean, this +_is_ his bedtime, I suppose?" There was no answer. Jenny looked at the +tablecloth, numbed by her sensations. "Do you have to look after him all +the time? That's a bit rough..." + +"No," was forced from Jenny. "No, I don't ... not generally. But +to-night--but that's a long story, too. With rows in it." Which made +Keith laugh. He laughed not quite naturally, forcing the last several +jerks of his laughter, so that she shuddered at the thought of his +possible contempt. It was as if everything she said was lost before +ever it reached his heart--as if the words were like weak blows against +an overwhelming strength. Discouragement followed and deepened after +every blow--every useless and baffled word. There was again silence, +while Jenny set her teeth, forcing back her bitterness and her chagrin, +trying to behave as usual, and to check the throbbing within her breast. +He was trying to charm her, teasingly to wheedle her back into kindness, +altogether misunderstanding her mood. He was guarded and considerate +when she wanted only passionate and abject abandonment of disguise. + +"We'll toss up who shall begin first," Keith said in a jocular way. +"How's that for an idea?" + +Jenny felt her lips tremble. Frantically she shook her head, compressing +the unruly lips. Only by keeping in the same position, by making herself +remain still, could she keep back the tears. Her thought went on, that +Keith was cruelly playing with her, mercilessly watching the effect of +his own coldness upon her too sensitive heart. Eh, but it was a lesson +to her! What brutes men could be, at this game! And that thought gave +her, presently, an unnatural composure. If he were cruel, she would +never show her wounds. She would sooner die. But her eyes, invisible to +him, were dark with reproach, and her face drawn with agony. + +"Well, we'd better do _something_," she said, in a sharp voice; and rose +to her feet. "Where is it the things go?" Keith also rose, and Jenny +felt suddenly sick and faint at the relaxation of her self-control. + + +ii + +"Hullo, hullo!" Keith cried, and was at once by her side. "Here; have a +drink of water." Jenny, steadying herself by the table, sipped a little +of the water. + +"Is it the wine that's made me stupid?" she asked. "I feel as if my +teeth were swollen, and my skin was too tight for my bones. Beastly!" + +"How horrid!" Keith said lightly, taking from her hand the glass of +water. "If it's the wine you won't feel the effects long. Go on deck if +you like. You'll feel all right in the air. I'll clear away." Jenny +would not leave him. She shook her head decidedly. "Wait a minute, then. +I'll come too!" + +They moved quickly about, leaving the fruit and little sweets and +almonds upon the sidetable, but carrying everything else through a +sleeping-cabin into the galley. It was this other cabin that still +further deepened Jenny's sense of pain--of inferiority. That was the +feeling now most painful. She had just realised it. She was a common +girl; and Keith--ah, Keith was secure enough, she thought. + +In that moment Jenny deliberately gave him up. She felt it was +impossible that he should love her. When she looked around it was with a +sorrowfulness as of farewell. These things were the things that Keith +knew and had known--that she would never again see but in the bitter +memories of this night. The night would pass, but her sadness would +remain. She would think of him here. She gave him up, quite humble in +her perception of the disparity between them. And yet her own love would +stay, and she must store her memory full of all that she would want to +know when she thought of his every moment. Jenny ceased to desire him. +She somehow--it may have been by mere exhausted cessation of +feeling--wished only to understand his life and then never to see him +again. It was a kind of numbness that seized her. Then she awoke once +again, stirred by the bright light and by the luxury of her +surroundings. + +"This where you sleep?" With passionate interest in everything that +concerned him, Jenny looked eagerly about the cabin. She now indicated a +broad bunk, with a beautifully white counterpane and such an eiderdown +quilt as she might optimistically have dreamed about. The tiny cabin was +so compact, and so marvellously furnished with beautiful things that it +seemed to Jenny a kind of suite in tabloid form. She did not understand +how she had done without all these luxurious necessities for +five-and-twenty years. + +"Sometimes," Keith answered, having followed her marvelling eye from +beauty to beauty. "When there's company I sleep forward with the +others." He had been hurrying by with a cruet and the bread dish when +her exclamation checked him. + +"Is this lord a friend of yours, then?" Jenny asked. + +"Sometimes," Keith dryly answered. "Understand?" Jenny frowned again at +his tone. + +"No," she said. Keith passed on. + +Jenny stood surveying the sleeping-cabin. A whole nest of drawers +attracted her eye, deep drawers that would hold innumerable things. Then +she saw a hand-basin with taps for hot and cold water. Impulsively she +tried the hot-water tap, and was both relieved and disappointed when it +gasped and offered her cold water. There were monogramed toilet +appointments beautiful to see; a leather-cased carriage clock, a shelf +full of books that looked fascinating; towels; tiny rugs; a light above +the hand-basin, and another to switch on above the bunk.... It was +wonderful! And there was a looking-glass before her in which she could +see her own reflection as clear as day--too clearly for her pleasure! + +The face she irresistibly saw in this genuine mirror looked pale and +tired, although upon each white cheek there was a hard scarlet flush. +Her eyes were liquid, the pupils dilated; her whole appearance was one +of suppressed excitement. She had chagrin, not only because she felt +that her appearance was unattractive, but because it seemed to her that +her face kept no secrets. Had she seen it as that of another, Jenny +would unerringly have read its painful message. + +"Eh, dear," she said aloud. "You give yourself away, old sport! Don't +you, now!" The mirrored head shook in disparaging admission of its own +shortcoming. Jenny bent nearer, meeting the eyes with a clear stare. +There were wretched lines about her mouth. For the first time in her +life she had a horrified fear of growing older. It was as though, when +she shut her eyes, she saw herself as an old woman. She felt a curious +stab at her heart. + +Keith, returning, found Jenny still before the mirror, engaged in this +unsparing scrutiny; and, laughing gently, he caught her elbow with his +fingers. In the mirror their glances met. At his touch Jenny thrilled, +and unconsciously leaned towards him. From the mirrored glance she +turned questioningly, to meet upon his face a beaming expression of +tranquil enjoyment that stimulated her to candid remark. Somehow it +restored some of her lost ease to be able to speak so. + +"I look funny, don't I?" She appealed to his judgment. Keith bent +nearer, as for more detailed examination, retaining hold upon her elbow. +His face was tantalisingly close to hers, and Jenny involuntarily turned +her head away, not coquettishly, but through embarrassment at a mingling +of desire and timidity. + +"Is that the word?" he asked. "You look all right, my dear." + +My dear! She knew that the words meant more to her than they did to him, +so carelessly were they uttered; but they sent a shock through her. How +Jenny wished that she might indeed be dear to Keith! He released her, +and she followed him, laden, backwards and forwards until the table was +cleared. Then he unscrewed the table legs, and the whole thing came +gently away in his hands. There appeared four small brass sockets +imbedded in the carpet's deep pile; and the centre of the room was +clear. By the same dexterous use of his acquaintance with the cabin's +mechanism, Keith unfastened one of the settees, and wheeled it forward +so that it stood under the light, and in great comfort for the time when +they should sit to hear his story. + +"Now!" he said. "We'll have a breather on deck to clear your old head." + + +iii + +By this time the moon was silvering the river, riding high above the +earth, serenely a thing of eternal mystery to her beholders. With the +passing of clouds and the deepening of the night, those stars not +eclipsed by the moon shone like swarmed throbbing points of silver. They +seemed more remote, as though the clearer air had driven them farther +off. Jenny, her own face and throat illumined, stared up at the moon, +marvelling; and then she turned, without speaking, to the black shadows +and the gliding, silent water. Upon every hand was the chequer of +contrast, beautiful to the eye, and haunting to the spirit. A soft wind +stirred her hair and made her bare her teeth in pleasure at the sweet +contact. + +Keith led her to the wide wooden seat which ran by the side of the deck, +and they sat together there. The noise of the city was dimmer; the lamps +were yellowed in the moon's whiter light; there were occasional +movements upon the face of the river. A long way away they heard a sharp +panting as a motor boat rushed through the water, sending out a great +surging wave that made all other craft rise and fall and sway as the +river's agitation subsided. The boat came nearer, a coloured light +showing; and presently it hastened past, a moving thing with a muffled +figure at its helm; and the _Minerva_ rocked gently almost until the +sound of the motor boat's tuff-tuff had been lost in the general noise +of London. Nearer at hand, above them, Jenny could hear the clanging of +tram-gongs and the clatter and slow boom of motor omnibuses; but these +sounds were mellowed by the evening, and although they were near enough +to be comforting they were too far away to interrupt this pleasant +solitude with Keith. The two of them sat in the shadow, and Jenny craned +to hear the chuckle of the water against the yacht's sides. It was a +beautiful moment in her life.... She gave a little moan, and swayed +against Keith, her delight succeeded by deadly languor. + + +iv + +So for a moment they sat, Keith's arm around her shoulders; and then +Jenny moved so as to free herself. She was restless and unhappy again, +her nerves on edge. The moon and the water, which had soothed her, were +now an irritation. Keith heard her breath come and go, quickly, heavily. + +"Sorry, Jenny," he said, in a tone of puzzled apology. She caught his +fallen hand, pressing it eagerly. + +"It's nothing. Only that minute. Like somebody walking on my grave." + +"You're cold. We'll go down to the cabin again." He was again cool and +unembarrassed. Together they stood upon the deck in the moonlight, while +the water flowed rapidly beneath them and the night's mystery emphasised +their remoteness from the rest of the world. They had no part, at this +moment, in the general life; but were solitary, living only to +themselves.... + +Keith's arm was about her as they descended; but he let it drop as they +stood once more in the golden-brown cabin. "Sit here!" He plumped a +cushion for her, and Jenny sank into an enveloping softness that rose +about her as water might have done, so that she might have been alarmed +if Keith had not been there looking down with such an expression of +concern. + +"I'm really all right," she told him, reassuringly. "Miserable for a +tick--that's all!" + +"Sure?" He seemed genuinely alarmed, scanning her face. She had again +turned sick and faint, so that her knees were without strength. Was he +sincere? If only she could have been sure of him. It meant everything in +the world to her. If only Keith would say he loved her: if only he would +kiss her! He had never done that. The few short days of their earlier +comradeship had been full of delight; he had taken her arm, he had even +had her in his arms during a wild bluster of wind; but always the +inevitable kiss had been delayed, had been averted; and only her eager +afterthoughts had made romance of their meagre acquaintance. Yet now, +when they were alone, together, when every nerve in her body seemed +tense with desire for him, he was somehow aloof--not constrained (for +then she would have been happy, at the profoundly affecting knowledge +that she had carried the day), but unsympathetically and unlovingly at +ease. She could not read his face: in his manner she read only a barren +kindness that took all and gave nothing. If he didn't love her she need +not have come. It would have been better to go on as she had been doing, +dreaming of him until--until what? Jenny sighed at the grey vision. Only +hunger had driven her to his side on this evening--the imperative hunger +of her nature upon which Keith had counted. He had been sure she would +come--that was unforgivable. He had welcomed her as he might have +welcomed a man; but as he might also have welcomed any man or woman who +would have relieved his loneliness upon the yacht. Not a loved friend. +Jenny, with her brain restored by the gentle breeze to its normal +quickness of action, seemed dartingly to seek in every direction for +reassurance! and she found in everything no single tone or touch to feed +her insatiable greed for tokens of his love. Oh, but she was miserable +indeed--disappointed in her dearest and most secret aspirations. He was +perhaps afraid that she wanted to attach herself to him? If that were +so, why couldn't he be honest, and tell her so? That was all she wanted +from him. She wanted only the truth. She felt she could bear anything +but this kindness, this charming detached thought for her. He was giving +her courtesy when all she needed was that his passion should approach +her own. And when she should have been strong, mistress of herself, she +was weak as water. Her strength was turned, her self-confidence mocked +by his bearing. She trembled with the recurring vehemence of her love, +that had been fed upon solitude, upon the dreariness in which she spent +her mere calendared days. Her eyes were sombrely glowing, dark with +pain; and Keith was leaning towards her as he might have leant towards +any girl who was half fainting. She could have cried, but that she was +too proud to cry. She was not Emmy, who cried. She was Jenny Blanchard, +who had come upon this fool's trip because a force stronger than her +pride had bidden her to forsake all but the impulse of her love. And +Keith, secure and confident, was coolly, as it were, disentangling +himself from the claim she had upon him by virtue of her love. It seemed +to Jenny that he was holding her at a distance. Nothing could have hurt +her more. It shamed her to think that Keith might suspect her honesty +and her unselfishness. When she had thought of nothing but her love and +the possibility of his own. + +She read now, in this moment of descent into misery, a dreadful blunder +made by her own overweening eagerness. She saw Keith, alone, thinking +that he would be at a loss to fill his time, suddenly remembering her, +thinking in a rather contemptuous way of their days together, and +supposing that she would do as well as another for an hour's talk to +keep him from a stagnant evening. If that were so, good-bye to her +dreams. If she were no more to him than that there was no hope left in +her life. For Keith might ply from port to port, seeing in her only one +girl for his amusement; but he had spoilt her for another man. No other +man could escape the withering comparison with Keith. To Jenny he was a +king among men, incomparable; and if he did not love her, then the proud +Jenny Blanchard, who unhesitatingly saw life and character with an +immovable reserve, was the merest trivial legend of Kennington Park. She +was like every other girl, secure in her complacent belief that she +could win love--until the years crept by, and no love came, and she must +eagerly seek to accept whatever travesty of love sidled within the +radius of her attractiveness. + +Suddenly Jenny looked at Keith. + +"Better now," she said harshly. "You'll have to buck up with your +tale--won't you! If you're going to get it out before I have to toddle +home again." + +"Oh," said Keith, in a confident tone. "You're here now. You'll stay +until I've quite finished." + +"What do you mean?" asked Jenny sharply. "Don't talk rubbish!" + +Keith held up a warning forefinger. He stretched his legs and drew from +his pocket a stout pipe. + +"I mean what I say." He looked sideways at her. "Don't be a fool, +Jenny." + +Her heart was chilled at the menace of his words no less than by the +hardness of his voice. + + +v + +"I don't know what you're talking about, Keith; but you'll take me back +to the steps when I say," she said. Keith filled his pipe. "I suppose +you think it's funny to talk like that." Jenny looked straight in front +of her, and her heart was fluttering. It was not her first tremor; but +she was deeply agitated. Keith, with a look that was almost a smile, +finished loading the pipe and struck a match. He then settled himself +comfortably at her side. + +"Don't be a juggins, Jenny," he remarked, in a dispassionate way that +made her feel helpless. + +"Sorry," she said quickly. "I've got the jumps. I've had awful rows +to-night ... before coming out." + +"Tell me about them," Keith urged. "Get 'em off your chest." She shook +her head. Oh no, she wanted something from him very different from such +kindly sympathy. + +"Only make it worse," she claimed. "Drives it in more. Besides, I don't +want to. I want to hear about you." + +"Oh, me!" he made a laughing noise. "There's nothing to tell." + +"You said you would." Jenny was alarmed at his perverseness; but they +were not estranged now. + +Keith was smiling rather bitterly at his own thoughts, it seemed. + +"I wonder why it is women want to know such a lot," he said, drowsily. + +"All of them?" she sharply countered. "I suppose you ought to know." + +"You look seedy still.... Are you really feeling better?" Jenny took no +notice. "Well, yes: I suppose all of them. They all want to take +possession of you. They're never satisfied with what they've got." + +"Perhaps they haven't got anything," Jenny said. And after a painful +pause: "Oh, well: I shall have to be going home." She wearily moved, in +absolute despair, perhaps even with the notion of rising, though her +mind was in turmoil. + +"Jenny!" He held her wrist, preventing any further movement. He was +looking at her with an urgent gaze. Then, violently, with a rapid +motion, he came nearer, and forced his arm behind Jenny's waist, drawing +her close against his breast, her face averted until their cheeks +touched, when the life seemed to go out of Jenny's body and she moved +her head quickly in resting it on his shoulder, Keith's face against her +hair, and their two hearts beating quickly. It was done in a second, and +they sat so, closely embraced, without speech. Still Jenny's hands were +free, as if they had been lifeless. Time seemed to stand still, and +every noise to stop, during that long moment. And in her heart Jenny was +saying over and over, utterly hopeless, "It's no good; it's no good; +it's no good...." Wretchedly she attempted to press herself free, her +elbow against Keith's breast. She could not get away; but each flying +instant deepened her sense of bitter failure. + +"It's no use," she said at last, in a dreadful murmur. "You don't want +me a bit. Far better let me go." + +Keith loosed his hold, and she sat away from him with a little sigh that +was almost a shudder. Her hands went as if by instinct to her hair, +smoothing it. Another instinct, perhaps, made her turn to him with the +ghost of a reassuring smile. + +"Silly, we've been," she said, huskily. "I've been thinking about you +all this time; and this is the end of it. Well, I was a fool to +come...." She sat up straight, away from the back of the settee; but she +did not look at Keith. She was looking at nothing. Only in her mind was +going on the tumult of merciless self-judgment. Suddenly her composure +gave way and she was again in his arms, not crying, but straining him to +her. And Keith was kissing her, blessed kisses upon her soft lips, as if +he truly loved her as she had all this time hoped. She clung to him in a +stupor. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII: PENALTIES + + +i + +"Poor old Jenny," Keith was saying, stroking her arm and holding his +cheek against hers. + +"You don't want me ..." groaned Jenny. + +"Yes." + +"I can tell you don't. You don't mean it. D'you think I can't tell!" + +Keith raised a finger and lightly touched her hair. He rubbed her cheek +with his own, so that she could feel the soft bristles of his shaven +beard. And he held her more closely within the circle of his arm. + +"Because I'm clumsy?" he breathed. "You know too much, Jenny." + +"No: I can tell.... It's all the difference in the world." + +"Well, then; how many others have kissed you?... Eh?" + +"Keith!" Jenny struggled a little. "Let me go now." + +"How many?" Keith kissed her cheek. "Tell the whole dreadful truth." + +"If I asked you how many girls ... what would you say then?" Jenny's +sombre eyes were steadily watching him, prying into the secrets of his +own. He gave a flashing smile, that lighted up his brown face. + +"We're both jealous," he told her. "Isn't that what's the matter?" + +"You don't trust me. You don't want me. You're only teasing." With a +vehement effort she recovered some of her self-control. Pride was again +active, the dominant emotion. "So am I only teasing," she concluded. +"You're too jolly pleased with yourself." + +"How did you know I was clumsy?" Keith asked. "I shall bite your old +face. I shall nibble it ... as if I was a horse ... and you were a bit +of sugar. Fancy Jenny going home with half a face!" He laughed excitedly +at his forced pleasantry, and the sound of his laugh was music to +Jenny's ears. He was excited. He was moved. Quickly the melancholy +pressed back upon her after this momentary surcease. He was excited +because she was in his arms--not because he loved her. + +"Why did you send for me?" she suddenly said. "In your letter you said +you'd explain everything. Then you said you'd tell me about yourself. +You've done nothing but tease all the time.... Are you afraid, or what? +Keith, dear: you don't know what it means to me. If you don't want +me--let me go. I oughtn't to have come. I was silly to come; but I had +to. But if you only wanted somebody to tease ... one of the others would +have done quite as well." + +Again the smile spread across Keith's face, brightening his eyes and +making his teeth glisten. + +"I said you were jealous," he murmured in her ear. "One of the others, +indeed! Jenny, there's no other--nobody like you, my sweet. There +couldn't be. Do you think there could be?" + +"Nobody such a fool," Jenny said, miserably. + +"Who's a fool? You?" He seemed to think for a moment; and then went on: +"Well, I've told you I planned the supper.... That was true." + +"Let me go. I'm getting cramped." Jenny drew away; but he followed, +holding her less vigorously, but in no way releasing her. "No: really +let me go." Keith shook his head. + +"I shan't let you go," he said. "Make yourself comfortable." + +"I only make myself miserable." Jenny felt her hair, which was loosened. +Her cheeks were hot. + +"Are you sorry you came?" + +"Yes." Keith pressed closer to her, stifling her breath. She saw his +brown cheeks for an instant before she was again enveloped in his strong +embrace; and then she heard a single word breathed in her ear. + +"Liar!" said Keith. In a moment he added: "Sorry be pole-axed." + + +ii + +It was the second time in that evening that Jenny had been accused of +lying; and when the charge had been brought by Alf she had flamed with +anger. Now, however, she felt no anger. She felt through her unhappiness +a dim motion of exulting joy. Half suffocated, she was yet thrilled with +delight in Keith's strength, with belief in his love because it was +ardently shown. Strength was her god. She worshipped strength as nearly +all women worship it. And to Jenny strength, determination, manhood, +were Keith's attributes. She loved him for being strong; she found in +her own weakness the triumph of powerlessness, of humiliation. + +"You're suffocating me," she warned him, panting. + +"D'you love me a little?" + +"Yes. A little." + +"A lot! Say you love me a lot! And you're glad you came ..." + +Jenny held his face to hers, and kissed him passionately. + +"Dear!" she fiercely whispered. + +Keith slowly released her, and they both laughed breathlessly, with +brimming, glowing eyes. He took her hand, still smiling and watching her +face. + +"Old silly," Keith murmured. "Aren't you an old silly! Eh?" + +"So you say. You ought to know.... I suppose I am ..." + +"But a nice old silly.... And a good old girl to come to-night." + +"But then you _knew_ I should come," urged Jenny, drily, frowningly +regarding him. + +"You can't forgive that, can you! You think I ought to have come +grovelling to you. It's not proper to ask you to come to me ... to +believe you might come ... to have everything ready in _case_ you might +come. Prude, Jenny! That's what you are." + +"A prude wouldn't have come." + +"That's all you know," said Keith, teasingly. "She'd have come--out of +curiosity; but she'd have made a fuss. That's what prudes are. That's +what they do." + +"Well, I expect you know," Jenny admitted, sarcastically. The words +wounded her more than they wounded him. Where Keith laughed, Jenny +quivered. "You don't know what it means to me--" she began again, and +checked her too unguarded tongue. + +"To come?" He bent towards her. "Of course, it's marvellous to me! Was +that what you meant?" + +"No. To think ... other girls ..." She could not speak distinctly. + +"Other girls?" Keith appeared astonished. "Do you really believe ..." He +too paused. "No other girls come on this yacht to see me. I've known +other girls. I've made love to other girls--what man hasn't? You don't +get to my age without ..." + +"Without what?" Jenny asked coolly. + +"I'm not pretending anything to you. I'm thirty and a bit over. A man +doesn't get to my age...No man does, without having been made a fool +of." + +"Oh, I don't mind that," Jenny said sharply. "It's the girls you've +fooled." + +"Don't you believe it, Jenny. They've always been wiser than me. Say +they've known a bit more. You're different ..." Jenny shook her head, +sighing. + +"I bet they've all been that," she slowly said. "Till the next one." The +old unhappiness had returned, gripping her heart. She no longer looked +at him, but stared away, straight in front of her. + +"Well, what if they had all been different?" Keith persisted. "Supposing +I were to tell you about them, each one.... There's no time for it, +Jenny. You'll have to take my word for it. You'll do that if you want +to. If you want to believe in me. Do you?" + +"Of course I do!" Jenny blazed. "I can't! Be different if I was at home. +But I'm here, and you knew I'd come. D'you see what I mean?" + +"You're not in a trap, old girl," said Keith. "You can go home this +minute if you think you are." His colour also rose. "You make too much +fuss. You want me to tell you good fat lies to save your face. Don't be +a juggins, Jenny! Show your spirit! Jenny!" + +Keith still held her hand. He drew it towards him, and Jenny was made to +lean by his sudden movement. He slipped his arm again round her. Jenny +did not yield herself. He was conscious of rebuff, although she did not +struggle. + +"You want me to trust you blindfold," she said in a dreary voice. "It's +not good enough, Keith. Really it isn't! When you don't trust me. You +sent for me, and I came. As soon as I was here you ... you were as +beastly as you could be ..." Her voice trembled. + +"Not really beastly ..." Keith urged, and his coaxing tone and concerned +expression shook her. "Nice beastly, eh?" + +"You weren't nice. You weren't ..." Jenny hesitated. "You didn't ... you +weren't nice." + +"I didn't want to frighten you." + +Jenny drew herself up, frantically angry. + +"_Now_ who's lying!" she savagely cried, and put her hands to disengage +herself. "Oh Keith, I'm so sick of it!" He held her more tightly. All +her efforts were unavailing against that slowly increased pressure from +his strong arms. + +"Listen, Jenny," Keith said. "I love you. That's that. I wanted to see +you more than anything on earth. I wanted to kiss you. Good God, +Jen.... D'you think you're the easiest person in the world to manage?" + + +iii + +The bewilderment that succeeded clove the silence. Jenny gasped against +her will. + +"What do you mean?" she demanded. + +"You think I'm looking on you as cheap ... when I'm in an absolute funk +of you!" Keith cried. + +"O-oh!" Her exclamation was incredulity itself. Keith persisted warmly: + +"I'm not lying. It's all true. And you're a termagant, Jenny. That's +what you are. You want it all your own way! Anything that goes wrong is +my fault--not yours! You don't think there's anything that's your fault. +It's all mine. But, my good girl, that's ridiculous. What d'you think I +know about _you?_ Eh? Nothing whatever! Absolutely nothing! You think +you're as clear as day! You're not. You're a dark horse. I'm afraid of +you--afraid of your temper ... your pride. You won't see that. You think +it's my fault that ..." Keith's excitement almost convinced Jenny. + +"Shouting won't do any good," she said, deeply curious and overwhelmed +by her bewilderment. + +"Pull yourself together, Jenny!" he urged. "Look at it from my side if +you can. Try! Imagine I've got a side, that is. And now I'll tell you +something about myself ... no lies; and you'll have to make the best of +the truth. The Truth!" Laughing, he kissed her; and Jenny, puzzled but +intrigued, withheld her indignation in order to listen to the promised +account. Keith began. "Well, Jenny: I told you I was thirty. I'm +thirty-one in a couple of months. I'll tell you the date, and you can +work me a sampler. And I was born in a place you've never set eyes +on--and I hope you never will set eyes on it. I was born in Glasgow. And +there's a smelly old river there, called the Clyde, where they launch +big ships ... a bit bigger than the _Minerva_. The _Minerva_ was built +in Holland. Well, my old father was a tough old chap--not a Scotchman, +though my mother was Scotch--with a big business in Glasgow. He was as +rich as--well, richer than anybody you ever met. Work that out! And he +was as tough as a Glasgow business man. They're a special kind. And I +was his little boy. He had no other little boys. You interested?" + +Jenny nodded sharply, her breast against his, so that she felt every +breath he drew. + +"Yes: well, my father was so keen that I should grow up into a Glasgow +business man that he nearly killed me. He hated me. Simply because when +I did anything it was always something away from the pattern--the plan. +D'you see? And he'd nearly beat my head in each time.... Yes, wasn't +it!... Well, when I was ten he and I had got into such a way that we +were sworn enemies. He'd got a strong will; but so had I, even though I +was such a kid. And I wouldn't--I couldn't--do what he told me to. And +when I was thirteen, I ran away. I'd always loved the river, and boats, +and so on; and I ran away from my old father. And he nearly went off his +head...and he brought me back. Didn't take him long to find me! That was +when I began to hate _him_. I'd only been afraid of him before; but I +was growing up. Well, he put me to a school where they watched me all +the time. I sulked, I worked, I did every blessed thing; and I grew +older still, and more afraid of my father, and somehow less afraid of +him, too. I got a sort of horror of him. I hated him. And when he said +I'd got to go into the business I just told him I'd see him damned +first. That was when he first saw that you can't make any man a +slave--not even your own son--as long as he's got enough to eat. He +couldn't starve me. It's starved men who are made slaves, Jenny. They've +got no guts. Well, he threw me over. He thought I should starve myself +and then go back to him, fawning. I didn't go. I was eighteen, and I +went on a ship. I had two years of it; and my father died. I got +nothing. All went to a cousin. I was nobody; but I was free. Freedom's +the only thing that's worth while in this life. And I was twenty or so. +It was then that I picked up a girl in London and tried to keep her--not +honest, but straight to me. I looked after her for a year, working down +by the river. But it was no good. She went off with other men because I +got tired of her. I threw her over when I found that out. I mean, I told +her she could stick to me or let me go. She wanted both. I went to sea +again. It was then I met Templecombe. I met him in South America, and we +got very pally. Then I came back to England. I got engaged to a +girl--got married to her when I was twenty-three ..." + +"Married!" cried Jenny, pulling herself away. She had flushed deeply. +Her heart was like lead. + +"I'm not lying. You're hearing it all. And she's dead." + +"What was her name?" + +"Adela.... She was little and fair; and she was a little sport. But I +only married her because I was curious. I didn't care for her. In a +couple of months I knew I'd made a mistake. She told me herself. She +knew much more than I did. She was older than I was; and she knew a lot +for her age--about men. She'd been engaged to one and another since she +was fifteen; and in ten years you get to know a good deal. I think she +knew everything about men--and I was a boy. She died two years ago. +Well, after I'd been with her for a year I broke away. She only wanted +me to fetch and carry.... She 'took possession' of me, as they say. I +went into partnership with a man who let me in badly; and Adela went +back to her work and I went back to sea. And a year later I went to +prison because a woman I was living with was a jealous cat and got the +blame thrown on to me for something I knew nothing about. D'you see? +Prison. Never mind the details. When I came out of prison I was going +downhill as fast as a barrel; and then I saw an advertisement of +Templecombe's for a skipper. I saw him, and told him all about myself; +and he agreed to overlook my little time in prison if I signed on with +him to look after this yacht. Now you see I haven't got a very good +record. I've been in prison; and I've lived with three women; and I've +got no prospects except that I'm a good sailor and know my job. But I +never did what I was sent to prison for; and, as I told you, the three +women all knew more than I did. I've never done a girl any harm +intentionally; and the last of them belongs to six years ago. Since then +I've met other girls, and some of them have run after me because I was a +sailorman. They do, you know. You're the girl I love; and I want you to +remember that I was a kid when I got married. That's the tale, Jenny; +and every word of it's true. And now what d'you think of it? Are you +afraid of me now? Don't you think I'm a bit of a fool? Or d'you think +I'm the sort of fellow that fools the girls?" + +There was no reply to his question for a long time; until Keith urged +her afresh. + +"What I'm wondering," said Jenny, in a slow and rather puzzled way, "is, +what you'd think of me if I'd lived with three different men. Because +I'm twenty-five, you know." + + +iv + +It might have checked Keith in mid-career. His tone had certainly not +been one of apology. But along with a natural complacency he had the +honesty that sometimes accompanies success in affairs. + +"Well," he said frankly, "I shouldn't like it, Jen." + +"How d'you think I like it?" + +"D'you love me? Jenny, dear!" + +"I don't know. I don't see why you should be different." + +"Nor do I. I am, though. I wish I wasn't. Can you see that? Have you +ever wished you weren't yourself! Of course you have. So have I. Have +you had men running after you all the time? Have you been free night and +day, with time on your hands, and temptations going. You haven't. You +don't know what it is. You've been at home. And what's more, you've been +tied up because...because people think girls are safer if they're tied +up." + +"_Men_ do!" flashed Jenny. "They like to have it all to themselves." + +"Well, if you'd ever been on your own for days together, and thinking as +much about women as all young men do ..." + +"I wonder if I should boast of it," Jenny said drily. "To a girl I was +pretending to love." + +Keith let his arm drop from her waist. He withdrew it, and sighed. Then +he moved forward upon the settee, half rising, with his hands upon his +knees. + +"Ah well, Jenny: perhaps I'd better be taking you ashore," he said in a +constrained, exasperated tone. + +"You don't care if you break my heart," Jenny whispered. "It's all one +to you." + +"That's simply not true.... But it's no good discussing it." He had lost +his temper, and was full of impatience. He sat frowning, disliking her, +with resentment and momentary aversion plainly to be seen in his +bearing. + +"Just because I don't agree that it's mighty kind of you +to ... condescend!" Jenny was choking. "You thought I should jump +for joy because other women had had you. I don't know what sort of +girl you thought I was." + +"Well, I thought ... I thought you were fond of me," Keith slowly said, +making an effort to speak coldly. "That was what I thought." + +"Thought I'd stand anything!" she corrected. "And fall on your neck into +the bargain." + +"Jenny, old girl.... That's not true. But I thought you'd understand +better than you've done. I thought you'd understand _why_ I told you. +You think I thought I was so sure of you.... I wish you'd try to see a +bit further." He leaned back again, not touching her, but dejectedly +frowning; his face pale beneath the tan. His anger had passed in a +deeper feeling. "I told you because you wanted to know about me. If I'd +been the sort of chap you're thinking I should have told a long George +Washington yarn, pretending to be an innocent hero. Well, I didn't. I'm +not an innocent hero. I'm a man who's knocked about for fifteen years. +You've got the truth. Women don't like the truth. They want a yarn. A +yappy, long, sugar-coated yarn, and lots of protestations. This is all +because I haven't asked you to forgive me--because I haven't sworn not +to do it again if only you'll forgive me. You want to see yourself +forgiving me. On a pinnacle.... Graciously forgiving me--" + +"Oh, you're a beast!" cried Jenny. "Let me go home." She rose to her +feet, and stood in deep thought. For a moment Keith remained seated: +then he too rose. They did not look at one another, but with bent heads +continued to reconsider all that had been said. + + +v + +"I've all the time been trying to show you I'm not a beast," Keith urged +at last. "But a human being. It takes a woman to be something above a +human being." He was sneering, and the sneer chilled her. + +"If you'd been thinking of somebody for months," she began in a +trembling tone. "Thinking about them all the time, living on it day +after day ... just thinking about them and loving them with all your +heart.... You don't know the way a woman does it. There's nothing else +for them to think about. I've been thinking every minute of the +day--about how you looked, and what you said; and telling myself--though +I didn't believe it--that you were thinking about me just the same. And +I've been planning how you'd look when I saw you again, and what we'd +say and do.... You don't know what it's meant to me. You've never +dreamed of it. And now to come to-night--when I ought to be at home +looking after my dad. And to hear you talk about ... about a lot of +other girls as if I was to take them for granted. Why, how do I know +there haven't been lots of others since you saw me?" + +"Because I tell you it's not so," he interposed. "Because I've been +thinking of you all the time." + +"How many days at the seaside was it? Three?" + +"It was enough for me. It was enough for you." + +"And now one evening's enough for both of us," Jenny cried sharply. "Too +much!" + +"You'll cry your eyes out to-morrow," he warned. + +"Oh, to-night!" she assured him recklessly. + +"Because you don't love me. You throw all the blame on me; but it's your +own pride that's the real trouble, Jenny. You want to come round +gradually; and time's too short for it. Remember, I'm away again +to-morrow. Did you forget that?" + +Jenny shivered. She had forgotten everything but her grievance. + +"How long will you be away?" she asked. + +"Three months at least. Does it matter?" She reproached his bitterness +by a glance. "Jenny, dear," he went on; "when time's so short, is it +worth while to quarrel? You see what it is: if you don't try and love me +you'll go home unhappy, and we shall both be unhappy. I told you I'm not +a free man. I'm not. I want to be free. I want to be free all the time; +and I'm tied ..." + +"You're still talking about yourself," said Jenny, scornfully, on the +verge of tears. + + +vi + +Well, they had both made their unwilling attempts at reconciliation; and +they were still further estranged. They were not loving one another; +they were just quarrelsome and unhappy at being able to find no safe +road of compromise. Jenny had received a bitter shock; Keith, with the +sense that she was judging him harshly, was sullen with his deeply +wounded heart. They both felt bruised and wretched, and deeply ashamed +and offended. And then they looked at each other, and Jenny gave a +smothered sob. It was all that was needed; for Keith was beside her in +an instant, holding her unyielding body, but murmuring gentle coaxing +words into her ear. In an instant more Jenny was crying in real earnest, +buried against him; and her tears were tears of relief as much as of +pain. + + + + +CHAPTER IX: WHAT FOLLOWED + + +i + +The _Minerva_ slowly and gently rocked with the motion of the current. +The stars grew brighter. The sounds diminished. Upon the face of the +river lights continued to twinkle, catching and mottling the wavelets. +The cold air played with the water, and flickered upon the _Minerva's_ +deck; strong enough only to appear mischievous, too soft and wayward to +make its presence known to those within. And in the _Minerva's_ cabin, +set as it were in that softly rayed room of old gold and golden brown, +Jenny was clinging to Keith, snatching once again at precarious +happiness. Far off, in her aspirations, love was desired as synonymous +with peace and contentment; but in her heart Jenny had no such pretence. +She knew that it was otherwise. She knew that passive domestic enjoyment +would not bring her nature peace, and that such was not the love she +needed. Keith alone could give her true love. And she was in Keith's +arms, puzzled and lethargic with something that was only not despair +because she could not fathom her own feelings. + +"Keith," she said, presently. "I'm sorry to be a fool." + +"You're _not_ a fool, old dear," he assured her. "But I'm a beast." + +"Yes, I think you are," Jenny acknowledged. There was a long pause. She +tried to wipe her eyes, and at last permitted Keith to do that for her, +flinching at contact with the handkerchief, but aware all the time of +some secret joy. When she could speak more calmly, she went on: "Suppose +we don't talk any more about being...what we are...and forgiving, and +all that. We don't mean it. We only say it..." + +"Well, I mean it--about being a beast," Keith said humbly. "That's +because I made you cry." + +"Well," said Jenny, agreeingly, "you can be a beast--I mean, think you +are one. And if I'm miserable I shall think I've been a fool. But we'll +cut out about forgiving. Because I shall never really forgive you. I +couldn't. It'll always be there, till I'm an old woman--" + +"Only till you're happy, dear," Keith told her. "That's all that means." + +"I can't think like that. I feel it's in my bones. But you're going +away. Where are you going? D'you know? Is it far?" + +"We're going back to the South. Otherwise it's too cold for yachting. +And Templecombe wants to keep out of England at the moment. He's safe on +the yacht. He can't be got at. There's some wretched predatory woman of +title pursuing him...." + +"Here ... here!" cried Jenny. "I can't understand if you talk +pidgin-English, Keith." + +"Well ... you know what ravenous means? Hungry. And a woman of +title--you know what a lord is.... Well, and she's chasing about, +dropping little scented notes at every street corner for him." + +"Oh they are _awful_!" cried Jenny. "Countesses! Always in the divorce +court, or something. Somebody ought to stop them. They don't have +countesses in America, do they? Why don't we have a republic, and get +rid of them all? If they'd got the floor to scrub they wouldn't have +time to do anything wrong." + +"True," said Keith. "True. D'you like scrubbing floors?" + +"No. But I do it. And keep my hands nice, too." The hands were inspected +and approved. + +"But then you're more free than most people," Keith presently remarked, +in a tone of envy. + +"Free!" exclaimed Jenny. "Me! In the millinery! When I've got to be +there every morning at nine sharp or get the sack, and often, busy +times, stick at it till eight or later, for a few bob a week. And never +have any time to myself except when I'm tired out! Who gets the fun? +Why, it's _all_ work, for people like me; all work for somebody else. +What d'you call being free? Aren't they free?" + +"Not one. They're all tied up. Templecombe's hawk couldn't come on this +yacht without a troop of friends. They can't go anywhere they like +unless it's 'the thing' to be done. They do everything because it's the +right thing--because if they do something else people will think it's +odd--think they're odd. And they can't stand that!" + +"Well, but Keith! Who is it that's free?" + +"Nobody," he said. + +"I thought perhaps it was only poor people ... just _because_ they were +poor." + +"Well, Jenny.... That's so. But when people needn't do what they're told +they invent a system that turns them into slaves. They have a religion, +or they run like the Gadarine swine into a fine old lather and pretend +that everybody's got to do the same for some reason or other. They call +it the herd instinct, and all sorts of names. But there's nobody who's +really free. Most of them don't want to be. If they were free they +wouldn't know what to do. If their chains were off they'd fall down and +die. They wouldn't be happy if there wasn't a system grinding them as +much like each other as it can." + +"But why not? What's the good of being alive at all if you've got to do +everything whether you want to do it or not? It's not sense!" + +"It's fact, though. From the king to the miner--all a part of a big +complicated machine that's grinding us slowly to bits, making us all +more and more wretched." + +"But who makes it like that, Keith?" cried Jenny. "Who says it's to be +so?" + +Keith laughed grimly. + +"Don't let's talk about it," he urged. "No good talking about it. The +only thing to do is to fight it--get out of the machine ..." + +"But there's nowhere to go, is there?" asked Jenny. "I was thinking +about it this evening. 'They've' got every bit of the earth. Wherever +you go 'they're' there ... with laws and police and things all ready for +you. You've _got_ to give in." + +"I'm not going to," said Keith. "I'll tell you that, Jenny." + +"But Keith! Who is it that makes it so? There _must_ be somebody to +start it. Is it God?" + +Keith laughed again, still more drily and grimly. + + +ii + +Jenny was not yet satisfied. She still continued to revolve the matter +in her mind. + +"You said nobody was free, Keith. But then you said you were free--when +you got married." + +_"Till_ I got married. Then I wasn't. I fell into the machine and got +badly chawed then." + +"Don't you want to get married?" Jenny asked. "Ever again?" + +"Not that way." Keith's jaw was set. "I've been there; and to me that's +what hell is." + +How Jenny wished she could understand! She did not want to get married +herself--that way. But she wanted to serve. She wanted Keith to be her +husband; she wanted to make him happy, and to make his home comfortable. +She felt that to work for the man she loved was the way to be truly +happy. Did he not think that he could be happy in working for her? She +_couldn't_ understand. It was all so hard that she sometimes felt that +her brain was clamped with iron bolts and chains. + +"What way d'you want to get married?" Jenny asked. + +"I want to marry _you_. Any old way. And I want to take you to the other +end of the world--where there aren't any laws and neighbours and rates +and duties and politicians and imitations of life.... And I want to set +you down on virgin soil and make a real life for you. In Labrador or +Alaska ..." He glowed with enthusiasm. Jenny glowed too, infected by his +enthusiasm. + +"Sounds fine!" she said. Keith exclaimed eagerly. He was alive with joy +at her welcome. + +"Would you come?" he cried. "Really?" + +"To the end of the world?" Jenny said. "Rather!" + +They kissed passionately, carried away by their excitement, brimming +with joy at their agreement in feeling and desire. The cabin seemed to +expand into the virgin forest and the open plain. A new vision of life +was opened to Jenny. Exultingly she pictured the future, bright, active, +occupied--away from all the old cramping things. It was the life she had +dreamed, away from men, away from stuffy rooms and endless millinery, +away from regular hours and tedious meals, away from all that now made +up her daily dullness. It was splendid! Her quick mind was at work, +seeing, arranging, imagining as warm as life the changed days that would +come in such a terrestrial Paradise. And then Keith, watching with +triumph the mounting joy in her expression, saw the joy subside, the +brilliance fade, the eagerness give place to doubt and then to dismay. + +"What is it?" he begged. "Jenny, dear!" + +"It's Pa!" Jenny said. "I couldn't leave him ... not for anything!" + +"Is that all? We'll take him with us!" cried Keith. Jenny sorrowfully +shook her head. + +"No. He's paralysed," she explained, and sighed deeply at the faded +vision. + + +iii + +"Well, I'm not going to give up the idea for that," Keith resumed, after +a moment. Jenny shook her head, and a wry smile stole into her face, +making it appear thinner than before. + +"I didn't expect you would," she said quietly. "It's me that has to give +it up." + +"Jenny!" He was astonished by her tone. "D'you think I meant that? +Never! We'll manage something. Something can be done. When I come +back ..." + +"Ah, you're going away!" Jenny cried in agony. "I shan't see you. I +shall have every day to think of ... day after day. And you won't write. +And I shan't see you...." She held him to her, her breast against his, +desperate with the dread of being separated from him. "It's easy for +you, at sea, with the wind and the sun; and something fresh to see, and +something happening all the time. But me--in a dark room, poring over +bits of straw and velvet to make hats for soppy women, and then going +home to old Em and stew for dinner. There's not much fun in it, +Keith.... No, I didn't mean to worry you by grizzling. It's too bad of +me! But seeing you, and hearing that plan, it's made me remember how +beastly I felt before your letter came this evening. I was nearly mad +with it. I'd been mad before; but never as bad as this was. And then +your letter came--and I wanted to come to you; and I came, and we've +wasted such a lot of time not understanding each other. Even now, I +can't be sure you love me--not _sure!_ I think you do; but you only say +so. How's anyone ever to be sure, unless they know it in their bones? +And I've been thinking about you every minute since we met. Because I +never met anybody like you, or loved anybody before..." + +She broke off, her voice trembling, her face against his, breathless and +exhausted. + + +iv + +"Now listen, Jenny," said Keith. "This is this. I love you, and you love +me. That's right, isn't it? Well. I don't care about marriage--I mean, a +ceremony; but you do. So we'll be married when I come back in three +months. That's all right, isn't it? And when we're married, we'll either +take your father with us, whatever his health's like; or we'll do +something with him that'll do as well. I should be ready to put him in +somebody's care; but you wouldn't like that..." + +"I love him," Jenny said. "I couldn't leave him to somebody else for +ever." + +"Yes. Well, you see there's nothing to be miserable about. It's all +straightforward now. Nothing--except that we're going to be apart for +three months. Now, Jen: don't let's waste any more time being miserable; +but let's sit down and be happy for a bit...How's that?" + +Jenny smiled, and allowed him to bring her once again to the settee and +to begin once more to describe their future life. + +"It's cold there, Jenny. Not warm at all. Snow and ice. And you won't +see anybody for weeks and months--anybody but just me. And we shall have +to do everything for ourselves--clothes, house-building, food catching +and killing... Trim your own hats... Like the Swiss Family Robinson; +only you won't have everything growing outside as they did. And we'll go +out in canoes if we go on the water at all; and see Indians--'Heap big +man bacca' sort of business--and perhaps hear wolves (I'm not quite sure +of that); and go about on sledges... with dogs to draw them. But with +all that we shall be free. There won't be any bureaucrats to tyrannise +over us; no fashions, no regulations, no homemade laws to make dull boys +of us. Just fancy, Jenny: nobody to _make_ us do anything. Nothing but +our own needs and wishes..." + +"I expect we shall tyrannise--as you call it--over each other," Jenny +said shrewdly. "It seems to me that's what people do." + +"Little wretch!" cried Keith. "To interrupt with such a thing. When I +was just getting busy and eloquent. I tell you: there'll be +inconveniences. You'll find you'll want somebody besides me to talk to +and look after. But then perhaps you'll have somebody!" + +"Who?" asked Jenny, unsuspiciously. "Not Pa, I'm sure." + +Keith held her away from him, and looked into her eyes. Then he crushed +her against him, laughing. It took Jenny quite a minute to understand +what he meant. + +"Very dull, aren't you!" cried Keith. "Can't see beyond the end of your +nose." + +"I shouldn't think it was hardly the sort of place for babies," Jenny +sighed. "From what you say." + + +v + +Keith roared with laughter, so that the _Minerva_ seemed to shake in +sympathy with his mirth. + +"You're priceless!" he said. "My bonny Jenny. I shouldn't think there +was ever anybody like you in the world!" + +"Lots of girls," Jenny reluctantly suggested, shaking a dolorous head at +the ghost of a faded vanity. "I'm afraid." She revived even as she +spoke; and encouragingly added: "Perhaps not exactly like." + +"I don't believe it! You're unique. The one and only Jenny Redington!" + +"Red--!" Jenny's colour flamed. "Sounds nice," she said; and was then +silent. + +"When we're married," went on Keith, watching her; "where shall we go +for our honeymoon? I say!... how would you like it if I borrowed the +yacht from Templecombe and ran you off somewhere in it? I expect he'd +let me have the old _Minerva._ Not a bad idea, eh what!" + +"_When_ we're married," Jenny said breathlessly, very pale. + +"What d'you mean?" Keith's eyes were so close to her own that she was +forced to lower her lids. "When I come back from this trip. Templecombe +says three months. It may be less." + +"It may be more." Jenny had hardly the will to murmur her warning--her +distrust. + +"Very unlikely; unless the weather's bad. I'm reckoning on a mild +winter. If it's cold and stormy then of course yachting's out of the +question. But we'll be back before the winter, any way. And +then--darling Jenny--we'll be married as soon as I can get the licence. +There's something for you to look forward to, my sweet. Will you like to +look forward to it?" + +Jenny could feel his breath upon her face; but she could not move or +speak. Her breast was rising to quickened breathing; her eyes were +burning; her mouth was dry. When she moistened her lips she seemed to +hear a cracking in her mouth. It was as though fever were upon her, so +moved was she by the expression in Keith's eyes. She was neither happy +nor unhappy; but she was watching his face as if fascinated. She could +feel his arm so gently about her shoulder, and his breast against hers; +and she loved him with all her heart. She had at this time no thought of +home; only the thought that they loved each other and that Keith would +be away for three months; facing dangers indeed, but all the time loving +her. She thought of the future, of that time when they both would be +free, when they should no longer be checked and bounded by the fear of +not having enough food. That was the thing, Jenny felt, that kept poor +people in dread of the consequences of their own acts. And Jenny felt +that if they might live apart from the busy world, enduring together +whatever ills might come to them from their unsophisticated mode of +life, they would be able to be happy. She thought that Keith would have +no temptations that she did not share; no other men drawing him by +imitativeness this way and that, out of the true order of his own +character; no employer exacting in return for the weekly wage a +servitude that was far from the blessed ideal of service. Jenny thought +these things very simply--impulsively--and not in a form to be +intelligible if set down as they occurred to her; but the notions swam +in her head along with her love for Keith and her joy in the love which +he returned. She saw his dear face so close to her own, and heard her +own heart thumping vehemently, quicker and quicker, so that it sounded +thunderously in her ears. She could see Keith's eyes, so easily to be +read, showing out the impulses that crossed and possessed his mind. Love +for her she was sure she read, love and kindness for her, and +mystification, and curiosity, and the hot slumbering desire for her that +made his breathing short and heavy. In a dream she thought of these +things, and in a dream she felt her own love for Keith rising and +stifling her, so that she could not speak, but could only rest there in +his arms, watching that beloved face and storing her memory with its +precious betrayals. + +Keith gently kissed her, and Jenny trembled. A thousand temptations were +whirling in her mind--thoughts of his absence, their marriage, memory, +her love... With an effort she raised her lips again to his, kissing him +in passion, so that when he as passionately responded it seemed as +though she fainted in his arms and lost all consciousness but that of +her love and confidence in him and the eager desire of her nature to +yield itself where love was given. + + + + +CHAPTER X: CINDERELLA + + +i + +Through the darkness, and into the brightness of the moon's light, the +rolling notes of Big Ben were echoing and re-echoing, as each stroke +followed and drove away the lingering waves of its predecessor and was +in turn dispersed by the one that came after. The sounds made the street +noises sharper, a mere rattle against the richness of the striking +clock. It was an hour that struck; and the quarters were followed by +twelve single notes. Midnight. And Jenny Blanchard was still upon the +_Minerva;_ and Emmy and Alf had left the theatre; and Pa Blanchard was +alone in the little house in Kennington Park. + +The silvered blackness of the _Minerva_ was disturbed. A long streak of +yellow light showed from the door leading into the cabin while yet the +sounds of the clock hung above the river. It became ghostly against the +moonlight that bleached the deck, a long grey-yellow finger pointing the +way to the yacht's side. + +Jenny and Keith made their way up the steps and to the deck, and Jenny +shivered a little in the strong light. Her face was in shadow. She +hurried, restored to sanity by the sounds and the thought of her +father. Horror and self-blame were active in her mind--not from the fear +of discovery; but from shame at having for so long deserted him. + +"Oh, hurry!" Jenny whispered, as Keith slipped over the side of the +yacht into the waiting dinghy. There was a silence, and presently the +heavy cludder of oars against the boat's side. + +"Jenny! Come along!" called Keith from the water. + +Not now did Jenny shrink from the running tide. Her one thought was to +get home; and she had no inclination to think of what lay between her +and Kennington Park. She hardly understood what Keith said as he rowed +to the steps. She saw the bridge looming, its black shadow cutting the +water that sparkled so dully in the moonlight; and then she saw the +steps leading from the bridge to the river's edge. They were alongside; +she was ashore; and Keith was pressing her hand in parting. Still she +could not look at him until she was at the top of the steps, when she +turned and raised her hand in farewell. + + +ii + +She knew she had to walk for a little way down the road in the direction +of her home, and then up a side street, where she had been told that +she would find the motor car awaiting her. And for some seconds she +could not bear the idea of speaking to the chauffeur, from the sense +that he must know exactly how long she had been on board the yacht. The +hesitation caused her to linger, as the cold air had caused her to +think. It was as though she feared that when he was found the man would +be impudent to her, and leer, behaving familiarly as he might have done +to a common woman. Because she was alone and unprotected. It was +terrible. Her secret filled her with the sense of irremediable guilt. +Already she was staled with the evening's excitement. She stopped and +wavered, her shadow, so black and small, hesitating as she did. Could +she walk home? She looked at the black houses, and listened to the +terrifying sinister roar that continued faintly to fill the air. Could +she go by tram? If she did--whatever she did--the man might wait for her +all night, and Keith would know how cowardly she had been. It might even +come to the ears of Lord Templecombe, and disgrace Keith before him. To +go or to stay was equally to bring acute distress upon herself, the +breathless shame of being thought disgraced for ever. Already it seemed +to her that the shadows were peopled with observers ready to spy upon +her, to seize her, to bear her away into hidden places... + +At last, her mind resolved by her fears, which crowded upon her in a +tumult, Jenny stepped fearfully forward. The car was there, dimly +outlined, a single light visible to her eye. It was drawn upon at the +side of the street; and the chauffeur was fast asleep, his head upon his +arms, and his arms spread upon the steering-wheel. + +"I say!" cried Jenny in a panic, her glance quickly over her shoulder at +unseen dangers. "Wake up! Wake up!" + +She stepped into the car, and it began to quiver with life as the engine +was started. Then, as if drowned in the now familiar scent of the +hanging bouquet, Jenny lay back once more in the soft cushions; bound +for home, for Emmy and Alf and Pa; her evening's excursion at an end, +and only its sequel to endure. + + + + +PART THREE + +MORNING + + + + +CHAPTER XI: AFTER THE THEATRE + + +i + +After leaving the house Emmy and Alf pressed along in the darkness, +Alf's arm still surrounding and supporting Emmy, Emmy still half +jubilantly and half sorrowfully continuing to recognise her happiness +and the smothered chagrin of her emotions. She was not able to feel +either happy or miserable; but happiness was uppermost. Dislike of Jenny +had its place, also; for she could account for every weakness of Alf's +by reference to Jenny's baseness. But indeed Emmy could not think, and +could only passively and excitedly endure the conflicting emotions of +the moment. And Alf did not speak, but hurried her along as fast as his +strong arm could secure her compliance with his own pace; and they +walked through the night-ridden streets and full into the blaze of the +theatre entrance without any words at all. Then, when the staring +vehemence of the electric lights whitened and shadowed her face, Emmy +drew away, casting down her eyes, alarmed at the disclosures which the +brilliance might devastatingly make. She slipped from his arm, and stood +rather forlornly while Alf fished in his pockets for the tickets. With +docility she followed him, thrilled when he stepped aside in passing the +commissionaire and took her arm. Together they went up the stairs, the +heavy carpets with their drugget covers silencing every step, the gilded +mirrors throwing their reflections backwards and forwards until the +stairs seemed peopled with hosts of Emmys and Alfs. As they drew near +the closed doors of the circle the hush filling the staircases and +vestibules of the theatre was intensified. An aproned attendant seemed +to Emmy's sensitiveness to look them up and down and superciliously to +disapprove them. She moved with indignation. A dull murmur, as of single +voices, disturbed the air somewhere behind the rustling attendant: and +when the doors were quickly opened Emmy saw beyond the darkness and the +intrusive flash of light caused by the opening doors a square of +brilliance and a dashing figure upon the stage talking staccato. Those +of the audience who were sitting near the doors turned angrily and with +curiosity to view the new-comers; and the voice that Emmy had +distinguished went more stridently on, with a strong American accent. In +a flurry she found and crept into her seat, trying to understand the +play, to touch Alf, to remove her hat, to discipline her excitements. +And the staccato voice went on and on, detailing a plan of some sort +which she could not understand because they had missed the first five +minutes of the play. Emmy could not tell that the actor was only +pretending to be an American; she could not understand why, having +spoken twenty words, he must take six paces farther from the footlights +until he had spoken thirteen more; but she could and did feel most +overwhelmingly exuberant at being as it were alone in that half-silent +multitude, sitting beside Alf, their arms touching, her head whirling, +her heart beating, and a wholly exquisite warmth flushing her cheeks. + + +ii + +The first interval found the play well advanced. A robbery had been +planned--for it was a "crook" play--and the heroine had already received +wild-eyed the advances of a fur-coated millionaire. When the lights of +the theatre popped up, and members of the orchestra began once more +unmercifully to tune their instruments, it was possible to look round at +the not especially large audience. But in whichever direction Emmy +looked she was always brought back as by a magnet to Alf, who sat +ruminantly beside her. To Alf's sidelong eye Emmy was looking +surprisingly lovely. The tired air and the slightly peevish mouth to +which he was accustomed had given place to the flush and sparkle of an +excited girl. Alf was aware of surprise. He blinked. He saw the lines +smoothed away from round her mouth--the lines of weariness and +dissatisfaction,--and was tempted by the softness of her cheek. As he +looked quickly off again he thought how full Jenny would have been of +comment upon the play, how he would have sat grinning with precious +enjoyment at her merciless gibes during the whole of the interval. He +had the sense of Jenny as all movement, as flashing and drawing him into +quagmires of sensation, like a will-o'-the-wisp. Emmy was not like that. +She sat tremulously smiling, humble before him, diffident, flattering. +She was intelligent: that was it. Intelligent was the word. Not lively, +but restful. Critically he regarded her. Rather a nice girl, Emmy.... + +Alf roused himself, and looked around. + +"Here, miss!" he called; and "S-s-s-s" when she did not hear him. It was +his way of summoning an attendant or a waitress. "S-s-s-s." The +attendant brought chocolates, which Alf handed rather magnificently to +his companion. He plunged into his pockets--in his rough-and-ready, +muscular way--for the money, leaning far over the next seat, which was +unoccupied. "Like some lemon?" he said to Emmy. Together they inspected +the box of chocolates, which contained much imitation-lace paper and a +few sweets. "Not half a sell," grumbled Alf to himself, thinking of the +shilling he had paid; but he looked with gratification at Emmy's face +as she enjoyingly ate the chocolates. As her excitement a little +strained her nervous endurance Emmy began to pale under the eyes; her +eyes seemed to grow larger; she lost the first air of sparkle, but she +became more pathetic. "Poor little thing," thought Alf, feeling +masculine. "Poor little thing: she's tired. Poor little thing." + + +iii + +In the middle of this hot, excitedly-talking audience, they seemed to +bask as in a warm pool of brilliant light. The brilliants in the dome of +the theatre intensified all the shadows, heightened all the smiles, +illumined all the silken blouses and silver bangles, the flashing eyes, +the general air of fete. + +"All right?" Alf inquired protectively. Emmy looked in gratitude towards +him. + +"Lovely," she said. "Have another?" + +"I meant _you_," he persisted. "Yourself, I mean." Emmy smiled, so +happily that nobody could have been unmoved at the knowledge of having +given such pleasure. + +"Oh, grand!" Emmy said. Then her eyes contracted. Memory came to her. +The angry scene that had passed earlier returned to her mind, hurting +her, and injuring her happiness. Alf hurried to engage her attention, to +distract her from thoughts that had in them such discomfort as she so +quickly showed. + +"Like the play? I didn't quite follow what it was this old general had +done to him. Did you?" + +"Hadn't he kept him from marrying ..." Emmy looked conscious for a +moment. "Marrying the right girl? I didn't understand it either. It's +only a play." + +"Of course," Alf agreed. "See how that girl's eyes shone when old +fur-coat went after her? Fair shone, they did. Like lamps. They'd got +the limes on her... You couldn't see them. My--er--my friend's the +electrician here. He says it drives him nearly crazy, the way he has to +follow her about in the third act. She... she's got some pluck, he says; +the way she fights three of them single-handed. They've all got +revolvers. She's got one; but it's not loaded. Lights a cigarette, too, +with them all watching her, ready to rush at her." + +"There!" said Emmy, admiringly. She was thinking: "It's only a play." + +"She gets hold of his fur coat, and puts it on.... Imitates his +voice.... You can see it's her all the time, you know. So could they, if +they looked a bit nearer. However, they don't.... I suppose there +wouldn't be any play if they did...." + +Emmy was not listening to him: she was dreaming. She was as gauche and +simple in his company as a young girl would have been; but her mind was +different. It was practical in its dreams, and they had their disturbing +unhappiness, as well, from the greater poignancy of her desire. She was +not a young girl, to be agreeably fluttered and to pass on to the next +admirer without a qualm. She loved him, blindly but painfully; without +the ease of young love, but with all the sickness of first love. And she +had jealousy, the feeling that she was not his first object, to poison +her feelings. She could not think of Jenny without tremors of anger. And +still, for pain, her thoughts went throbbing on about Jenny whenever, in +happiness, she had seen a home and Alf and a baby and the other plain +clear consequences of earning his love--of taking him from Jenny. + +And then the curtain rose, the darkness fell, and the orchestra's tune +slithered into nothing. The play went on, about the crook and the +general and the millionaire and the heroine and all their curiously +simple-minded friends. And every moment something happened upon the +stage, from fights to thefts, from kisses (which those in the gallery, +not wholly absorbed by the play, generously augmented) to telephone +calls, plots, speeches (many speeches, of irreproachable moral tone), +shoutings, and sudden wild appeals to the delighted occupants of the +gallery. And Emmy sat through it hardly heeding the uncommon events, +aware of them as she would have been aware of distant shouting. Her +attention was preoccupied with other matters. She had her own thoughts, +serious enough in themselves. Above all, she was enjoying the thought +that she was with Alf, and that their arms were touching; and she was +wondering if he knew that. + + +iv + +Through another interval they sat with silent embarrassment, the +irreplaceable chocolates, which had earlier been consumed, having served +their turn as a means of devouring attention. Alf was tempted to fly to +the bar for a drink and composure, but he did not like to leave Emmy; +and he could not think of anything which could safely be said to her in +the middle of this gathering of hot and radiant persons. "To speak" in +such uproar meant "to shout." He felt that every word he uttered would +go echoing in rolls and rolls of sound out among the multitude. They +were not familiar enough to make that a matter of indifference to him. +He was in the stage of secretiveness. And Emmy, after trying once or +twice to open various small topics, had fallen back upon her own +thoughts, and could invent nothing to talk about until the difficulties +that lay between them had been removed. Her brow contracted. She moved +her shoulders, or sat pressed reservedly against the back of her seat. +Her voice, whenever she did not immediately hear some word fall from +Alf, became sharp and self-conscious--almost "managing." + +It was a relief to both of them, and in both the tension of sincere +feeling had perceptibly slackened, when the ignored orchestra gave way +before the rising curtain. Again the two drew together in the darkness, +as all other couples were doing, comforted by proximity, and even by the +unacknowledged mutual pleasure of it; again they watched the +extraordinary happenings upon the stage. The fur coat was much used, +cigarettes were lighted and flung away with prodigal recklessness, +pistols were revealed--one of them was even fired into the air;--and +jumping, trickling music heightened the effects of a number of strong +speeches about love, and incorruptibility, and womanhood.... The climax +was reached. In the middle of the climax, while yet the lover wooed and +the villain died, the audience began to rustle, preparatory to going +home. Even Emmy was influenced to the extent of discovering and +beginning to adjust her hat. It was while she was pinning it, with her +elbows raised, that the curtain fell. Both Emmy and Alf rose in the +immediately successive re-illumination of the theatre; and Emmy looked +so pretty with her arms up, and with the new hat so coquettishly askew +upon her head, and with a long hatpin between her teeth, that Alf could +not resist the impulse to put his arm affectionately round her in +leading the way out. + + +v + +And then, once in the street, he made no scruple about taking Emmy's arm +within the crook of his as they moved from the staring whiteness of the +theatre lamps out into the calmer moonshine. It was eleven o'clock. The +night was fine, and the moon rode high above amid the twinkling stars. +When Alf looked at Emmy's face it was transfigured in this beautiful +light, and he drew her gently from the direct way back to the little +house. + +"Don't let's go straight back," he said. "Stroll u'll do us good." + +Very readily Emmy obeyed his guidance. Her heart was throbbing; but her +brain was clear. He wanted to be with her; and the knowledge of that +made Emmy happier than she had been since early childhood. + +"It's been lovely," she said, with real warmth of gratitude, looking +away from him with shyness. + +"Hm," growled Alf, in a voice of some confusion. "Er...you don't go much +to the theatre, do you?" + +"Not much," Emmy agreed. "See, there's Pa. He always looks to me..." + +"Yes." Alf could not add anything to that for a long time. "Fine night," +he presently recorded. "D'you like a walk? I mean ... I'm very fond of +it, a night like this. Mr. Blanchard's all right, I suppose?" + +"Oh, yes. _She's_ there." Emmy could not bring herself to name Jenny to +him. Yet her mind was busy thinking of the earlier jar, recomposing the +details, recalling the words that had passed. Memory brought tears into +her eyes; but she would not allow Alf to see them, and soon she +recovered her self-control. It had to be spoken of: the evening could +not pass without reference to it; or it would spoil everything. Alf +would think of her--he was bound to think of her--as a crying, petulant, +jealous woman, to whom he had been merely kind. Patronising, even! +Perhaps, even, the remembrance of it would prevent him from coming again +to the house. Men like Alf were so funny in that respect. It took so +little to displease them, to drive them away altogether. At last she +ventured: "It was nice of you to take me." + +Alf fidgeted, jerking his head, and looking recklessly about him. + +"Not at all," he grumbled. "Not tired, are you?" Emmy reassured him. +"What I mean, I'm very glad.... Now, look here, Em. May as well have +it out...." Emmy's heart gave a bound: she walked mechanically beside +him, her head as stiffly held as though the muscles of her neck had +been paralysed. "May as well, er...have it out," repeated Alf. "That's +how I am--I like to be all shipshape from the start. When I came along +this evening I _did_ mean to ask young Jen to go with me. That was +quite as you thought. I never thought you'd, you know, _care_ to come +with me. I don't know why; but there it is. I never meant to put it like +I did ... in that way... to have a fuss and upset anybody. I've ... I +mean, she's been out with me half-a-dozen times; and so I sort of +naturally thought of her." + +"Of course," agreed Emmy. "Of course." + +"But I 'm glad you came," Alf said. Something in his honesty, and the +brusqueness of his rejoicing, touched Emmy, and healed her first +wound--the thought that she might have been unwelcome to him. They went +on a little way, more at ease; both ready for the next step in intimacy +which was bound to be taken by one of them. + +"I thought she might have said something to you--about me not _wanting_ +to come," Emmy proceeded, tentatively. "Made you think I never wanted +to go out." + +Alf shook his head. Emmy had there no opening for her resentment. + +"No," he said, with stubborn loyalty. "She's always talked very nice +about you." + +"What does she say?" swiftly demanded Emmy. + +"I forget.... Saying you had a rough time at home. Saying it was rough +on you. That you're one of the best...." + +_"She_ said that?" gasped Emmy. "It's not like her to say that. Did she +really? She's so touchy about me, generally. Sometimes, the way she goes +on, anybody'd think I was the miserablest creature in the world, and +always on at her about something. I'm not, you know; only she thinks it. +Well, I can't help it, can I? If you knew how I have to work in that +house, you'd be... surprised. I'm always at it. The way the dirt comes +in--you'd wonder where it all came from! And see, there's Pa and all. +She doesn't take that into account. She gets on all right with him; but +she isn't there all day, like I am. That makes a difference, you know. +He's used to me. She's more of a change for him." + +Alf was cordial in agreement. He was seeing all the difference between +the sisters. In his heart there still lingered a sort of cherished +enjoyment of Jenny's greater spirit. Secretly it delighted him, like a +forbidden joke. He felt that Jenny--for all that he must not, at this +moment, mention her name--kept him on the alert all the time, so that he +was ever in hazardous pursuit. There was something fascinating in such +excitement as she caused him. He never knew what she would do or say +next; and while that disturbed and distressed him it also lacerated his +vanity and provoked his admiration. He admired Jenny more than he could +ever admire Emmy. But he also saw Emmy as different from his old idea of +her. He had seen her trembling defiance early in the evening, and that +had moved him and made him a little afraid of her; he had also seen her +flushed cheeks at the theatre, and Emmy had grown in his eyes suddenly +younger. He could not have imagined her so cordial, so youthful, so +interested in everything that met her gaze. Finally, he found her +quieter, more amenable, more truly wifely than her sister. It was an +important point in Alf's eyes. You had to take into account--if you were +a man of common sense--relative circumstances. Devil was all very well +in courtship; but mischief in a girl became contrariness in a domestic +termagant. That was an idea that was very much in Alf's thoughts during +this walk, and it lingered there like acquired wisdom. + +"Say she's going with a sailor!" he suddenly demanded. + +"So she told me. I've never seen him. She doesn't tell lies, though." + +"I thought you said she did!" + +Emmy flinched: she had forgotten the words spoken in her wild anger, and +would have been ashamed to account for them in a moment of greater +coolness. + +"I mean, if she says he's a sailor, that's true. She told me he was on a +ship. I suppose she met him when she was away that time. She's been very +funny ever since. Not funny--restless. Anything I've done for her she's +made a fuss. I give her a thorough good meal; and oh! there's such a +fuss about it. 'Why don't we have ice creams, and merangs, and wine, and +grouse, and sturgeon--'" + +"Ph! Silly talk!" said Alf, in contemptuous wonder. "I mean to say..." + +"Oh, well: you know what flighty girls are. He's probably a swank-pot. A +steward, or something of that sort. I expect he has what's left over, +and talks big about it. But she's got ideas like that in her head, and +she thinks she's too good for the likes of us. It's too much trouble to +her to be pelite these days. I've got the fair sick of it, I can tell +you. And then she's always out..._Somebody's_ got to be at home, just to +look after Pa and keep the fire in. But Jenny--oh dear no! She's no +sooner home than she's out again. Can't rest. Says it's stuffy indoors, +and off she goes. I don't see her for hours. Well, I don't know ... but +if she doesn't quiet down a bit she'll only be making trouble for +herself later on. She can't keep house, you know! She can scrub; but she +can't cook so very well, or keep the place nice. She hasn't got the +patience. You think she's doing the dusting; and you find her groaning +about what she'd do if she was rich. 'Yes,' I tell her; 'it's all very +well to do that; but you'd far better be doing something _useful_,' I +say. 'Instead of wasting your time on idle fancies.'" + +"Very sensible," agreed Alf, completely absorbed in such a discourse. + +"She's trying, you know. You can't leave her for a minute. She says I'm +stodgy; but I say it's better to be practical than flighty. Don't you +think so, Alf?" + +"Exackly!" said Alf, in a tone of the gravest assent. "Exackly." + + +vi + +"I mean," pursued Emmy, "you must have a _little_ common-sense. But +she's been spoilt--she's the youngest. I'm a little older than she +is ... _wiser_, I say; but she won't have it.... And Pa's always made a +fuss of her. Really, sometimes, you'd have thought she was a boy. +Racing about! My word, such a commotion! And then going out to the +millinery, and getting among a lot of other girls. You don't know _who_ +they are--if they're ladies or not. It's not a good influence for +her...." + +"She ought to get out of it," Alf said. To Emmy it was a ghastly moment. + +"She'll never give it up," she hurriedly said. "You know, it's in her +blood. Off she goes! And they make a fuss of her. She mimics everybody, +and they laugh at it--they think it's funny to mimic people who can't +help themselves--if they _are_ a bit comic. So she goes; and when she +does come home Pa's so glad to see a fresh face that he makes a fuss of +her, too. And she stuffs him up with all sorts of tales--things that +never happened--to keep him quiet. She says it gives him something to +think about.... Well, I suppose it does. I expect you think I'm very +unkind to say such things about my own sister; but really I can't help +seeing what's under my nose; and I sometimes get so--you know, worked +up, that I don't know how to hold myself. She doesn't understand what it +is to be cooped up indoors all day long, like I am; and it never occurs +to her to say 'Go along, Em; you run out for a bit.' I have to say to +her: 'You be in for a bit, Jen?' and then she p'tends she's always in. +And then there's a rumpus...." + +Alf was altogether subdued by this account: it had that degree of +intimacy which, when one is in a sentimental mood, will always be +absorbing. He felt that he really was getting to the bottom of the +mystery known to him as Jenny Blanchard. The picture had verisimilitude. +He could see Jenny as he listened. He was seeing her with the close and +searching eye of a sister, as nearly true, he thought, as any vision +could be. Once the thought, "I expect there's another story" came +sidling into his head; but it was quickly drowned in further +reminiscence from Emmy, so that it was clearly a dying desire that he +left for Jenny. Had Jenny been there, to fling her gage into the field, +Alf might gapingly have followed her, lost again in admiration of her +more sparkling tongue and equipments. But in such circumstances the +arraigned party is never present. If Jenny had been there the tale could +not have been told. Emmy's virtuous and destructive monologue would not +merely have been interrupted: it would have been impossible. Jenny would +have done all the talking. The others, all amaze, would have listened +with feelings appropriate to each, though with feelings in common +unpleasant to be borne. + +"I bet there's a rumpus," Alf agreed. "Old Jen's not one to take a blow. +She ups and gets in the first one." He couldn't help admiring Jenny, +even yet. So he hastened to pretend that he did not admire her; out of a +kind of tact. "But of course ... that's all very well for a bit of +sport, but it gets a bit wearisome after a time. I know what you +mean...." + +"Don't think I've been complaining about her," Emmy said. "I wouldn't. +Really, I wouldn't. Only I do think sometimes it's not quite fair that +she should have all the fun, and me none of it. I don't want a lot. My +tastes are very simple. But when it comes to none at all--well, Alf, +what do _you_ think?" + +"It's a bit thick," admitted Alf. "And that's a fact." + +"See, she's always having her own way. Does just what she likes. There's +no holding her." + +"Wants a man to do that," ruminated Alf, with a half chuckle. "Eh?" + +"Well," said Emmy, a little brusquely. "I pity the man who tries it on." + + +vii + +Emmy was not deliberately trying to secure from Alf a proposal of +marriage. She was trying to show him the contrast between Jenny and +herself, and to readjust the balances as he appeared to have been +holding them. She wanted to impress him. She was as innocent of any +other intention as any girl could have been. It was jealousy that +spoke; not scheme. And she was perfectly sincere in her depreciation of +Jenny. She could not understand what it was that made the admiring look +come into the faces of those who spoke to Jenny, nor why the unwilling +admiration that started into her own heart should ever find a place +there. She was baffled by character, and she was engaged in the common +task of rearranging life to suit her own temperament. + +They had been walking for some little distance now along deserted +streets, the moon shining upon them, their steps softly echoing, and +Emmy's arm as warm as toast. It was like a real lover's walk, she could +not help thinking, half in the shadow and wholly in the stillness of the +quiet streets. She felt very contented; and with her long account of +Jenny already uttered, and her tough body already reanimated by the +walk, Emmy was at leisure to let her mind wander among sweeter things. +There was love, for example, to think about; and when she glanced +sideways Alf's shoulder seemed such a little distance from her cheek. +And his hand was lightly clasping her wrist. A strong hand, was Alf's, +with a broad thumb and big capable fingers. She could see it in the +moonlight, and she had suddenly an extraordinary longing to press her +cheek against the back of Alf's hand. She did not want any silly +nonsense, she told herself; and the tears came into her eyes, and her +nose seemed pinched and tickling with the cold at the mere idea of any +nonsense; but she could not help longing with the most intense longing +to press her cheek against the back of Alf's hand. That was all. She +wanted nothing more. But that desire thrilled her. She felt that if it +might be granted she would be content, altogether happy. She wanted so +little! + +And as if Alf too had been thinking of somebody nearer to him than +Jenny, he began: + +"I don't know if you've ever thought at all about me, Em. But your +saying what you've done ... about yourself ... it's made me think a bit. +I'm all on my own now--have been for years; but the way I live isn't +good for anyone. It's a fact it's not. I mean to say, my rooms that I've +got ... they're not big enough to swing a cat in; and the way the old +girl at my place serves up the meals is a fair knock-out, if you notice +things like I do. If I think of her, and then about the way you do +things, it gives me the hump. Everything you do's so nice. But with +her--the plates have still got bits of yesterday's mustard on them, and +all fluffy from the dishcloth...." + +"Not washed prop'ly." Emmy interestedly remarked; "that's what that is." + +"Exackly. And the meat's raw inside. Cooks it too quickly. And when I +have a bloater for my breakfast--I'm partial to a bloater--it's black +outside, as if it was done in the cinders; and then inside--well, I like +them done all through, like any other man. Then I can't get her to get +me gammon rashers. She will get these little tiddy rashers, with little +white bones in them. Why, while you're cutting them out the bacon gets +cold. You may think I'm fussy ... fiddly with my food. I'm not, really; +only I like it...." + +"Of course you do," Emmy said. "She's not interested, that's what it is. +She thinks anything's food; and some people don't mind at all what they +eat. They don't notice." + +"No. I _do_. If you go to a restaurant you get it different. You get +more of it, too. Well, what with one thing and another I've got very +fed up with Madame Bucks. It's all dirty and half baked. There's great +holes in the carpet of my sitting-room--holes you could put your foot +through. And I've done that, as a matter of fact. Put my foot through +and nearly gone over. _Should_ have done, only for the table. Well, I +mean to say ... you can't help being fed up with it. But she knows where +I work, and I know she's hard up; so I don't like to go anywhere else, +because if anybody asked me if he should go there, I couldn't honestly +recommend him to; and yet, you see how it is, I shouldn't like to leave +her in the lurch, if she knew I was just gone somewhere else down the +street." + +"No," sympathetically agreed Emmy. "I quite see. It's very awkward for +you. Though it's no use being too kind-hearted with these people; +because they _don't_ appreciate it; and if you don't say anything they +just go on in the same way, never troubling themselves about you. They +think, as long as you don't say anything you're all right; and it's not +their place to make any alteration. They're quite satisfied. Look at +Jenny and me." + +"Is she satisfied!" asked Alf. + +"With herself, she is. She's never satisfied with me. She never tries to +see it from my point of view." + +"No," Alf nodded his head wisely. "That's what it is. They don't." He +nodded again. + +"Isn't it a lovely night," ventured Emmy. "See the moon over there." + +They looked up at the moon and the stars and the unfathomable sky. It +took them at once away from the streets and the subject of their talk. +Both sighed as they stared upwards, lost in the beauty before them. And +when at last their eyes dropped, the street lamps had become so yellow +and tawdry that they were like stupid spangles in contrast with the +stars. Alf still held Emmy's arm so snugly within his own, and her wrist +was within the clasp of his fingers. It was so little a thing to slide +his fingers into a firm clasp of her hand, and they drew closer. + +"Lovely, eh!" Alf ejaculated, with a further upward lift of his eyes. +Emmy sighed again. + +"Not like down here," she soberly said. + +"No, it's different. Down here's all right, though," Alf assured her. +"Don't you think it is?" He gave a rather nervous little half laugh. +"Don't you think it is?" + +"Grand!" Emmy agreed, with the slightest hint of dryness. + +"I say, it was awfully good of you to come to-night," said Alf. +"I've ... you've enjoyed it, haven't you?" He was looking sharply at her, +and Emmy's face was illumined. He saw her soft cheeks, her thin, soft +little neck; he felt her warm gloved hand within his own. "D'you mind?" +he asked, and bent abruptly so that their faces were close together. For +a moment, feeling so daring that his breath caught, Alf could not carry +out his threat. Then, roughly, he pushed his face against hers, kissing +her. Quickly he released Emmy's arm, so that his own might be more +protectingly employed; and they stood embraced in the moonlight. + + +viii + +It was only for a minute, for Emmy, with instinctive secrecy, drew away +into the shadow. At first Alf did not understand, and thought himself +repelled; but Emmy's hands were invitingly raised. The first delight was +broken. One more sensitive might have found it hard to recapture; but +Alf stepped quickly to her side in the shadow, and they kissed again. He +was surprised at her passion. He had not expected it, and the flattery +was welcome. He grinned a little in the safe darkness, consciously and +even sheepishly, but with eagerness. They were both clumsy and a little +trembling, not very practised lovers, but curious and excited. Emmy felt +her hat knocked a little sideways upon her head. + +It was Emmy who moved first, drawing herself away from him, she knew not +why. + +"Where you going?" asked Alf, detaining her. "What is it? Too rough, am +I?" He could not see Emmy's shaken head, and was for a moment puzzled at +the ways of woman--so far from his grasp. + +"No," Emmy said. "It's wonderful." + +Peering closely, Alf could see her eyes shining. + +"D'you think you're fond enough of me, Emmy?" She demurred. + +"That's a nice thing to say! As if it was for me to tell you!" she +whispered archly back. + +"What ought I to say? I'm not ... mean to say, I don't know how to say +things, Emmy. You'll have to put up with my rough ways. Give us a kiss, +old sport." + +"How many more! You _are_ a one!" Emmy was not pliant enough. In her +voice there was the faintest touch of--something that was not +self-consciousness, that was perhaps a sense of failure. Perhaps she was +back again suddenly into her maturity, finding it somehow ridiculous to +be kissed and to kiss with such abandon. Alf was not baffled, however. +As she withdrew he advanced, so that his knuckle rubbed against the +brick wall to which Emmy had retreated. + +"I say," he cried sharply. "Here's the wall." + +"Hurt yourself?" Emmy quickly caught his hand and raised it, examining +the knuckle. The skin might have been roughened; but no blood was drawn. +Painfully, exultingly, her dream realised, she pressed her cheek against +the back of his hand. + + +ix + +"What's that for?" demanded Alf. + +"Nothing. Never you mind. I wanted to do it." Emmy's cheeks were hot as +she spoke; but Alf marvelled at the action, and at her confession of +such an impulse. + +"How long had you ... wanted to do it?" + +"Mind your own business. The idea! Don't you know better than that?" +Emmy asked. It made him chuckle delightedly to have such a retort from +her. And it stimulated his curiosity. + +"I believe you're a bit fond of me," he said. "I don't see why. There's +nothing about me to write home about, I shouldn't think. But there it +is: love's a wonderful thing." + +"Is it?" asked Emma, distantly. Why couldn't he say he loved her? Too +proud, was he? Or was he shy? He had only used the word "love" once, and +that was in this general sense--as though there _was_ such a thing. Emmy +was shy of the word, too; but not as shy as that. She was for a moment +anxious, because she wanted him to say the word, or some equivalent. If +it was not said, she was dependent upon his charity later, and would cry +sleeplessly at night for want of sureness of him. + +"D'you love me?" she suddenly said. Alf whistled. He seemed for that +instant to be quite taken aback by her inquiry. "There's no harm in me +asking, I suppose." Into Emmy's voice there came a thread of roughness. + +"No harm at all," Alf politely said. "Not at all." He continued to +hesitate. + +"Well?" Emmy waited, still in his arms, her ears alert. + +"We're engaged, aren't we?" Alf muttered shamefacedly. "Erum ... what +sort of ring would you like? I don't say you'll get it ... and it's too +late to go and choose one to-night." + +Emmy flushed again: he felt her tremble. + +"You _are_ in a hurry," she said, too much moved for her archness to +take effect. + +"Yes, I am." Alf's quick answer was reassuring enough. Emmy's heart was +eased. She drew him nearer with her arms about his neck, and they kissed +again. + +"I wish you'd say you love me," she whispered. "Mean such a lot to me." + +"No!" cried Alf incredulously. "Really?" + +"Do you?" + +"I'll think about it. Do you--me?" + +"Yes. I don't mind saying it if you will." + +Alf gave a little whistle to himself, half under his breath. He looked +carefully to right and left, and up at the house-wall against which they +were standing. Nobody seemed to be in danger of making him feel an +abject fool by overhearing such a confession as he was invited to make; +and yet it was such a terrible matter. He was confronted with a +difficulty of difficulties. He looked at Emmy, and knew that she was +waiting, entreating him with her shining eyes. + +"Er," said Alf, reluctantly and with misgiving. "Er ... well, +I ... a ... suppose I do...." + +Emmy gave a little cry, that was half a smothered laugh of happiness at +her triumph. It was not bad! She had made him admit it on the first +evening. Later, when she was more at ease, he should be more explicit. + + +x + +"Well," said Alf, instantly regretting his admission, and inclined to +bluster. "Now I suppose you're satisfied?" + +"Awfully!" breathed Emmy. "You're a dear good soul. You're splendid, +Alf!" + +For a few minutes more they remained in that benign, unforgettable +shadow; and then, very slowly, with Alf's arm about Emmy's waist, and +Emmy's shoulder so confidingly against his breast, they began to return +homewards. Both spoke very subduedly, and tried to keep their shoes from +too loudly striking the pavement as they walked; and the wandering wind +came upon them in glee round every corner and rustled like a busybody +among all the consumptive bushes in the front gardens they passed. +Sounds carried far. A long way away they heard the tramcars grinding +along the main road. But here all was hush, and the beating of two +hearts in unison; and to both of them happiness lay ahead. Their aims +were similar, in no point jarring or divergent. Both wanted a home, and +loving labour, and quiet evenings of pleasant occupation. To both the +daily work came with regularity, not as an intrusion or a wrong to +manhood and womanhood; it was inevitable, and was regarded as +inevitable. Neither Emmy nor Alf ever wondered why they should be +working hard when the sun shone and the day was fine. Neither compared +the lot accorded by station with an ideal fortune of blessed ease. They +were not temperamentally restless. They both thought, with a practical +sense that is as convenient as it is generally accepted, "somebody must +do the work: may as well be me." No discontent would be theirs. And Alf +was a good worker at the bench, a sober and honest man; and Emmy could +make a pound go as far as any other woman in Kennington Park. They had +before them a faithful future of work in common, of ideals (workaday +ideals) in common; and at this instant they were both marvellously +content with the immediate outlook. Not for them to change the order of +the world. + +"I feel it's so suitable," Emmy startlingly said, in a hushed tone, as +they walked. "Your ... you know ... 'supposing you do' ... me; and +me ... doing the same for you." + +Alf looked solemnly round at her. His Emmy skittish? It was not what he +had thought. Still, it diverted him; and he ambled in pursuit. + +"Yes," he darkly said. "What do you 'suppose you do' for me?" + +"Why, love you," Emmy hurried to explain, trapping herself by speed into +the use of the tabooed word. "Didn't you know? Though it seems funny to +say it like that. It's so new. I've never dared to ... you know ... say +it. I mean, we're both of us quiet, and reliable ... we're not either of +us flighty, I mean. That's why I think we suit each other--better than +if we'd been different. Not like we are." + +"I'm sure we do," Alf said. + +"Not like some people. You can't help wondering to yourself however they +came to get married. They seem so unlike. Don't they! It's funny. Ah +well, love's a wonderful thing--as you say!" She turned archly to him, +encouragingly. + +"You seem happy," remarked Alf, in a critical tone. But he was not +offended; only tingled into desire for her by the strange gleam of +merriment crossing her natural seriousness, the jubilant note of happy +consciousness that the evening's lovemaking had bred. Alf drew her more +closely to his side, increasingly sure that he had done well. She was +beginning to intrigue him. With an emotion that startled himself as +much as it delighted Emmy, he said thickly in her ear, "D'you love +me ... like this?" + + +xi + +They neared the road in which the Blanchards lived: Emmy began to press +forward as Alf seemed inclined to loiter. In the neighbourhood the +church that had struck eight as they left the house began once again to +record an hour. + +"By George!" cried Alf. "Twelve ... Midnight!" They could feel the day +pass. + +They were at the corner, beside the little chandler's shop which +advertised to the moon its varieties of tea; and Alf paused once again. + +"Half a tick," he said. "No hurry, is there?" + +"You'll come in for a bit of supper," Emmy urged. Then, plumbing his +hesitation, she went on, in a voice that had steel somewhere in its +depths. "They'll both be gone to bed. She won't be there." + +"Oh, I wasn't thinking of that," Alf declared, with unconvincing +nonchalance. + +"I'll give you a drop of Pa's beer," Emmy said drily. + +She took out a key, and held it up for his inspection. + +"I say!" Alf pretended to be surprised at the sight of a key. + +"Quite a big girl, aren't I! Well, you see: there are two, and Pa never +goes out. So we have one each. Saves a lot of bother." As she spoke Emmy +was unlocking the door and entering the house. "See, you can have supper +with me, and then it won't seem so far to walk home. And you can throw +Madame Buck's rinds at the back of the fire. You'll like that; and so +will she." + +Alf, now perfectly docile, and even thrilled with pleasure at the idea +of being with her for a little while longer, followed Emmy into the +passage, where the flickering gas showed too feeble a light to be of any +service to them. Between the two walls they felt their way into the +house, and Alf softly closed the door. + +"Hang your hat and coat on the stand," whispered Emmy, and went +tiptoeing forward to the kitchen. It was in darkness. "Oo, she is a +monkey! She's let the fire out," Emmy continued, in the same whisper. +"Have you got a match? The gas is out." She opened the kitchen door +wide, and stood there taking off her hat, while Alf fumbled his way +along the passage. "Be quick," she said. + +Alf pretended not to be able to find the matches, so that he might give +her a hearty kiss in the darkness. He was laughing to himself because he +had only succeeded, in his random venture, in kissing her chin; and +then, when she broke away with a smothered protest and a half laugh, he +put his hand in his pocket again for the match-box. The first match +fizzed along the box as it was struck, and immediately went out. + +"Oh, _do_ hurry up!" cried Emmy in a whisper, thinking he was still +sporting with her. "Don't keep on larking about, Alf!" + +"I'm not!" indignantly answered the delinquent. "It wouldn't strike. +Half a tick!" + +He moved forward in the darkness, to be nearer the gas; and as he took +the step his foot caught against something upon the floor. He exclaimed. + +"Now what is it?" demanded Emmy. For answer Alf struck his match, and +they both looked at the floor by Alf's feet. Emmy gave a startled cry +and dropped to her knees. + +"Hul-lo!" said Alf; and with his lighted match raised he moved to the +gas, stepping, as he did so, over the body of Pa Blanchard, which was +lying at full length across the kitchen floor. + + + + +CHAPTER XII: CONSEQUENCES + + +i + +In the succeeding quietness, Emmy fumbled at the old man's hands; then +quickly at his breast, near the heart. Trembling violently, she looked +up at Alf, as if beseeching his aid. He too knelt, and Emmy took Pa's +lolling head into her lap, as though by her caress she thought to +restore colour and life to the features. The two discoverers did not +speak nor reason: they were wholly occupied with the moment's horror. At +last Alf said, almost in a whisper: + +"I think it's all right. He's hit his head. Feel his head, and see if +it's bleeding." + +Emmy withdrew one hand. A finger was faintly smeared with blood. She +shuddered, looking in horror at the colour against her hand; and Alf +nodded sharply at seeing his supposition verified. His eye wandered from +the insensible body, to a chair, to the open cupboard, to the topmost +shelf of the cupboard. Emmy followed his glance point by point, and in +conclusion they looked straight into each other's eyes, with perfect +understanding. Alf's brows arched. + +"Get some water--quick!" Emmy cried sharply. She drew her handkerchief +from her breast as Alf returned with a jugful of water; and, having +folded it, she dangled the kerchief in the jug. + +"Slap it on!" urged Alf. "He can't feel it, you know." + +So instructed, Emmy first of all turned Pa's head to discover the wound, +and saw that her skirt was already slightly stained by the oozing blood. +With her wetted handkerchief she gently wiped the blood from Pa's hair. +It was still quite moist, and more blood flowed at the touch. That fact +made her realise instinctively that the accident, the stages of which +had been indicated by Alf's wandering glances, had happened within a few +minutes of their arrival. When Alf took the jug and threw some of its +contents upon the old man's grey face, splashing her, she made an +impatient gesture of protest. + +"No, no!" she cried. "It's all over _me!_" "Been after his beer, he +has," Alf unnecessarily explained. "That's what it is. Got up on the +chair, and fell off it, trying to get at it. Bad boy!" + +As she did not answer, from the irritation caused by nervous +apprehensiveness, he soaked his own handkerchief and began to slap it +across Pa's face, until the jug was empty. Alf thoughtfully sprinkled +the last drops from it so that they fell cascading about Pa. He was +turning away to refill the jug, when a notion occurred to him. + +"Any brandy in the house?" he asked. "Ought to have thought of it +before. Pubs are all closed now." + +"See if there's any ... up there." Emmy pointed vaguely upwards. She was +bent over Pa, gently wiping the trickles of water from his ghastly face, +caressing with her wet handkerchief the closed eyes and the furrowed +brow. + +Alf climbed upon the chair from which Pa had fallen, and reached his +hand round to the back of the high shelf, feeling for whatever was +there. With her face upturned, Emmy watched and listened. She heard a +very faint clink, as if two small bottles had been knocked together, and +then a little dump, as if one of them had fallen over. + +"Glory!" said Alf, still in the low voice that he had used earlier. +"Believe I've got it!" + +"Got it? Is there any in it?" Emmy at the same instant was asking. + +Alf was sniffing at the little bottle which he had withdrawn from the +cupboard. He then descended carefully from the chair, and held the +uncorked bottle under her nose, for a corroborative sniff. It was about +half full of brandy. Satisfied, he knelt as before, now trying, however, +to force Pa's teeth apart, and rubbing some of the brandy upon the +parted lips. + +"This'll do it!" Alf cheerfully and reassuringly cried. "Half a tick. +I'll get some water to wet his head again." He stumbled once more out +into the scullery, and the careful Emmy unconsciously flinched as she +heard the jug struck hard in the darkness against the tap. Her eye was +fixed upon the jug as it was borne brimming and splashing back to her +side. She could not help feeling such housewifely anxiety even amid the +tremors of her other acute concern. As Alf knelt he lavishly sprinkled +some more water upon Pa's face, and set the jug ready to Emmy's hand, +working with a quiet deftness that aroused her watchful admiration. He +was here neither clumsy nor rough: if his methods were as primitive as +the means at hand his gentle treatment of the senseless body showed him +to be adaptable to an emergency. How she loved him! Pride gleamed in +Emmy's eyes. She could see in him the eternal handy-man of her delight, +made for husbandhood and as clearly without nonsense as any working wife +could have wished. + +Pa's nightshirt was blackened with great splashes of water, and the +soaked parts clung tightly to his breast. At the neck it was already +open, and they both thought they could see at this moment a quick +contraction of the throat. An additional augury was found in the fact +that Alf simultaneously had succeeded in dribbling some of the brandy +between Pa's teeth, and although some of it ran out at the corners of +his mouth and out on to his cheeks, some also was retained and would +help to revive him. Alf gave another quick nod, this time one of +satisfaction. + +"Feel his heart!" Emmy whispered. He did so. "Can you feel it?" + +"It's all right. Famous!" + +Pa gave a little groan. He seemed to stir. Emmy felt his shoulders move +against her knees; and she looked quickly up, a faint relieved smile +crossing her anxious face. Then, as Alf returned her glance, his eyes +became fixed, and he looked beyond her and up over her head. Jenny stood +in the doorway, fully dressed, but without either hat or coat, her face +blanched at the picture before her. + + +ii + +To Jenny, coming with every precautionary quietness into the house, the +sight came as the greatest shock. She found the kitchen door ajar, heard +voices, and then burst upon the three feebly illumined figures. Emmy, +still in her out-of-doors coat, knelt beside Alf upon the floor; and +between them, with a face terribly grey, lay Pa, still in his old red +nightshirt, with one of his bare feet showing. The stained shirt, upon +which the marks of water, looking in this light perfectly black, might +have been those of blood, filled Jenny with horror. It was only when she +saw both Emmy and Alf staring mutely at her that she struggled against +the deadly faintness that was thickening a veil of darkness before her +eyes. It was a dreadful moment. + +"Hullo Jen!" Alf said. "Look here!" + +"I thought you must be in bed," Emmy murmured. "Isn't it awful!" + +Not a suspicion! Her heart felt as if somebody had sharply pinched it. +They did not know she had been out! It made her tremble in a sudden +flurry of excited relief. She quickly came forward, bending over Pa. +Into his cheeks there had come the faintest wash of colour. His eyelids +fluttered. Jenny stooped and took his hand, quite mechanically, pressing +it between hers and against her heart. And at that moment Pa's eyes +opened wide, and he stared up at her. With Alf at his side and Emmy +behind him, supporting his head upon her lap, Pa could see only Jenny, +and a twitching grin fled across his face--a grin of loving recognition. +It was succeeded by another sign of recovery, a peculiar fumbling +suggestion of remembered cunning. + +"Jenny, my dearie," whispered Pa, gaspingly. "A good ... boy!" His eyes +closed again. + +Emmy looked in quick challenge at Alf, as if to say "You see how it is! +She comes in last, and it's her luck that he should see her.... _Always_ +the same!" And Jenny was saying, very low: + +"It looks to me as if you'd been a bad boy!" + +"Can't be with him _all_ the time!" Emmy put in, having reached a point +of general self-defence in the course of her mental explorations. She +was recovering from her shock and her first horrible fears. + +"Shall we get him to bed? Carry him back in there?" Jenny asked. "The +floor's soaking wet." She had not to receive any rebuke: Emmy, although +shaken, was reviving in happiness and in graciousness with each second's +diminution of her dread. She now agreed to Pa's removal; and they all +stumbled into his bedroom and laid him upon his own bed. Alf went +quickly back again to the kitchen for the brandy; and presently a good +dose of this was sending its thrilling and reviving fire through Pa's +person. Emmy had busied herself in making a bandage for his wounded +head; and Jenny had arranged him more comfortably, drying his chest and +laying a little towel between his body and the night-short lest he +should take cold. Pa was very complacently aware of these ministrations, +and by the time they were in full order completed he was fast asleep, +having expressed no sort of contrition for his naughtiness or for the +alarm he had given them all. + +Reassured, the party returned to the kitchen. + + +iii + +Alf could not now wait to sit down to supper; but he drank a glass of +beer, after getting it down for himself and rather humorously +illustrating how Pa's designs must have been frustrated. He then, with a +quick handshake with Jenny, hurried away. + +"I'll let you out," Emmy said. There were quick exchanged glances. Jenny +was left alone in the kitchen for two or three minutes until Emmy +returned, humming a little self-consciously, and no longer pale. + +"Quite a commotion," said Emmy, with assumed ease. + +Jenny was looking at her, and Jenny's heart felt as though it were +bursting. She had never in her life known such a sensation of +guilt--guilt at the suppression of a vital fact. Yet above that sense of +guilt, which throbbed within all her consciousness, was a more +superficial concern with the happenings of the moment. + +"Yes," Jenny said. "And.... Had you been in long?" she asked quickly. + +"Only a minute. We found him like that. We didn't come straight home." + +"Oh," said Jenny, significantly, though her heart was thudding. "You +didn't come straight home." Emmy's colour rose still higher. She +faltered slightly, and tears appeared in her eyes. She could not +explain. Some return of her jealousy, some feeling of what Jenny would +"think," checked her. The communication must be made by other means than +words. The two sisters eyed each other. They were very near, and Emmy's +lids were the first to fall. Jenny stepped forward, and put a protective +arm round her; and as if Emmy had been waiting for that she began +smiling and crying at one and the same moment. + +"Looks to me as if...." Jenny went on after this exchange. + +"I'm sorry I was a beast," Emmy said. "I'm as different as anything +now." + +"You're a dear!" Jenny assured her. "Never mind about what you said." + +It was an expansive moment. Their hearts were charged. To both the +evening had been the one poignant moment of their lives, an evening to +provide reflections for a thousand other evenings. And Emmy was happy, +for the first time for many days, with the thought of happy life before +her. She described in detail the events of the theatre and the walk. She +did not give an exactly true story. It was not to be expected that she +would do so. Jenny did not expect it. She gave indications of her +happiness, which was her main object; and she gave further indications, +less intentional, of her character, as no author can avoid doing. And +Jenny, immediately discounting, and in the light of her own temperament +re-shaping and re-proportioning the form of Emmy's narrative, was like +the eternal critic--apprehending only what she could personally +recognise. But both took pleasure in the tale, and both saw forward into +the future a very satisfactory ending to Emmy's romance. + +"And we got back just as twelve was striking," Emmy concluded. + +A deep flush overspread Jenny's face. She turned away quickly in order +that it might not be seen. Emmy still continued busy with her thoughts. +It occurred to her to be surprised that Jenny should be fully dressed. +The surprise pressed her further onward with the narrative. + +"And then, of course, we found Pa. Wasn't it strange of him to do it? He +couldn't have been there long.... He must have waited for you to go up. +He must have listened. I must find another place to keep it, though he's +never done such a thing before in his life. He must have listened for +you going up, and then come creeping out here.... Why, there's his +candle on the floor! Fancy that! Might have set fire to the whole house! +See, you couldn't have been upstairs long.... I thought you must have +been, seeing the fire was black out. Did you go to sleep in front of +it? I thought you might have laid a bit of supper for us. I thought you +_would_ have. But if you were asleep, I don't wonder. I thought you'd +have been in bed hours. Did you hear anything? He must have made a +racket falling off the chair. What made you come down again? Pa must +have listened like anything." + +"I didn't come down," Jenny said, in a slow, passionless voice. "I +hadn't gone to bed. I was out. I'd been out all the evening ... since +quarter-to-nine." + + +iv + +At first Emmy could not understand. She stood, puzzled, unable to +collect her thoughts. + +"Jenny!" at last she said, unbelievingly. Accusing impulses showed in +her face. The softer mood, just passing, was replaced by one of anger. +"Well, I must say it's like you," Emmy concluded. "I'm not to have a +_moment_ out of the house. I can't even leave you...." + +"Half-an-hour after you'd gone," urged Jenny, "I got a note from Keith." + +"Keith!" It was Emmy's sign that she had noted the name. + +"I told you.... He'd only got the one evening in London." + +"Couldn't he have come here?" + +"He mustn't leave his ship. I didn't know what to do. At first I thought +I _couldn't_ go. But the man was waiting--" + +"Man!" cried Emmy. "What man?" + +"The chauffeur." + +Emmy's face changed. Her whole manner changed. She was outraged. + +"Jenny! Is he _that_ sort! Oh, I warned you.... There's never any good +in it. He'll do you no good." + +"He's a captain of a little yacht. He's not what you think," Jenny +protested, very pale, her heart sinking under such a rebuke, under such +knowledge as she alone possessed. + +"Still, to go to him!" Emmy was returned to that aspect of the affair. +"And leave Pa!" + +"I know. I know," Jenny cried. She was no longer protective. She was +herself in need of comfort. "But I _had_ to go. You'd have gone +yourself!" She met Emmy's gaze steadily, but without defiance. + +"No I shouldn't!" It was Emmy who became defiant. Emmy's jealousy was +again awake. "However much I wanted to go. I should have stayed." + +"And lost him!" Jenny cried. + +"Are you sure of him now?" asked Emmy swiftly. "If he's gone again." + +With her cheeks crimson, Jenny turned upon her sister. + +"Yes, I'm sure of him. And I love him. I love him as much as you love +Alf." She had the impulse, almost irresistible, to add "More!" but she +restrained her tongue just in time. That was a possibility Emmy could +never admit. It was only that they were different. + +"But to leave Pa!" Emmy's bewildered mind went back to what was the real +difficulty. Jenny protested. + +"He was in bed. I thought he'd be safe. He was tucked up. Supposing I +hadn't gone. Supposing I'd gone up to bed an hour ago. Still he'd have +done the same." + +"You know he wouldn't," Emmy said, very quietly. Jenny felt a wave of +hysteria pass through her. It died down. She held herself very firmly. +It was true. She knew that she was only defending herself. + +"I don't know," she said, in a false, aggrieved voice. "How do I know?" + +"You do. He knew you were out. He very likely woke up and felt +frightened." + +"Felt thirsty, more like it!" Jenny exclaimed. + +"Well, you did wrong," Emmy said. "However you like to put it to +yourself, you did wrong." + +"I always manage to. Don't I!" Jenny's speech still was without +defiance. She was humble. "It's a funny thing; but it's true...." + +"You always want to go your own way," Emmy reproved. + +"Oh, I don't think _that's_ wrong!" hastily said Jenny. "Why should you +go anybody else's way?" + +"I don't know," admitted Emmy. "But it's safer." + +"Whose way do you go?" Jenny had stumbled upon a question so +unanswerable that she was at liberty to answer it for herself. "I don't +know whose way you go now; but I do know whose way you'll go soon. +You'll go Alf's way." + +"Well?" demanded Emmy. "If it's a good way?" + +"Well, I go Keith's way!" Jenny answered, in a fine glow. "And he goes +mine." + +Emmy looked at her, shaking her head in a kind of narrow wisdom. + +"Not if he sends a chauffeur," she said slowly. "Not that sort of man." + + +v + +For a moment Jenny's heart burned with indignation. Then it turned cold. +If Emmy were right! Supposing--just supposing.... Savagely she thrust +doubt of Keith from her: her trust in him was forced by dread into still +warmer and louder proclamation. + +"You don't understand!" she cried. "You _couldn't_. You've never seen +him. Wait a minute!" She went quickly out of the kitchen and up to her +bedroom. There, secretly kept from every eye, was the little photograph +of Keith. She brought it down. In anxious triumph she showed it to Emmy. +Emmy's three years' seniority had never been of so much account. +"There," Jenny said. "That's Keith. Look at him!" + +Emmy held the photograph under the meagre light. She was astonished, +although she kept outwardly calm; because Keith--besides being obviously +what is called a gentleman--looked honest and candid. She could not find +fault with the face. + +"He's very good-looking," she admitted, in a critical tone. "Very." + +"Not the sort of man you thought," emphasised Jenny, keenly elated at +Emmy's dilemma. + +"Is he ... has he got any money?" + +"Never asked him. No--I don't think he has. It wasn't _his_ chauffeur. A +lord's." + +"There! He knows lords.... Oh, Jenny!" Emmy's tone was still one of +warning. "He won't marry you. I'm sure he won't." + +"Yes he will," Jenny said confidently. But the excitement had shaken +her, and she was not the firm Jenny of custom. She looked imploringly at +Emmy. "_Say_ you believe it!" she begged. Emmy returned her urgent +gaze, and felt Jenny's arm round her. Their two faces were very close. +"You'd have done the same," Jenny urged. + +Something in her tone awakened a suspicion in Emmy's mind. She tried to +see what lay behind those glowing mysteries that were so close to hers. +Her own eyes were shining as if from an inner brightness. The sisters, +so unlike, so inexpressibly contrary in every phase of their outlook, in +every small detail of their history, had this in common--that each, in +her own manner, and with the consequences drawn from differences of +character and aim, had spent happy hours with the man she loved. What +was to follow remained undetermined. But Emmy's heart was warmed with +happiness: she was for the first time filled only with impulses of +kindness and love for Jenny. She would blame no more for Jenny's +desertion. It was just enough, since the consequences of that desertion +had been remedied, to enhance Emmy's sense of her own superiority. There +remained only the journey taken by Jenny. She again took from her +sister's hand the little photograph. Alf's face seemed to come between +the photograph and her careful, poring scrutiny, more the jealous +scrutiny of a mother than that of a sister. + +"He's rather _thin"_, Emmy ventured, dubiously. "What colour are his +eyes?" + +"Blue. And his hair's brown.... He's lovely." + +"He _looks_ nice," Emmy said, relenting. + +"He _is_ nice. Em, dear.... Say you'd have done the same!" + +Emmy gave Jenny a great hug, kissing her as if Jenny had been her little +girl. To Emmy the moment was without alloy. Her own future assured, all +else fell into the orderly picture which made up her view of life. But +she was not quite calm, and it even surprised her to feel so much warmth +of love for Jenny. Still holding her sister, she was conscious of a +quick impulse that was both exulting and pathetically shy. + +"It's funny us both being happy at once. Isn't it!" she whispered, all +sparkling. + + +vi + +To herself Jenny groaned a sufficient retort. + +"I don't know that I'm feeling so tremendously happy my own self," she +thought. For the reaction had set in. She was glad enough to bring about +by various movements their long-delayed bedward journey. She was +beginning to feel that her head and her heart were both aching, and that +any more confidences from Emmy would be unbearable. And where Emmy had +grown communicative--since Emmy had nothing to conceal--Jenny had felt +more and more that her happiness was staled as thought corroded it. By +the time they turned out the kitchen gas the clock pointed to twenty +minutes past two, and the darkest hour was already recorded. In three +more hours the sun would rise, and Jenny knew that long before then she +would see the sky greying as though the successive veils of the +transformation were to reveal the crystal grotto. She preceded Emmy up +the stairs, carrying a candle and lighting the way. At the top of the +staircase Emmy would find her own candle, and they would part. They were +now equally eager for the separation, Emmy because she wanted to think +over and over again the details of her happiness, and to make plans for +a kind of life that was to open afresh in days that lay ahead. Arrived +at the landing the sisters did not pause or kiss, but each looked and +smiled seriously as she entered her bedroom. With the closing of the +doors noise seemed to depart from the little house, though Jenny heard +Emmy moving in her room. The house was in darkness. Emmy was gone; Pa +lay asleep in the dim light, his head bandaged and the water slowly +soaking into the towel protectively laid upon his chest; in the kitchen +the ailing clock ticked away the night. Everything seemed at peace but +Jenny, who, when she had closed the door and set her candle down, went +quickly to the bed, sitting upon its edge and looking straight before +her with dark and sober eyes. + +She had much to think of. She would never forgive herself now for +leaving Pa. It might have been a more serious accident that had happened +during her absence; she could even plead, to Emmy, that the accident +might have happened if she had not left the house at all; but nothing +her quick brain could urge had really satisfied Jenny. The stark fact +remained that she had been there under promise to tend Pa; and that she +had failed in her acknowledged trust. He might have died. If he had +died, she would have been to blame. Not Pa! He couldn't help himself! He +was driven by inner necessity to do things which he must not be allowed +to do. Jenny might have pleaded the same justification. She had done so +before this. It had been a necessity to her to go to Keith. As far as +that went she did not question the paramount power of impulse. Not will, +but the strongest craving, had led her. Jenny could perhaps hardly +discourse learnedly upon such things: she must follow the dictates of +her nature. But she never accused Pa of responsibility. He was an +irresponsible. She had been left to look after him. She had not stayed; +and ill had befallen. A bitter smile curved Jenny's lips. + +"I suppose they'd say it was a punishment," she whispered. "They'd like +to think it was." + +After that she stayed a long time silent, swaying gently while her +candle flickered, her head full of a kind of formless musing. Then she +rose from the bed and took her candle so that she could see her face in +the small mirror upon the dressing-table. The candle flickered still +more in the draught from the open window; and Jenny saw her breath hang +like a cloud before her. In the mirror her face looked deadly pale; and +her lips were slightly drawn as if she were about to cry. Dark shadows +were upon her face, whether real or the work of the feeble light she did +not think to question. She was looking straight at her own eyes, black +with the dilation of pupil, and somehow struck with the horror which was +her deepest emotion. Jenny was speaking to the girl in the glass. + +"I shouldn't have thought it of you," she was saying. "You come out +of a respectable home and you do things like this. Silly little fool, +you are. Silly little fool. Because you can't stand his not loving +you ... you go and do that." For a moment she stopped, turning away, +her lip bitten, her eyes veiled. "Oh, but he does love me!" she +breathed. "_Quite_ as much ... quite as much ... nearly ... nearly as +much...." She sighed deeply, standing lone in the centre of the room, +her long, thin shadow thrown upon the wall in front of her. "And to leave +Pa!" she was thinking, and shaking her head. "_That_ was wrong, when I'd +promised. I shall always know it was wrong. I shall never be able to +forget it as long as I live. Not as long as I live. And if I hadn't +gone, I'd never have seen Keith again--never! He'd have gone off; and my +heart would have broken. I should have got older and older, and hated +everybody. Hated Pa, most likely. And now I just hate myself.... Oh, +it's so difficult!" She moved impatiently, and at last went back to the +mirror, not to look into it but to remove the candle, to blow it out, +and to leave the room in darkness. This done, Jenny drew up the blind, +so that she could see the outlines of the roofs opposite. It seemed to +her that for a long distance there was no sound at all: only there, all +the time, far behind all houses, somewhere buried in the heart of +London, there was the same unintermittent low growl. It was always in +her ears, even at night, like a sleepless pulse, beating steadily +through the silences. + +Jenny was not happy. Her heart was cold. She continued to look from the +window, her face full of gravity. She was hearing again Keith's voice as +he planned their future; but she was not sanguine now. It all seemed too +far away, and so much had happened. So much had happened that seemed as +though it could never be realised, never be a part of memory at all, so +blank and sheer did it now stand, pressing upon her like overwhelming +darkness. She thought again of the bridge, and the striking hours; the +knock, the letter, the hurried ride; she remembered her supper and the +argument with Emmy; the argument with Alf; and her fleeting moods, so +many, so painful, during her time with Keith. To love, to be loved: that +was her sole commandment of life--how learned she knew not. To love and +to work she knew was the theory of Emmy. But how different they were, +how altogether unlike! Emmy with Alf; Jenny with Keith.... + +"Yes, but she's got what she wants," Jenny whispered in the darkness. +"That's what she wants. It wouldn't do for me. Only in this world you've +all got to have one pattern, whether it suits you or not. Else you're +not 'right.' 'They' don't like it. And I'm outside ... I'm a misfit. Eh, +well: it's no good whimpering about it. What must be, must; as they +say!" + +Soberly she moved from the window and began to undress in the darkness, +stopping every now and then as if she were listening to that low humming +far beyond the houses, when the thought of unresting life made her heart +beat more quickly. Away there upon the black running current of the +river was Keith, on that tiny yacht so open upon the treacherous sea to +every kind of danger. And nothing between Keith and sudden, horrible +death but that wooden hulk and his own seamanship. She was Keith's: she +belonged to him; but he did not belong to her. To Keith she might, she +would give all, as she had done; but he would still be apart from her. +He might give his love, his care: but she knew that her pride and her +love must be the love and pride to submit--not Keith's. Away from him, +released from the spell, Jenny knew that she had yielded to him the +freedom she so cherished as her inalienable right. She had given him her +freedom. It was in his power. For her real freedom was her innocence and +her desire to do right. It was not that she wanted to defy, so much as +that she could bear no shackles, and that she had no respect for the +belief that things should be done only because they were always done, +and for no other reason but that of tradition. And she feared nothing +but her own merciless judgment. + +It was not now that she dreaded Emmy's powerlessness to forgive her, or +the opinion of anybody else in the world. It was that she could not +forgive herself. Those who are strong enough to live alone in the world, +so long as they are young and vigorous, have this rare faculty of +self-judgment. It is only when they are exhausted that they turn +elsewhere for judgment and pardon. + +Jenny sat once again upon the bed. + +"Oh Keith, my dearest...." she began. "My Keith...." Her thoughts flew +swiftly to the yacht, to Keith. With unforgettable pain she heard his +voice ringing in her ears, saw his clear eyes, as honest as the day, +looking straight into her own. Pain mingled with love and pride; and +battled there within her heart, making a fine tumult of sensation; and +Jenny felt herself smiling in the darkness at such a conflict. She even +began very softly to laugh. But as if the sound checked her and awoke +the secret sadness that the tumultuous sensations were trying to hide, +her courage suddenly gave way. + +"Keith!" she gently called, her voice barely audible. Only silence was +there. Keith was far away--unreachable. Jenny pressed her hands to her +lips, that were trembling uncontrollably. She rose, struggling for +composure, struggling to get back to the old way of looking at +everything. It seemed imperative that she should do so. In a forlorn, +quivering voice she ventured: + +"What a life! Golly, what a life!" + +But the effort to pretend that she could still make fun of the events of +the evening was too great for Jenny. She threw herself upon the bed, +burying her face in the pillow. + +"Keith ... oh Keith!..." + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Nocturne, by Frank Swinnerton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOCTURNE *** + +***** This file should be named 15177.txt or 15177.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/1/7/15177/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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