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diff --git a/33012-h/33012-h.htm b/33012-h/33012-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a65f7a6 --- /dev/null +++ b/33012-h/33012-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,16329 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> + <head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Carnival, by Compton Mackenzie. +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + p {margin-top:.25em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.25em;text-indent:2%;} + +.cb {font-weight:bold;text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} + +.letter {float:left;font-size:50px;line-height:38px;padding:1px;} + +.nind {text-indent:0%;} + + h1 {text-align:center;clear:both;font-size:300%;margin-top:15%;} + + h3 {margin-top:15%;text-align:center;clear:both;} + +.r {text-align:right;margin-right:5%;} + + hr {width:100%;margin:5% auto 5% auto;border:4px double gray;} + + table {margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;border:none;text-align:left;} + + body{margin-left:2%;margin-right:2%;background:#fdfdfd;color:black;} + +a:link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + + link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + +a:visited {background-color:#ffffff;color:purple;text-decoration:none;} + +a:hover {background-color:#ffffff;color:#FF0000;text-decoration:underline;} + +.smcap {font-variant:small-caps;font-family:"Times New Roman", serif;font-size:95%;} + + img {border:none;} + +.blockd {margin:5% 2% 5% 2%;} + +.figcenter {margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;} +</style> + </head> +<body> + +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Carnival, by Compton Mackenzie + +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: Carnival + +Author: Compton Mackenzie + +Release Date: June 28, 2010 [EBook #33012] +[Last updated: February 29, 2012] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARNIVAL *** + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr /> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33012/33012-h/images/ill_cover_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="image of the book's cover" id="coverpage" +title="image of the book's cover" height="550" width="345" /></a> +</p> + +<h1>CARNIVAL</h1> + +<h3>BY<br /> +COMPTON MACKENZIE</h3> + +<p class="cb">AUTHOR OF "THE PASSIONATE ELOPEMENT"</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p class="cb">NEW YORK<br /> +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /> +1912</p> + +<p class="cb"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1912, by</span><br /> +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /> +<i>Published March, 1912</i><br />Printed in the United States of America</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p class="cb">TO</p> + +<p> </p> + +<h3>MARTIN SECKER</h3> + +<p class="cb"><i>"Put out the light; and then—put out the light."</i></p> + +<h3>Contents</h3> +<table summary="toc" style="font-weight: bold;" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0"> +<tbody><tr><td class="smcap">Chapter</td><td> </td><td>Page</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#I">I</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Birth of Columbine</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_001">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#II">II</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Fairies at the Christening</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_008">8</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#III">III</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Dawn Shadows</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_018">18</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#IV">IV</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Ancient Mischief</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_030">30</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#V">V</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Pretty Apples in Eden</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_040">40</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#VI">VI</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Shepherd's Calendar</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_051">51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#VII">VII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Ambition Wakes</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_061">61</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#VIII">VIII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Ambition Looks in the Glass</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_071">71</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#IX">IX</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Life, Art, and Love</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_089">89</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#X">X</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Drury Lane and Covent Garden</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_108">108</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XI">XI</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Orient Palace of Varieties</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_120">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XII">XII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Growing Old</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_131">131</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XIII">XIII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Ballet of Cupid</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_140">140</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XIV">XIV</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Rain on the Roof</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_152">152</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XV">XV</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Cras Amet</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_153">153</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XVI">XVI</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Love's Halcyon</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_165">165</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XVII">XVII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Columbine Asleep</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_175">175</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XVIII">XVIII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Sweet and Twenty</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_176">176</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XIX">XIX</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Gift of Opals</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_186">186</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XX">XX</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Fête Galante</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_199">199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXI">XXI</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Epilogue</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_216">216</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXII">XXII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Unfinished Statue</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_221">221</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXIII">XXIII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Two Letters</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_234">234</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXIV">XXIV</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Journey's End</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_241">241</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXV">XXV</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Monotone</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_249">249</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXVI">XXVI</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">In Scyros</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_255">255</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXVII">XXVII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Quartette</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_271">271</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">St. Valentine's Eve</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_282">282</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXIX">XXIX</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Columbine at Dawn</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_288">288</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXX">XXX</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Lugete, O Veneres</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_289">289</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXXI">XXXI</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">A Document in Madness</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_298">298</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXXII">XXXII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Pageantry of Death</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_303">303</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXXIII">XXXIII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Loose Ends</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_310">310</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXXIV">XXXIV</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Mr. Z. Trewhella</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_317">317</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXXV">XXXV</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Marriage of Columbine</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_332">332</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXXVI">XXXVI</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Tragic Loading</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_341">341</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXXVII">XXXVII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Columbine in the Dark</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_349">349</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXXVIII">XXXVIII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">The Alien Corn</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_350">350</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XXXIX">XXXIX</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Intermezzo</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_359">359</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XL">XL</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Harvest Home</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_367">367</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XLI">XLI</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Columbine Happy</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_370">370</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XLII">XLII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Shaded Sunlight</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_371">371</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XLIII">XLIII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Bow Bells</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_377">377</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XLIV">XLIV</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Picking up Threads</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_382">382</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XLV">XLV</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">London Pride</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_389">389</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XLVI">XLVI</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">May Morning</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_394">394</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XLVII">XLVII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Nightlight Time</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_399">399</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#XLVIII">XLVIII</a>.</td><td><span class="smcap">Carni Vale</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_404">404</a></td></tr> +</tbody></table> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="I" id="I"></a>Chapter I: <i>The Birth of Columbine</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">A</span>LL day long over the gray Islington Street October, casting pearly +mists, had turned the sun to silver and made London a city of meditation +whose tumbled roofs and parapets and glancing spires appeared hushed and +translucent as in a lake's tranquillity.</p> + +<p>The traffic, muted by the glory of a fine autumn day, marched, it +seemed, more slowly and to a sound of heavier drums. Like mountain +echoes street cries haunted the burnished air, while a muffin-man, +abroad too early for the season, swung his bell intermittently with a +pastoral sound. Even the milk-cart, heard in the next street, provoked +the imagination of distant armor. The houses seemed to acquire from the +gray and silver web of October enchantment a mysterious immensity. There +was no feeling of stressful humanity even in the myriad sounds that, in +a sheen of beauty, floated about the day. The sun went down behind roofs +and left the sky plumed with rosy feathers. There was a cold gray minute +before dusk came stealing in, richly and profoundly blue: then night +sprang upon the street, and through the darkness an equinoctial wind +swept, moaning.</p> + +<p>Along the gutters the brown leaves danced: the tall plane tree at the +end of the street would not be motionless until December should freeze +the black branches in diapery against a somber sky. Along the gutters +the leaves whispered and ran and shivered and leaped, while the gas-jets +flapped in pale lamps.</p> + +<p>There was no starshine on the night Jenny Raeburn was<a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a> born, only a +perpetual sound of leaves dancing and the footsteps of people going +home.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn had not been very conscious of the day's calm beauty. Her +travail had been long: the reward scarcely apprehended. Already two +elder children had closed upon her the gates of youth, and she was +inclined to resent the expense of so much pain for an additional tie. +There was not much to make the great adventure of childbirth endurable. +The transitory amazement of a few relatives was a meager consolation for +the doubts and agonies of nine slow months. But the muslin curtains, +tied back with raffish pink bows, had really worried her most of all. +Something was wrong with them: their dinginess or want of symmetry +annoyed her.</p> + +<p>With one of those rare efforts towards imaginative comprehension, which +the sight of pain arouses in dull and stolid men, her husband had +inquired, when he came back from work, whether there was anything he +could do.</p> + +<p>"Those curtains," she had murmured.</p> + +<p>"Don't you get worrying yourself about curtains," he had replied. +"You've got something better to do than aggravate yourself with +curtains. The curtains is all right."</p> + +<p>Wearily she had turned her face to the sad-colored wallpaper. Wearily +she had transferred her discontent to the absence of one of the small +brass knobs at the foot of the bed.</p> + +<p>"And that knob. You never remember to get a new one."</p> + +<p>"Now it's knobs!" he had exclaimed, wondering at the foolishness of a +woman's mind in the shadows of coming events. "Don't you bother your +head about knobs, either. Try and get a bit of sleep or something, do."</p> + +<p>With this exhortation, he had retired from the darkening room, to wander +round the house lighting various jets of gas, turning them down to the +faintest blue glimmer, and hoping all the while that one of his wife's +sisters would not emerge from the country at the rumor of the baby's +arrival, in order to force her advice upon a powerless household.</p> + +<p>Edith and Alfred, his two elder children, had been carried<a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a> off by the +other aunt to her residence in Barnsbury, whence in three weeks they +would be brought back to home and twilight speculations upon the arrival +of a little brother or sister. In parenthesis, he hoped it would not be +twins. They would be so difficult to explain, and the chaps in the shop +would laugh. The midwife came down to boil some milk and make final +arrangements. The presence of this ample lady disturbed him. The gale +rattling the windows of the kitchen did not provide any feeling of +firelight snugness, but rather made his thoughts more restless, was even +so insistent as to carry them on its wings, weak, formless thoughts, to +the end of Hagworth Street, where the bar of the "Masonic Arms" spread a +wider and more cheerful illumination than was to be found in the harried +kitchen of Number Seventeen. So Charlie Raeburn went out to spend time +and money in piloting several friends across the shallows of Mr. +Gladstone's mind.</p> + +<p>Upstairs Mrs. Raeburn, left alone, again contemplated the annoying +curtains; though by now they were scarcely visible against the gloom +outside. She dragged herself off the bed and, moving across to the +window, stood there, rubbing the muslin between her fingers. She +remained for a while thus, peering at the backs of the houses opposite +that, small though they really were, loomed with menace in the lonely +dusk. Shadows of women at work, always at work, went to and fro upon the +blinds. They were muffled sounds of children crying, the occasional +splash of emptied pails, and against the last glimmer of sunset the +smoke of chimneys blown furiously outwards. To complete the air of +sadness and desolation, the faded leaf of a dried-up geranium was +lisping against the window-pane. She gave up fingering the muslin +curtains and came back to the middle of the room, wondering vaguely when +the next bout of pain was due and why the "woman" didn't come upstairs +and make her comfortable. There were matches on the toilet-table; so she +lit a candle, whose light gave every piece of ugly furniture a shadow +and made the<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a> room ghostly and unfamiliar. Presently she held the light +beside her face and stared at herself in the glass, and thought how +pretty she still looked, and, flushed by the fever, how young.</p> + +<p>She experienced a sensation of fading personality. She seemed actually +to be losing herself. Eyes, bright with excitement, glittered back from +the mirror, and suddenly there came upon her overwhelmingly the fear of +death.</p> + +<p>And if she died, would anybody pity her, or would she lie forgotten +always after the momentary tribute of white chrysanthemums? Death, +death, she found herself saying over to the tune of a clock ticking in +the passage. But she had no desire to die. Christmas was near, with its +shoplit excursions and mistletoe and merriment. Why should she die? No, +she would fight hard. A girl or a boy? What did it matter? Nothing +mattered. Perhaps a girl would be nicer, and she should be called Rose. +And yet, on second thoughts, when you came to think of it, Rose was a +cold sort of a name, and Rosie was common. Why not call her Jenny? That +was better—with, perhaps, Pearl or Ruby to follow, when its +extravagance would pass unnoticed. A girl should always have two names. +But Jenny was the sweeter. Nevertheless, it would be as well to support +so homely a name with a really lady-like one—something out of the +ordinary.</p> + +<p>Why had she married Charlie? All her relatives said she had married +beneath her. Father had been a butcher—a prosperous man—and even he, +in the family tradition, had not been considered good enough for her +mother, who was a chemist's daughter. Yet, she, Florence Unwin, had +married a joiner. Why <i>had</i> she married Charlie? Looking back over the +seven years of their married life, she could not remember a time when +she had loved him as she had dreamed of love in the airy room over the +busy shop, as she had dreamed of love staring through the sunny window +away beyond the Angel, beyond the great London skies. Charlie was so +stupid, so dull; moreover, though not a drunkard, he was fond of<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> +half-pints and smelt of sawdust and furniture polish. Her sisters never +liked, never would like him. She had smirched the great tradition of +respectability. What would her grandfather, the chemist, have said, that +dignified old man in brown velvet coat, treated always with deference, +even by her father, the jolly, handsome butcher? Florence Unwin married +to a joiner—a man unable to afford to keep his house free from the +inevitable lodger who owned the best bedroom—the bedroom that by right +should have been hers. She had disgraced the family and for no high +motive of passion—and once she was young and pretty. And still young, +after all, and still pretty. She was only thirty-three now. Why had she +married at all? But then her sisters did give themselves airs, and the +jolly, handsome butcher had enjoyed too well and too often those drives +to Jack Straw's Castle on fine Sunday afternoons under the rolling +Hampstead clouds, had left little enough when he died, and Charlie came +along, and perhaps even marriage with him had been less intolerable than +existence among the frozen sitting-rooms of her two sisters, drapers +wives though they both were.</p> + +<p>And the aunts, those three severe women? She might, perhaps, have lived +with them when the jolly, handsome butcher died, with them in their +house at Clapton, with them eternally dusting innumerable china +ornaments and correcting elusive mats. The invitation had been extended, +but was forbidding as a mourning-card or the melancholy visit of an +insurance agent with his gossip of death. Death? Was she going to die?</p> + +<p>It did not matter. The pain was growing more acute. She dragged herself +to the door and called down to the midwife; called two or three times.</p> + +<p>There was no answer except from the clock, with its whisper of Death and +Death. Where was the woman? Where was Charlie? She called again. Then +she remembered, through what seemed years of grinding agony, that the +street door was slammed some time ago. Charlie must have gone<a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a> out. With +the woman? Had he run away with her? Was she, the wife, forever +abandoned? Was there no life in all the world to reach her solitude? The +house was fearfully, unnaturally silent. She reached up to the cold gas +bracket, and the light flared up without adding a ray of cheerfulness to +the creaking passage. Higher still she turned it, until it sang towards +the ceiling, a thin geyser of flame. The chequers upon the oil-cloth +became blurred, as tears of self-pity welled up in her eyes. She was +deserted, and in pain.</p> + +<p>Her mind sailed off along morbid channels to the grim populations of +hysteria. She experienced the merely nervous sensation of many black +beetles running at liberty around the empty kitchen. It was a +visualization of tingling nerves, and, fostered by the weakening +influence of labor pains, it extended beyond the mere thought to the +endowment of a mental picture with powerful and malign purpose, so that, +after a moment or two, she came to imagining that between her and the +world outside black beetles were creating an impassable barrier.</p> + +<p>Could Charlie and the woman really have run away? She called again and +peered over the flimsy balustrade down to the ground floor. Or was the +woman lying in the kitchen drunk? Lying there, incapable of action, +among the black beetles? She called again:</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Nightman! Mrs. Nightman!"</p> + +<p>How dry her hands were, how parched her tongue; and her eyes, how they +burned.</p> + +<p>Was she actually dying? Was this engulfing silence the beginning of +death? What was death?</p> + +<p>And what was that? What were those three tall, black figures, moving +along the narrow passage downstairs? What were they, so solemn and tall +and silent, moving with inexorable steps, higher and higher?</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Nightman, Mrs. Nightman!" she shrieked, and stumbled in agony of +body and horror of mind back to the flickering bedroom, back to the +bed.<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a></p> + +<p>And then there was light and a murmur of voices, saying: "We have come +to see how you are feeling, Florence," and sitting by her bed she +recognized the three aunts from Clapton, in their bugles and cameos and +glittering bonnets.</p> + +<p>There was a man, too, whom she had only just time to realize was the +doctor, not the undertaker, before she was aware that the final effort +of her tortured body was being made without assistance from her own will +or courage.</p> + +<p>She waved away the sympathizers. She was glad to see the doctor and Mrs. +Nightman herding them from the room, like gaunt, black sheep; but they +came back again as inquisitive animals will when, after what seemed a +thousand thousand years of pain, she could hear something crying and the +trickle of water and the singing of a kettle.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was Aunt Fanny who said: "It's a dear little girl."</p> + +<p>The doctor nodded, and Mrs. Raeburn stirred, and with wide eyes gazed at +her baby.</p> + +<p>"It is Jenny, after all," she murmured; then wished for the warmth of a +new-born child against her breast.<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="II" id="II"></a>Chapter II: <i>Fairies at the Christening</i></h3> + +<p>A fortnight after the birth of Jenny, her three great-aunts, black and +stately as ever, paid a second visit to the mother.</p> + +<p>"And how is Florrie?" inquired Aunt Alice.</p> + +<p>"Going on fine," said Florrie.</p> + +<p>"And what is the baby to be called?" asked Aunt Fanny.</p> + +<p>"Jenny, and perhaps Pearl as well."</p> + +<p>"Jenny?"</p> + +<p>"Pearl?"</p> + +<p>"Jenny Pearl?"</p> + +<p>The three aunts disapproved the choice with combined interrogation.</p> + +<p>"We were thinking," announced Aunt Alice; "your aunts were thinking, +Florrie, that since we have a good deal of room at Carminia House——"</p> + +<p>"It would be a capital plan for the baby to live with us," went on Aunt +Mary.</p> + +<p>"For since our father died" (old Frederick Horner, the chemist, had been +under a laudatory stone slab at Kensal Green for a quarter of a +century), "there has been room and to spare at Carminia House," said +Aunt Fanny.</p> + +<p>"The baby would be well brought up," Aunt Alice declared.</p> + +<p>"Very well brought up, and sent to a genteel academy for young—ladies." +The break before the last word was due to Miss Horner's momentary but +distinctly perceptible criticism of the unladylike bedroom, where her +niece lay suckling her baby girl.<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a></p> + +<p>"We should not want her at once, of course," Aunt Fanny explained. "We +should not expect to be able to look after her properly—though I +believe there are now many infant foods very highly recommended even by +doctors."</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was the pride of chemical ancestry that sustained Miss +Frances Horner through the indelicacy of the last announcement. But old +maids' flesh was weak, and the carmine suffusing her waxen cheeks drove +the eldest sister into an attempt to cover her confusion by adding that +she, for one, was glad in these days of neglected duties to see a mother +nursing her own child.</p> + +<p>"We feel," she went on, "that the arrival of a little girl shows very +clearly that the Almighty intended us to adopt her. Had it—had she +proved to be a boy, we should have made no suggestions about her, +except, perhaps, that her name should be Frederick after our father, the +chemist."</p> + +<p>"With possibly Philip as a second name," Miss Mary Horner put in.</p> + +<p>"Philip?" her sisters asked.</p> + +<p>And now Miss Mary blushed, whether on account of a breach of sisterly +etiquette, or whether for some guilty memory of a long-withered +affection, was never discovered by her elders or any one else, either.</p> + +<p>"Philip?" her sisters repeated.</p> + +<p>"It is a very respectable name," said Miss Mary apologetically, and for +the life of her could only recall Philip of Spain, whose admirable +qualities were not enough marked to justify her in breaking in upon Miss +Horner's continuation of the discussion.</p> + +<p>"Feeling as we do," the latter said, "that a divine providence has given +a girl-child to the world on account of our earnest prayers, we think we +have a certain right to give our advice, to urge that you, my dear +Florence, should allow us the opportunity of regulating her education +and securing her future. We enjoy between us a comfortable little sum of +money, half of which we propose to set aside for the child.<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a> The rest +has already been promised to the Reverend Williams, to be applied as he +shall think fit."</p> + +<p>"Like an ointment, I suppose," said Florrie.</p> + +<p>"Like an ointment? Like what ointment?"</p> + +<p>"You seem to think that money will cure everything—if it's applied. But +who's going to look after Jenny if you die? Because," she went on, +before they had time to answer, "Jenny isn't going to be applied to the +Reverend Williams. She isn't going to mope all day with Bibles as big as +tramcars on her knees. No, thank you, Aunt Alice, Jenny'll stay with her +mother."</p> + +<p>"Then you won't allow us to adopt her?" snapped Miss Horner, sitting up +so straight in the cane-bottomed chair that it creaked again and again.</p> + +<p>"I don't think," Aunt Fanny put in, "that you are quite old enough to +understand the temptations of a young girl."</p> + +<p>"Aren't I?" said Florence. "I think I know a sight more about 'em than +you do, Aunt Fanny. I am a mother, when all's said and done."</p> + +<p>"But have you got salvation?" asked Miss Horner.</p> + +<p>"I don't see what salvation and that all's got to do with my Jenny," +Mrs. Raeburn argued.</p> + +<p>"But you would like her to be sure of everlasting happiness?" inquired +Miss Fanny mildly, amazed at her niece's obstinacy.</p> + +<p>"I'd like her to be a good girl, yes."</p> + +<p>"But how can she be good till she has found the Lord? We're none of us +good," declared Miss Mary, "till we have been washed in the blood of the +Lamb."</p> + +<p>"I quite believe you're in earnest, Aunt Alice," declared Mrs. Raeburn, +"in earnest, and anxious to do well by Jenny, but I don't hold and never +did hold with cooping children up. Poor little things!"</p> + +<p>"There wouldn't be any cooping up. As a child of grace, she would often +go out walking with her aunts, and sometimes, perhaps often, be allowed +to carry the tracts."<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a></p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn looked down in the round blue eyes of Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you'd like her to jump to glory with a tambourine?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Jump to glory with a tambourine?" echoed Miss Horner.</p> + +<p>"Or bang the ears off of Satan with a blaring drum? Or go squalling up +aloft with them saucy salvation hussies?"</p> + +<p>The austere old ladies were deeply shocked by the levity of their +niece's inquiries.</p> + +<p>Sincerely happy, sincerely good, they were unable to understand any one +not burning to feel at home in the whitewashed chapel which to them was +an abode of murmurous peace. They wanted everybody to recognize with +glad familiarity every text that decorated the bleak walls with an +assurance of heavenly joys. Their quiet encounters with spiritual facts +had nothing in common with those misguided folk who were escorted by +brass bands along the shining road to God. They were happy in the +exclusiveness of their religion, not from any conscious want of charity, +but from the exaltation aroused by the privilege of divine intimacy and +the joyful sense of being favorites in heavenly places. The Rev. Josiah +Williams, for all his liver-colored complexion and clayey nose, was to +them a celestial ambassador. His profuse outpourings of prayer took them +higher than any skylark with its quivering wings. His turgid discourses, +where every metaphor seemed to have escaped from a store's price-list, +were to them more fruitful of imaginative results than any poet's song. +His grave visits, when he seemed always to be either washing his hands +or wiping his boots, left in the hearts of the three old maids memories +more roseate than any sunset of the Apennines. Therefore, when Mrs. +Raeburn demanded to know if they were anxious for Jenny to jump to glory +with a tambourine, the religious economy of the three Miss Horners was +upset. On consideration, even jumping to glory without a tambourine +struck them as an indelicate method of reaching Paradise.<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a></p> + +<p>"And wherever did you get the notion of adopting Jenny?" continued the +niece. "For I'm sure I never suggested any such thing."</p> + +<p>"We got the notion from above, Florence," explained Miss Fanny. "It was +a direct command from our Heavenly Father. I had a vision."</p> + +<p>"Your Aunt Fanny," proclaimed the elder sister, "dreamed she was nursing +a white rabbit. Now, we have not eaten rabbits since, on an occasion +when the Reverend Williams was taking a little supper with us, we +unfortunately had a bad one—a high one. There had been nothing to +suggest rabbits, let alone white rabbits, to your Aunt Fanny. So I said: +'Florence is going to have a baby. It must be a warning.' We consulted +the Reverend Williams, who said it was very remarkable, and must mean +the Almighty was calling upon us as he called upon the infant Samuel. We +inquired first if either of your sisters was going to have a baby, also. +Caroline Threadgale wrote an extremely rude letter, and Mabel Purkiss +was even ruder. So, evidently, it is the will of God that we should +adopt your baby girl. We prayed to Him to make it a little girl, because +we are more familiar with little girls, never having had a brother and +our father having died a good while ago now. Well, it is a girl. So +plainly—oh, my dear niece, can't you see how plainly—God commands you +to obey Him?"</p> + +<p>Then Miss Horner stood up and looked so tall and severe that her niece +was frightened for a moment, and half expected to see the flutter of an +angel's wing over the foot of the bedstead. She nerved herself, however, +to resist the will of Heaven.</p> + +<p>"Dreaming of rabbits hasn't got nothing to do with babies. I forget what +it does mean—burglars, or something, but not babies, and you sha'n't +have Jenny."</p> + +<p>"Think, my dear niece, before you refuse," Miss Horner remonstrated. +"Think before you condemn your child to everlasting damnation, for +nothing but the gates of Hell can<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> come from denying the Heavenly Will. +Think of your child growing up in wickedness and idle places, growing +old in ignorance and contempt of God. Think of her dancing along the +broad ways of Beelzebub, eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree, +kissing and waltzing and making love and theater-going and riding +outside omnibuses. Think of her journeying from vanity unto vanity and +becoming a prey to evil and lascivious men. Remember the wily serpent +who is waiting for her. Give her to us, that she may be washed in the +blood of the Lamb, and crying Hallelujah, may have a harp in the Kingdom +of Heaven.</p> + +<p>"If you reject us," the old lady went on, her marble face taking on the +lively hues of passion, her eyes on fire with the greatness of her +message, "you reject God. Your daughter will go by ways you know not of; +she will be lost in the mazes of destruction, she will fall in the pit +of sin. She will be trampled under foot on the Day of Judgment, and be +flung forever into wailing and gnashing of teeth. Her going out and +coming in will be perilous. Her path will be set with snares of the +giant of Iniquity. Listen to us, my dear niece, lest your child become a +daughter of pleasure, a perpetual desire to the evil-minded. Give her us +that we may keep her where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and no +thieves break in and steal."</p> + +<p>The old lady, exhausted by the force of her prophecy, sank down into the +chair, and, elated by the splendors of the divine wrath, seemed indeed +to be a noble and fervid messenger from God.</p> + +<p>In Mrs. Raeburn, however, these denunciations wakened a feeling of +resentment.</p> + +<p>"Here," she cried, "are you cursing my Jenny?"</p> + +<p>"We are warning you."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't sit nodding there like three crows; your cursing will come +to nothing, because you don't know nothing about London, nor about life, +nor about nothing. What's the good of joring about the way to Heaven, +when you don't<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> know the way to Liverpool Street without asking a +policeman? I say Jenny shall be happy. I say she shall be jolly and +merry and laugh when she's a mind to, bless her, and never come to no +harm with her mother to look after her. She sha'n't be a Plain Jane and +No Nonsense, with her hair screwed back like a broom, but she shall be +Jenny, sweet and handsome, with lips made for kissing and eyes that will +sparkle and shine like six o'clock of a summer morning."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn was sitting up in bed, holding high the unconscious infant.</p> + +<p>"And she <i>shall</i> be happy, d'ye hear? And you sha'n't have her, so get +out, and don't wag your bonnets at my Jenny."</p> + +<p>The three aunts looked at each other.</p> + +<p>"I see the footprints of Satan in this room," said Miss Horner.</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it," contradicted her niece. "It's your own muddy feet."</p> + +<p>Outside, a German band, seduced from hibernation by St. Luke's summer, +played the "March of the Priests" from "Athalie," leaving out the more +important notes, and soon a jaded omnibus, with the nodding bonnets of +the three Miss Horners, jogged slowly back to Clapton.</p> + +<p>When the Miss Horners withdrew from the dingy bedroom the swish and +rustle of their occupation, Mrs. Raeburn was at first relieved, +afterwards indignant, finally anxious.</p> + +<p>Could this strawberry-colored piece of womanhood beside her really be +liable to such a life of danger and temptation and destruction? Could +this wide-eyed stolidity ever become a spark to set men's hearts afire? +Would those soft, uncrumpling hands know some day love's fever? No, no, +her Jenny should be a home-bird—always a home-bird, and marry some nice +young chap who could afford to give her a comfortable house where she +could smile at children of her own, when the three old aunts had +moldered away like dry sticks of lavender. All that babble of flames and +hell was due to<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a> religion gone mad, to extravagant perusal of +brass-bound Bibles, to sour virginity. With some perception of human +weakness, Mrs. Raeburn began to realize that her aunts' heads were full +of heated imaginations because they had never possessed an outlet in +youth. The fierce adventures of passion had been withheld from them, and +now, in old age, they were playing with fires that should have been +extinguished long ago. Fancy living with those terrible old women at +Clapton, hearing nothing but whispers of hell-fire. All that talk of +looking after Jenny's soul was just telling the tale. There must be some +scheme behind it all. Perhaps they wanted to save money in a servant, +and thought to bring on Jenny by degrees to a condition of undignified +utility.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn was by no means a harsh judge of human nature, but her +aunts having arrived at an unpropitious moment, she could not see their +offer from a reasonable standpoint. Moreover, she had the proud woman's +invariable suspicion of a gift; withal, there was a certain cynicism +which made her say "presents weren't given for nothing in this world." +Anyway, she decided, they were gone, and a good riddance, and she +wouldn't ask them to Hagworth Street again in a hurry. The problem of +getting in a woman to help now arose. Mrs. Nightman was off to-morrow; +Alf and Ede would be back in a week, and Charlie's breakfast must be +attended to. Mrs. Nightman informed her she knew where a likely girl of +fifteen was to be found—a child warranted to be willing and clean and +truthful. To-morrow, Mrs. Raeburn settled, this paragon must be +interviewed.</p> + +<p>To-morrow dawned, and in the wake of sunrise came the paragon. She still +wore the dresses of childhood, but paid toll to responsibleness by +screwing up her mouse-colored hair to the likeness of a cockle-shell, +adding thereby, in her mother's estimation, eighteen months, in her own, +ten years, to her age. She was a plum-faced child, with glazed cheeks. +Her nose, Mrs. Raeburn observed with pleasure, did not drip like palings +on a wet day. The paragon was just an ordinary<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a> old little girl, pitched +into life with a pair of ill-fitting boots, a pinafore, and half a dozen +hairpins. But she would do. Wait a minute. Was she inclined to loll or +mouch? No. Was she bound to tilt a perambulator? No. Must she read light +fiction when crossing a road? She didn't like reading.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn decided more than ever that she would do.</p> + +<p>Was she good at washing unwilling children? She washed many brothers and +sisters with yellow soap and dried them thoroughly every Saturday night. +Did she want the place? Mother would be glad if she got it. What was her +name? Ruby. Mrs. Raeburn thanked goodness she had abandoned Ruby as a +possible suffix to Jenny. Her surname? O'Connor. Irish? She didn't know. +Yes, she should have a week's trial.</p> + +<p>So the paragon became a part of the household as integral as the +furniture and almost as ugly, and, as she grew older, almost as +unnecessarily decorated. Alfie, the young Tartar, tried to break her in +by severe usage, but succumbed to the paragon's complete imperviousness. +Edie was too young to regard her as anything but an audience for long +and baseless fits of weeping.</p> + +<p>The two children were brought back by Aunt Mabel from her house at +Barnsbury, where they had sojourned during the birth of their sister.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn was softer and plumper and shorter than her sister. She had +a rosy complexion, and eyes as bright as a bird's. She had, too, the +merriest laugh in the world till Jenny grew older and made it sound +almost mirthless beside her own. It was this capacity for laughter which +made her resent the aunts' attempt to capture Jenny for melancholy.</p> + +<p>Although, before the child's birth, she had not been particularly +enthusiastic about its arrival, the baby already possessed a personality +so compelling that the mother esteemed her above both the elder +children, not because she was the last born, but because she genuinely +felt the world was the richer by her baby. If she had been asked to +express this conviction in words, she would have been at a loss. She +would have<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> been embarrassed and self-conscious, sure that you were +laughing at her. She did venture once to ask Mabel if she thought Jenny +prettier than the other two; but Mabel laughed indulgently, and Mrs. +Raeburn could not bring herself to enlarge upon the point.</p> + +<p>She wished somehow that her mother could have lived to see Jenny, and +her father, too. Of this desire she was not aware when Alfie and Edie +arrived. She felt positive her father would have considered Jenny full +of life. Paradoxically enough for a butcher, Mr. Unwin had admired life +more than anything else. Perhaps Mrs. Raeburn experienced an elation +akin to that felt of old by wayside nymphs who bore children to Apollo +and other divine philanderers. She knew that, however uneventful the +rest of her life might be, in achieving Jenny she had done something +comparable to her dreams as a girl in the sunny Islington window that +looked away down to the Angel. She could not help feeling a subtle pity +for her elder sister, whose first-born was due in May. Boy or girl, it +would be a putty statuette beside her Jenny. The latter was alive. How +amazingly she was conscious of that vitality in the darkness, when she +felt the baby against her breast.</p> + +<p>Her own eyes were bright, but Jenny's eyes were stars that made her own +look like pennies beside them. Such fancies she found herself weaving, +lying awake in the night-time.<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="III" id="III"></a>Chapter III: <i>Dawn Shadows</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">J</span>ENNY reached the age of two years and a few months without surprising +her relatives by any prodigious feats of intelligence or wickedness. But +in Hagworth Street there was not much leisure to regard the progress of +babyhood. There was no time for more than physical comparisons with +other children. It would be pleasant to pretend that Jenny gazed at the +stars, clapping a welcome to Caesiopea and singing to the Pleiades; but, +as a matter of fact, it was not very easy to regard the heavens from the +kitchen window of Number Seventeen. I should be happy to say that +flowers were a joy to her from the beginning, but very few flowers came +to Hagworth Street—groundsel for the canary sometimes, and plantains, +but not much else. The main interest of Jenny's earliest days lay rather +with her mother than herself.</p> + +<p>The visit of the three old aunts roused Mrs. Raeburn to express her +imagination at first, but gradually assumed a commonplace character as +the months rolled by without another visit and as Jenny, with a chair +pushed before her, learned to walk rather earlier than most children, +but showed no other sign of suffering or benefiting by that grim +intervention. Perhaps, when she pushed her wooden guide so quickly along +the landing that chair and child bumped together down every stair, her +mother was inclined to think she was lucky not to be killed. Anyway, she +said so to the child, who was shrieking on the mat in the hall; and in +after years Jenny could<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> remember the painful incident. Indeed, that and +a backward splash into the washtub on the first occasion of wearing a +frock of damson velveteen, were the only events of her earliest life +that impressed themselves at all sharply or completely upon her mind. +Through time's distorted haze she could also vaguely recall an adventure +with treacle when, egged on by Alfie, she had explored the darkness of +an inset cupboard and wedged the stolen tin of golden syrup so tightly +round her silvery curls that Alfie had shouted for help. The sensation +of the sticky substance trickling down her face in numerous thin streams +remained with her always.</p> + +<p>People were only realized in portions. For example, Ruby O'Connor +existed as a rough, red hand, descending upon her suddenly in the midst +of baby enjoyments. Alfie and Edie were two noises, acquiring with +greater nearness the character of predatory birds. That is to say, in +Jenny's mind the intimate approach of either always announced loss or +interruption of a pleasure. Her father she first apprehended as a pair +of legs forming a gigantic archway, vast as the Colossus of Rhodes must +have loomed to the triremes of the Confederacy. Better than kisses or +admonitions, she remembered her mother's skirt, whether as support or +sanctuary. The rest of mankind she did not at all distinguish from trees +walking. She was better able to conceive a smile than a face, but the +realization of either largely depended upon its association with the +handkerchief of "peep-bo."</p> + +<p>Seventeen Hagworth Street was familiar, first of all, through the step +of the front door, which she invariably was commanded to beware. She did +not grasp its propinquity from the perambulator, for, when lifted out of +the latter and told to run in to mother, it was only the step which +assured her of the vast shadowy place of warmth and familiar smells in +which she spent most of her existence. Of the smells, the best +remembered in after-life was that of warm blankets before the kitchen +fire. Her only approach to an idea of property rested in the security of +a slice of bread and butter,<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> which could be devoured slowly without +wakening Alfie's cupidity. On the other hand, when jam was added, the +slice must be gobbled, not from greediness, but for fear of losing it. +This applied also to the incidental booty of stray chocolates or paints. +Her notion of territory was confined to places where she could sit or +lie at ease. The patchwork hearthrug, which provided warmth, softness, +something to tug at, and, sometimes, pieces of coal to chew, was +probably her earliest conception of home, and perhaps her first +disillusionment was due to a volatile spark burning her cheek. Bed +struck her less as a prelude to the oblivion of sleep than as a spot +where she was not worried about sucking her thumb. Perhaps her first +emotion of mere sensuousness was the delicious anticipation of +thumb-sucking as Ruby O'Connor propelled her upstairs with the knee, a +sensuousness that was only very slightly ruffled by the thought of soap +and flannelette. Suspicion was born when once she was given a spoonful +of jam, whose melting sweetness disclosed a clammy sediment of gray +powder, so that ever afterwards the offer of a spoon meant kicks and +yells, dribbles and clenched resistance. Her first deception lay in +pretending to be asleep when she was actually awake, as animals +counterfeit death to avoid disturbance. Whether, however, she had any +idea of being what she was not, is unlikely, as she did not yet possess +a notion of being. Probably "peep-bo," when first practiced by herself, +helped to formulate an embryonic egotism.</p> + +<p>The birth of light on summer mornings kindled a sense of wonder when she +realized that light did not depend on human agency. Later on, dawn was +connected in her mind with the suddenly jerky movement of the +night-light's luminous reflection upon the ceiling, at which she would +stare for hours in meditative content. This movement was always followed +by the splutter and hiss of the drowning wick, and her first feeling of +nocturnal terror was experienced when once these symptoms occurred and +were followed, not by morning light, but by darkness. Then she shrieked, +not because she<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a> feared anything in the darkness yet, but because she +could not understand it.</p> + +<p>The sensations of this Islington baby may have resembled those of a +full-grown Carib or Hottentot in their simple acceptance of primary +facts, in a desire for synthetic representation which distinguishes an +unsophisticated audience of plays, in that odd passion for accuracy +whose breach upsets a habit, whose observance confirms dogs, children +and savages in their hold upon life.</p> + +<p>As was natural for one more usually occupied with effects than causes, +Jenny took delight in colored chalks and beads, and probably a vivid +scarlet <i>pélisse</i> first awoke her dormant sense of beauty. The +appearance of this vestment was more important than its purpose, but the +tying on of her "ta-ta"—at first a frilled bonnet, later on a rakish +Tam o' Shanter—was clapped as the herald of drowsy glidings in cool +airs. She would sit in the perambulator staring solemnly at Ruby, and +only opening her eyes a little wider when she was bumped down to take a +crossing and up to regain the pavement. Passers-by, who leaned over to +admire her, gained no more appreciation than a puzzled blink, less than +was vouchsafed to the sudden shadow of a bird's flight across her +vision.</p> + +<p>Then came hot summer days and a sailor hat which enrolled her in the +crew of the H.M.S. <i>Goliath</i>. This hat she disliked on account of the +elastic, which Alfie loved to catch hold of and let go with a smacking +sound that hurt her chin dreadfully; and sometimes in tugging at it, she +would herself let it slip so that it caught her nose like a whip.</p> + +<p>These slow promenades up and down the shady side of Hagworth Street were +very pleasant; although the inevitable buckling of the strap began to +impede her ideas of freedom, so much so in time that it became a duty to +herself to wriggle as much as possible before she let Ruby fasten it +round her waist. Perhaps the first real struggle for self-expression +happened on a muddy day, when she discovered that, by letting her podgy +hand droop over the edge of the<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> perambulator, the palm of it could be +exquisitely tickled by the slow and moist revolutions of the wheel. Ruby +instantly forbade this. Jenny declined to obey the command. Ruby leaned +over and slapped the offending hand. Jenny shrieked and kicked. Edie +fell down and became involved with the wheels of the perambulator. Alfie +knelt by a drain to pretend he was fishing. Jenny screamed louder and +louder. An errand-boy looked on. An old lady rebuked the flustered Ruby. +The rabbit-skin rug palpitated with angry little feet, Ruby put up the +hood and tightened the strap round Jenny, making her more furious than +ever. It came on to rain. It came on to blow. It was altogether a +thoroughly unsatisfactory morning.</p> + +<p>"I'll learn you, Miss Artful, when I gets you home. You will have your +own way, will you? Young Alfie, come out of the gutter, you naughty boy. +I'll tell your father. Get up, do, Edie."</p> + +<p>At last they reached Number Seventeen. Summoned by yells, Mrs. Raeburn +came to the door.</p> + +<p>"Whatever have you been doing to the children, Ruby?"</p> + +<p>"Lor', mum, they've been that naughty, I haven't known if I was on my +head or my heels."</p> + +<p>The interfering old lady came up at this moment.</p> + +<p>"That girl of yours was beating your baby disgracefully."</p> + +<p>"No, I never," declared Ruby.</p> + +<p>"I shall report you to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to +Children."</p> + +<p>"That's right, Mother Longnose, you'll do a lot," said Ruby, whose Irish +ancestry was flooding her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Were you whipping Jenny?" inquired Mrs. Raeburn.</p> + +<p>"I slapped her wrist."</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>"Because she wouldn't keep her hands off of the wheel. I told her not +to, but she would go on."</p> + +<p>"I shall report you all," announced the old lady.</p> + +<p>This irritated Mrs. Raeburn, who replied that she would<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a> report the old +lady as a wandering lunatic. Jenny's right to act as she wished was in +the balance. The old lady, like many another before, ruined freedom's +cause by untimely propaganda. Mrs. Raeburn plucked her daughter from the +perambulator, shook her severely, and said: "You bad, naughty girl," +several times in succession. Jenny paused for a moment in surprise, then +burst into yells louder by far than she had ever achieved before, and +was carried into the house out of reach of sympathy.</p> + +<p>From that moment she was alert to combat authority. From that moment to +the end of her days, life could offer her nothing more hateful than +attempted repression. That this struggle over the wheel of a +perambulator endowed her with a consciousness of her own personality, it +would be hard to assert positively, but it is significant that about +this age (two years and eight months) she no longer always spoke of +herself as Jenny, but sometimes took the first personal pronoun. Also, +about this age, she began to imagine that people were laughing at her, +and, being taken by her mother into a shop on one occasion, set up a +commotion of tears, because, she insisted, the ladies behind the counter +were laughing at her, when really the poor ladies were trying to be +particularly pleasant. When Jenny was three, another baby came to +Hagworth Street—dark-eyed, puny, and wan-looking. Jenny was put on the +bed beside her.</p> + +<p>"This is May," said her mother.</p> + +<p>"I love May," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Very much, do you love her?"</p> + +<p>"Jenny loves May. I love May. May is Jenny's dolly."</p> + +<p>And from that moment, notwithstanding the temporary interruptions of +many passionate quarrels, Jenny made that dark-eyed little sister one of +the great facts in her life. This was well for May, because, as she grew +older, she grew into a hunchback.</p> + +<p>Two more years went by of daily walks and insignificant<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> adventures. +Jenny was five. Alfie and Edie were now stalwart scholars, who rushed +off in the mornings, the former armed, according to the season, with +chestnuts, pegtops or bags of marbles, the latter full of whispers and +giggles, always one of a bunch of other little girls distinguishable +only by dress. About this time Jenny came to the conclusion she did not +want to be a girl any longer. But the bedrock of sexual differences +puzzled her: obviously one vital quality of boyishness was the right to +wear breeches. Jenny took off her petticoats and stalked about the +kitchen.</p> + +<p>"You rude thing!" said Ruby, shocked by the exhibition.</p> + +<p>"I'm not a rude thing," Jenny declared; "I'm being a boy."</p> + +<p>"And wherever is your petticoats?"</p> + +<p>"I frowed 'em away," said Jenny. "I'm a boy."</p> + +<p>"You're rude little girl."</p> + +<p>"I'm not a girl. I won't be a girl. I want to be a boy." Jenny darted +for the street, encountering by the gate the outraged blushes of Edie +and her bunch of secretive companions.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever?" said the ripest. "Look at Edie's sister."</p> + +<p>Boys opposite began to "holler." Alfie appeared bent double in an effort +to secure a blood ally. He lost at once the marble and the respect of +his schoolfellows. His confusion was terrible. His sister skirtless +before the public eye! Young Jenny making him look like a fool!</p> + +<p>"Go on in, you little devil," he shouted. He ground his teeth.</p> + +<p>"Go on in!"</p> + +<p>Ruby was by this time in pursuit of the rebel. Mrs. Raeburn had been +warned and was already at the gate. Alfie, haunted by a thousand mocking +eyes, fled to his room and wept tears of shame. Edie broke away from her +friends, and stood, breathing very fast, in petrified anticipation. +Jenny was led indoors and up to bed.</p> + +<p>"Why can't I be a boy?" she moaned.<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a></p> + +<p>"Well, there's a sauce!" said Ruby. "However on earth can you be a boy +when you've been made a girl?"</p> + +<p>"But I don't want to be a girl."</p> + +<p>"Well, you've got to be, and that's all about it. You'll be fidgeting +for the moon next. Besides, if you go trapesing round half-dressed, the +policeman'll have you."</p> + +<p>Jenny had heard of the powers of the policeman for a long time. Those +guardians of order stood for her as sinister, inhuman figures, always +ready to spring on little girls and carry them off to unknown places. +She was never taught to regard them as kindly defenders on whom one +could rely in emergencies, but looked upon them with all the suspicion +of a dog for a uniform. Their large quiescence and their habit of +looming unexpectedly round corners shed a cloud upon the sunniest +moment. They were images of vengeance at whose approach even boys +huddled together, shamefaced.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn came upstairs to interview her discontented daughter.</p> + +<p>"Don't you ever do any such thing again. Behaving like a tomboy!"</p> + +<p>"Why mayn't I be a boy?"</p> + +<p>"Because you're a girl."</p> + +<p>"Who said so?"</p> + +<p>"God."</p> + +<p>"Who's God?"</p> + +<p>"That's neither here nor there."</p> + +<p>God was another shadow upon enjoyment. He was not to be found by pillar +boxes. He did not lurk in archways, it is true. He was apparently not a +policeman, but something bigger, even, than a policeman. She had seen +His picture—old and irritable, among the clouds.</p> + +<p>"Why did God say so?"</p> + +<p>"Because He knows best."</p> + +<p>"But I want to be a boy."</p> + +<p>"Would you like me to cut off all your curls?"</p> + +<p>"No—o—o."<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a></p> + +<p>"Well, if you want to be a boy, off they'll have to come. Don't make any +mistake about that—every one, and I'll give them to May. Then you'll be +a sight."</p> + +<p>"Am I a girl because I'm pretty?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Is that what girls are for?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>This adventure made Jenny much older because it set her imagination +working, or rather it made her imagination concentrate. Reasons and +causes began to float nebulously before her mind. She began to ask +questions. Gone was the placid acceptance of facts. Gone was the stolid +life of babyhood. Darkness no longer terrified her because it was not +light, but because it was populated with inhabitants both dismal and +ill-minded. At first these shapes were undefined, mere cloudy +visualizations of Ruby's vague threats. Bogymen existed in cupboards and +other places of secluded darkness, but without any appearance capable of +making a pictorial impression. It was a Punch and Judy show that first +endowed the night with visible and malicious shadows.</p> + +<p>The sound of the drum boomed from the far end of Hagworth Street. The +continual reiteration of the pipes' short phrase of melody summoned boys +and girls from every area. The miniature theater stood up tall in a +mystery of curtains. Row after row of children was formed, row upon row +waited patiently till the showman left off his two instruments and gave +the word to begin. Down below, ineffably magical, sounded the squeaking +voice of Punch. Up he came, swinging his little legs across the sill; up +he came in a glory of red and yellow, and a jingle of bells. Jenny gazed +spell-bound from her place in the very front row. She laughed gayly at +this world of long noses and squeaking merriment, of awkward, yet +incredibly agile movement. She turned round to see how the bigger +children behind enjoyed it all, and fidgeted from one foot to the other +in an ecstasy of appreciation. She laughed when Punch hit Judy; she +laughed<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a> louder still when he threw the baby into the street. She +gloried in his discomfiture of the melancholy showman with squeaky wit. +He was a wonderful fellow, this Punch; always victorious with stick and +tongue. His defeat of the beadle was magnificent; his treatment of Jim +Crow a triumph of strategy. To be sure, he was no match for Joey, the +clown. But lived there the mortal who could have contended successfully +with such a jovial and active and indefatigable assailant?</p> + +<p>Jenny was beginning to see the world with new eyes. The kitchen of +Number Seventeen became a dull place; the street meant more to her than +ever now, with the possibility of meeting in reality this enchanted +company, to whom obedience, repression, good-behavior were just so many +jokes to be laughed out of existence. How much superior to Jenny's house +was Punch's house. How delicious it would be to bury dogs in coffins. +But the clown! After all, he could have turned even Jenny's house into +one long surprise. He summed up all Jenny's ideas of enjoyment. She +heard Ruby behind her commenting upon his action as "owdacious." The +same unsympathetic tyrant had often called her "owdacious," and here, +before her dancing deep eyes, was audacity made manifest. How she longed +to be actually of this merriment, not merely a spectator at the back of +whose mind bed loomed as the dull but inevitable climax of all delight.</p> + +<p>Then came the episode of the hangman, and the quavering note of fear in +Punch's voice found a responsive echo in her own.</p> + +<p>"He's going to be hanged," said Ruby gloatingly.</p> + +<p>Jenny began to feel uneasy. Even in this irresponsible world, there was +unpleasantness in the background.</p> + +<p>Then came the ghost—a terrifying figure. And then came a green dragon, +with cruel, snapping jaws—even more terrifying—but most terrifying of +all was Ruby's answer to her whispered inquiry:</p> + +<p>"Why was all that?"<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a></p> + +<p>"Because Punch was a bad, wicked man."</p> + +<p>The street so crudely painted on the back of the puppet-show took on +suddenly a strange and uninviting emptiness, seemed to stand out behind +the figures with a horrid likeness to Hagworth Street, to Hagworth +Street in a bad dream devoid of friendly faces. Was a green dragon the +end of pleasure? It was all very disconcerting.</p> + +<p>The play was over; the halfpennies had been gathered in. The lamplighter +was coming round, and through the dusk the noise of pipe and drums +slowly grew faint in the distance with a melancholy foreboding of +finality.</p> + +<p>Jenny's brain was buzzing with a multitude of self-contradictory +impressions. For once, in a way, she was glad to hold tightly on to +Ruby's rough, red hand. But the conversation between Ruby and another +big girl on the way home was not encouraging.</p> + +<p>"And she was found in an area with her throat cut open in a stream of +blood, and the man as did it got away and ain't been caught yet."</p> + +<p>"There's been a lot of these murders lately," said Ruby.</p> + +<p>"Hundreds," corroborated her friend.</p> + +<p>"Every night," added Ruby, "sometimes two."</p> + +<p>"I've been afraid to sleep alone. You can hear the paper boys calling of +'em out."</p> + +<p>True enough, that very night, Jenny, lying awake, heard down the street +cries gradually coming nearer in colloquial announcement of sudden +death, in hoarse revelations of blood and disaster.</p> + +<p>"Could I be murdered?" she asked next day.</p> + +<p>"Of course you could," was Ruby's cheerful reply. "Especially if you +isn't a good girl."</p> + +<p>Jenny went over in her mind the drama of Punch and Judy. Murder meant +being knocked on the head with a stick and thrown out of the window.</p> + +<p>That night again the cries went surging up and down the street. Details +of mutilation floated in through the foggy<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> air till the flickering +night-light showed peeping hangmen in every dim corner. Jenny covered +herself with the blankets and pressed hot, sleepless eyelids close to +her eyes, hoping to distract herself from the contemplation of horror by +the gay wheels of dazzling colors which such an action always produces. +The wheels appeared, but presently turned to the similitude of blood-red +spots. She opened her eyes again. The room seemed monstrously large. +Edie was beside her. She shook her sleeping sister.</p> + +<p>"Wake up; oh, Edie, do wake up!"</p> + +<p>"Whatever is it, you great nuisance?"</p> + +<p>In the far distance, "Another Horrible Murder in Whitechapel," answered +Edie's question, and Jenny began to scream.<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>Chapter IV: <i>The Ancient Mischief</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>HERE was nothing to counterbalance the terrors of childhood in Hagworth +Street. Outside the hope of one day being able to do as she liked, Jenny +had no ideals. Worse, she had no fairyland. Soon she would be given at +school a bald narrative of Cinderella or Red Riding Hood, where every +word above a monosyllable would be divided in such a way that hyphens +would always seem of greater importance than elves.</p> + +<p>About this time Jenny's greatest joy was music, and in connection with +this an incident occurred which, though she never remembered it herself, +had yet such a tremendous importance in some of its side-issues as to +deserve record.</p> + +<p>It was a fine day in early summer. All the morning, Jenny, on account of +household duties, had been kept indoors, and, some impulse of freedom +stirring in her young heart, she slipped out alone into the sunlit +street. Somewhere close at hand a piano-organ was playing the intermezzo +from "Cavalleria," and the child tripped towards the sound. Soon she +came upon the player, and stood, finger in mouth, abashed for a moment, +but the Italian beamed at her—an honest smile of welcome, for she was +obviously no bringer of pence. Wooed by his friendliness, Jenny began to +dance in perfect time, marking with little feet the slow rhythm of the +tune.</p> + +<p>In scarlet serge dress and cap of scarlet stockinette, she danced to the +tinsel melody. Unhampered by anything save the need for self-expression, +she expressed the joyousness of a London morning as her feet took the +paving-stones all dappled and flecked with shadows of the tall plane +tree at the<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> end of Hagworth Street. She was a dainty child, with +silvery curls and almond eyes where laughter rippled in a blue so deep +you would have vowed they were brown. The scarlet of her dress, through +long use, had taken on the soft texture of a pastel.</p> + +<p>Picture her, then, dancing alone in the quiet Islington street to this +faded tune of Italy, as presently down the street that seemed stained +with the warmth of alien suns shuffled an old man. He stopped to regard +the dancing child over the crook of his ebony walking-stick.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you Mrs. Raeburn's little girl?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Jenny melted into shyness, lost nearly all her beauty, and became +bunched and ordinary for a moment.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"Humph!" grunted the old man, and solemnly presented the organ grinder +with a halfpenny.</p> + +<p>Ruby O'Connor's voice rang out down the street.</p> + +<p>"Come back directly, you limb!" she called. Jenny looked irresolute, but +presently decided to obey.</p> + +<p>That same evening the old man tapped at the kitchen door.</p> + +<p>"Come in," said Mrs. Raeburn. "Is that you, Mr. Vergoe? Something gone +wrong with your gas again? I do wish Charlie would remember to mend it."</p> + +<p>"No, there's nothing the matter with the gas," explained the lodger. +(For Mr. Vergoe was the lodger of Number Seventeen.) "Only I think that +child of yours'll make a dancer some day."</p> + +<p>"Make a what?" said the mother.</p> + +<p>"A dancer. I was watching her this morning. Wonderful notion of time. +You ought to have her trained, so to speak."</p> + +<p>"My good gracious, whatever for?"</p> + +<p>"The stage, of course."</p> + +<p>"No, thank <i>you</i>. I don't want none of my children gadding round +theaters."<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a></p> + +<p>"But you like a good play yourself?"</p> + +<p>"That's quite another kettle of fish. Thank you all the same, Mr. +Vergoe, Jenny'll not go on to the stage."</p> + +<p>"You're making a great mistake," he insisted. "And I suppose I know +something about dancing, or ought to, as it were."</p> + +<p>"I have my own ideas what's good for Jenny."</p> + +<p>"But ain't she going to have a say in the matter, so to speak?"</p> + +<p>"My dear man, she isn't seven yet."</p> + +<p>"None too early to start dancing."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather not, thank you, and please don't start putting fancies in +the child's head."</p> + +<p>"Of course, I shouldn't. Of course not. That ain't to be thought of."</p> + +<p>But the very next day Mr. Walter Vergoe invited Jenny to come and see +some pretty picture-books, and Jenny, with much finger and pinafore +sucking and buried cheeks, followed him through the door near which she +had always been commanded not to loiter.</p> + +<p>"Come in, my dear, and look at Mr. Vergoe's pretty pictures. Don't be +shy. Here's a bag of lollipops," he said, holding up a pennyworth of +bull's-eyes.</p> + +<p>On the jolly June morning the room where the old clown had elected to +spend his frequently postponed retirement was exceedingly pleasant. The +sun streamed in through the big bay-window: the sparrows cheeped and +twittered outside, and on the window-sill a box of round-faced pansies +danced in the merry June breeze. The walls were hung with silhouettes of +the great dead and tinsel pictures of bygone dramas and harlequinades +and tragedies. There were daguerreotypes of beauties in crinolines, of +ruddy-cheeked actors and apple-faced old actresses. There was a +pinchbeck crown and scepter hung below a small sword with guard of cut +steel. There were framed letters and testimonials on paper gradually +rusting, written with ink that was every day losing more and more of its +ancient blackness. There were steel engravings of this<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> or that pillared +Theatre Royal, stuck round with <i>menus</i> of long-digested suppers; and on +the mantlepiece was a row of champagne corks whose glad explosions +happened years ago. There was a rosewood piano, whose ivory keys were +the color of coffee, whose fretwork displayed a pleated silk that once +was crimson as wine. But the most remarkable thing in the room was a +clown's dress hanging below a wreath of sausages from a hook on the +door. It used, in the days of the clown's activity, to hang thus in his +dressing-room, and when he came out of the stage door for the last time +and went home to stewed tripe and cockles with two old friends, he took +the dress with him in a brown-paper parcel and hung it up after supper. +It confronted him now like a disembodied joy whose race was over. +Rheumatic were the knees that once upon a time were bent in the wide +laugh of welcome, while in the corner a red-hot poker's vermilion fire +was harmless forevermore. Dreaming on winter eves near Christmas time, +Mr. Vergoe would think of those ample pockets that once held +inexhaustible supplies of crackers. Dreaming on winter eves by the +fireside, he would hear out of the past the laughter of children and the +flutter of the footlights, and would murmur to himself in whistling +accents: "Here we are again."</p> + +<p>There he was again, indeed, an old man by a dying fire, sitting among +the ashes of burnt-out jollities.</p> + +<p>But on the morning of Jenny's visit the clown was very much awake. For +all Mrs. Raeburn's exhortations not to put fancies in the child's head, +Mr. Vergoe was very sure in his own mind of Jenny's ultimate destiny. He +was not concerned with the propriety of Clapton aunts, with the +respectability of drapers' wives. He was not haunted by the severe ghost +of Frederick Horner, the chemist. As he watched Jenny dancing to the +sugared melodies of "Cavalleria," he beheld an artist in the making: +that was enough for Mr. Vergoe. He owed no obligations to anything +except Art, and no responsibleness to anybody except the public.</p> + +<p>"Here's a lot of pretty things, ain't there, my dear?"<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a></p> + +<p>"Yes," Jenny agreed, with eyes buried deep in a scarlet sleeve.</p> + +<p>"Come along now and sit on this chair, which belonged, so they say, so +they told me in Red Lion Court where I bought it, to the great Joseph +Grimaldi. But then, you never heard of Grimaldi. Ah, well, he must have +been a very wonderful clown, by all accounts, though I never saw him +myself. Perhaps you don't even know what a clown is? Do you? What's a +clown, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"I dunno."</p> + +<p>"Well, he's a figure of fun, so to speak, a clown is. He's a cove +dressed all in white with a white face."</p> + +<p>"Was it a clown in Punch and Judy?"</p> + +<p>"That's right. That's it. My stars and garters, if you ain't a knowing +one. Well, I was a clown once."</p> + +<p>"When you was a little boy?"</p> + +<p>"No, when I was a man, as you might say."</p> + +<p>"Are clowns good?" inquired Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Good as gold—so to speak—good as gold, clowns are. A bit +high-spirited when they come on in the harlequinade, but all in good +part. I suppose, taking him all round, you wouldn't find a better fellow +than a clown. Only a bit high-spirited, I'd have you understand. 'Oh, +what a lark,' that's their motto, as it were."</p> + +<p>Ensconced in the great Grimaldi's chair, Jenny regarded the ancient +Mischief with wondering glances and, as she sucked one of his lollipops, +thoroughly approved of him.</p> + +<p>"Look at this pretty lady," he said, placing before her a colored print +of some famous Columbine of the past.</p> + +<p>"Why is she on her toes?" asked Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Light as a fairy, she was," commented Mr. Vergoe, with a bouquet of +admiration in his voice.</p> + +<p>"Is she trying to reach on to the mantlepiece?" Jenny wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"My stars and garters, not she! She's dancing—toe-dancing, as they call +it."<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a></p> + +<p>"I don't dance like that," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Of course you don't, but you could with practice. With practice, I +wouldn't say as you mightn't be as light as a pancake, so to speak."</p> + +<p>"I can stand on my toes," declared Jenny proudly.</p> + +<p>"Can you now?" said Mr. Vergoe admiringly.</p> + +<p>"To reach fings off of the table."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but then you'd be holding on to it, eh? Tight as wax, you'd be +holding on to it. That won't do, that won't. You must be able to dance +all over the room on your toes."</p> + +<p>"Can you?"</p> + +<p>"Not now, my dear, not now. I could once, though. But I never cared for +playing Harlequin."</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"That's a fellow you haven't met yet."</p> + +<p>"Is he good?"</p> + +<p>"Good—in a manner of speaking—but an awkward sort of a laddie with his +saber and all. But no malice at bottom, I'm sure of that."</p> + +<p>"Can I be a C'mbine?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?" exclaimed the old man. "Why not?" And he thumped the table to +mark the question's emphasis.</p> + +<p>Jenny became very thoughtful and wished she had a petticoat all silver +and pink, like the pretty lady on her toes.</p> + +<p>"Would I be pretty?" she asked at length.</p> + +<p>"Wonderfully pretty, I should say."</p> + +<p>"Would all the people say—'pretty Jenny'?"</p> + +<p>"No more wouldn't that surprise me," declared Mr. Vergoe.</p> + +<p>"Would I be good?"</p> + +<p>The old man looked puzzled.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing against it," he affirmed. "Nothing, in a manner of +speaking; but there, what some call good, others don't, and I can't say +as I've troubled much which way it was, so to speak, as long as they was +good pals and jolly companions everyone."<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a></p> + +<p>"What's pals?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, there you've put your finger on it—as it were—what's a pal? Well, +I should say he was a hearty fellow—in a manner of speaking—a fellow +as would come down handsome on Treasury night when you hadn't paid your +landlady the week before. A pal wouldn't ever crab your business, +wouldn't stare too hard if you happened to use his grease. A pal +wouldn't let you sleep over the train-call on a Sunday morning. A pal +wouldn't make love to your girl on a wet, foggy afternoon in Blackburn +or Warrington. What's pals? Pals are fellows who stand on the prompt +side of life—so to speak—and stick there to the Ring Down."</p> + +<p>All of which may or may not be an excellent definition of "paliness," +but left Jenny, if possible, more completely ignorant of the meaning of +a pal than she was when Mr. Vergoe set out to answer her inquiry.</p> + +<p>"What's pals?" she reiterated therefore.</p> + +<p>"Not quite clear in your little head yet—as it were—well, I should +say, we're pals, me and you."</p> + +<p>"Are pals good?"</p> + +<p>"The best. The very, very best. Now you just listen to me for a minute. +My granddaughter, Miss Lilli Vergoe, that is, she's wonderfully fond of +the old man, that is your humble. Now next time she comes round to see +him, I'll send up the call-boy—as it might be."</p> + +<p>Hereupon Mr. Vergoe closed his left eye, put his forefinger very close +to the other eye, and shook it knowingly several times.</p> + +<p>"Now you'd better go on or there'll be a stage wait, and get back to ma +as quick as you like."</p> + +<p>Jenny prepared to obey.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute, though, wait a minute," and the old man fumbled in a +drawer from which at last he extracted a cracker. "See that? That's a +cracker, that is. Sometimes one or two used to get hidden in my pockets +on last nights, and—well, I used to keep 'em as a recollection of good +times,<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> so to speak. This one was Exeter, not so very long ago neither. +Now you hook on to that end and I'll hook on to this, and, when I say +'three,' pull as hard as you like." The antagonists faced each other. +The cracker came in half with the larger portion in Jenny's hand, but +the powder had long ago lost all power of report. Age and damp had +subdued its ferocity.</p> + +<p>"A wrong 'un," muttered the old man regretfully. "Too bad, too bad! +Well, accidents will happen—as it were. Come along, open your half."</p> + +<p>Jenny produced a compact cylinder of mauve paper.</p> + +<p>"Is it a sweet?" she wondered.</p> + +<p>"No, it's a cap. By gum, it's a cap. Don't tear it. Steady! Careful does +it."</p> + +<p>Mr. Vergoe was tremendously excited by the prospect. At last between +them they unrolled a gilded paper crown, which he placed round Jenny's +curls.</p> + +<p>"There you are," he observed proudly. "Fairy Queen as large as life and +twice as natural. Now all you want is a wand with a gold star on the end +of it, and there's nothing you couldn't do, in a manner of speaking. Now +pop off to ma and show her your crown." He held her for a moment up to +the glass, in which Jenny regarded herself with a new interest, and when +he set her down again she went out of the room with the careful step of +one who has imagined greatness.</p> + +<p>Downstairs she was greeted by her mother with exclamations of +astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Whatever have you got on your head?"</p> + +<p>"A crown."</p> + +<p>"Who gave it you, for Heaven's sake?"</p> + +<p>"The lodger."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Vergoe?"</p> + +<p>Jenny nodded.</p> + +<p>"I may wear it, mayn't I, mother?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose so," said Mrs. Raeburn grudgingly. "But don't get +putting it in your mouth."<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a></p> + +<p>"There's a Miss Vain," said Ruby.</p> + +<p>"I'm not."</p> + +<p>"Peacocks like looking-glasses," nagged Ruby.</p> + +<p>"I isn't a peacock. I's a queen."</p> + +<p>"There's a sauce! Whoever heard?" commented Ruby.</p> + +<p>The clown's sentimental and pleasantly rhetorical descriptions had no +direct influence on the child's mind. But when his granddaughter, Miss +Lilli Vergoe, all chiffon and ostrich plumes, took her upon a <i>peau de +soie</i> lap, and clasped her rosy cheeks to a frangipani breast, Jenny +thought she had never experienced any sensation half so delicious.</p> + +<p>Amid the heavy glooms and fusty smells of the old house in Hagworth +Street, Miss Lilli Vergoe blossomed like an exotic flower, or rather, in +Jenny's own simile, like lather. Her china-blue eyes were amazingly +attractive. Her honey-colored hair and Dresden cheeks fascinated the +impressionable child with all the wonder of an expensive doll. There was +no part of her that was not soft and beautiful to stroke. She woke in +Jenny a cooing affection such as had never been by her bestowed upon a +living soul.</p> + +<p>Moreover, what Mr. Vergoe talked about, Lilli showed her how to achieve; +so that, unknown to Mrs. Raeburn, Jenny slowly acquired that ambition +for public appreciation which makes the actress. Terpischore herself, +carrying credentials from Apollo, would not have been a more powerful +mistress than Lilli Vergoe, a second line girl in the <i>Corps de Ballet</i> +of the Orient Palace of Varieties. Under her tuition Jenny learned a +hundred airs and graces, which, when re-enacted in the kitchen of Number +Seventeen, either caused a command to cease fidgeting or an invitation +to look at the comical child.</p> + +<p>She learned, too, more than mere airs and graces. She was grounded very +thoroughly in primary technique, so that, as time went on, she could +step passably well upon her toes and achieve the "splits" and "strides" +and "handsprings" of a more acrobatic mode.</p> + +<p>Therefore, though in the September just before her seventh<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> birthday +Mrs. Raeburn decided it was time to begin Jenny's education, it is very +obvious that Jenny's education was really begun on the sunlit morning +when Mr. Vergoe saw her dancing to a sugared melody from "Cavalleria."</p> + +<p>School, however, meant for Jenny not so much the acquirement of +elementary knowledge, the ability to distinguish a cow from a sheep, as +an opportunity to exhibit more satisfactory attainments she had +developed from the instigation of Miss Lilli Vergoe. Neither her mother +nor Ruby nor Alfie nor Edie nor anyone in the household had been a +perfect audience. Her schoolfellows, on the other hand, marveled with +delighted respect at her <i>pas seuls</i> upon the asphalt playground of the +board school and clapped and jumped their praise.</p> + +<p>Jenny had no idea of the stage at present. She had never yet been inside +a theater; and was still far from any conception of art as a profession. +It merely happened that she could dance, that dancing pleased her, and, +less important, that it made her popular with innumerable little girls +of her own age, and even older.</p> + +<p>By some instinct of advisable concealment, she kept this habit of +publicity a secret from her family. Edie, to be sure, was aware of it, +and warned her once or twice of the immorality of showing off; but Edie +was too indolent to go into the matter more deeply and too conscious of +her own comparative greatness through seniority to spend much time in +the guardianship of a younger sister.</p> + +<p>So for a year Jenny practiced and became daily more proficient, and +danced every morning to school.<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="V" id="V"></a>Chapter V: <i>Pretty Apples in Eden</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">S</span>HORTLY after her eighth birthday Jenny was puzzled by an incident +which, with its uneasy suggestions, led her to postulate to herself for +the first time that mere escape from childhood did not finally solve the +problem of existence.</p> + +<p>She had long been aware of the incomplete affection between her parents; +that is to say, she always regarded her father as something that seemed +like herself or a chair to be perpetually in her mother's way.</p> + +<p>She had no feeling of awe towards Mr. Charles Raeburn, but rather looked +upon him as a more extensive counterpart of Alfie, both prone to many +deeds of mischief. She had no conception of her father as a +bread-winner; her mother was so plainly the head of the house.</p> + +<p>In the early morning her father vanished to work and only came back just +before bedtime to eat a large tea, like Alfie, in the course of which he +was reprimanded and pushed about and ordered, like Alfie, to behave +himself. To be sure, he had liberty of egress at a later hour, for once, +when in the midst of nightly fears she had rushed in the last breath of +a dream along the landing to her mother's room, she saw him coming +rosily up the stairs. He made no attempts to justify his late arrival +with tales of goblin accidents as Alfie was wont to do. He did not +ascribe the cracked egg appearance of his bowler hat to the onset of a +baker's barrow. He seemed so far indifferent to the unfinished look of +his clothes as not to bother to lay the blame on the butcher's boy. Her +mother merely said:<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a></p> + +<p>"Oh, it's you?"</p> + +<p>To which Mr. Raeburn replied: "Yes, Flo, it's me," and began to sing +"Ta-ra-ra—boom—de—ay."</p> + +<p>Even Ruby O'Connor, who, in earlier days at Hagworth Street, used to +quell Alfie with terrible threats of a father's vengeance, gave them up +as ineffective; for the bland and cheerful Charlie, losing the while not +a morsel of blandness or cheerfulness, was fast becoming an object of +contemptuous toleration in his own house. He was a weak and unsuccessful +man, fond of half-pints and tales of his own prowess, with little to +recommend him to his family except an undeniable gift of humorous +description. Yet, even with this, he possessed no imagination. He was +accustomed to treat the world as he would have treated a spaniel. "Poor +old world," he would say in pitying intention; "poor old world." He +would pat the universe on its august head as a pedagogue slaps a +miniature globe in the schoolroom. He never expected anything from the +world, which was just as well, for he certainly never received very +much. To his wife's occasional inquiry of amazed indignation, "Why ever +did I come to marry you?" he would answer:</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Floss. Because you wanted to, I reckon."</p> + +<p>"I never wanted to," she would protest.</p> + +<p>"Well, you didn't," he would say. "Some people acts funny."</p> + +<p>"That's quite right."</p> + +<p>Hers was the last word: his, however, the pint of four ale that drowned +it.</p> + +<p>Jenny at this stage in her life was naturally incapable of grasping the +fact of her mother throwing herself away in matrimony; but she was able +to ponder the queer result that, however much her mother might be +annoyed by Charlie, she did not seem able to get rid of him.</p> + +<p>Alfie, with his noise and clumping boots, was an equally unpleasant +appendage to her life, but for Alfie she was responsible. In whatever +way children came about, it was not<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> to be supposed they happened +involuntarily like bedtime or showers of rain. Moreover, mystery hung +heavy over their arrival. Edie and Alfie would giggle in corners, look +at each other with oddly lighted eyes, and blush when certain subjects +arose in conversation. Human agency was implied, and all that talk of +strawberry-beds and cabbage leaves so much trickery. Alfie, bad habits +and all, was due to her father and mother being married.</p> + +<p>But why be married when Alfies were the result? Why not close the door +against her father and be rid of him? And take somebody else in +exchange? Who was there? Nobody.</p> + +<p>One foggy afternoon early in January, Jenny came back from school to the +smell of a good cigar. She did not know it was a good cigar, but the +perfume hung about the dark hall of Number Seventeen with a strange +richness never associated in her mind with the smell of her father's +smoke. She was conscious, too, from the carefully closed doors both of +the parlor and the kitchen, that company was present. The voice of a +polite conscience warned her not to bang about, not to shout "Is tea +ready, mother?" but rather to tread discreetly the little distance to +the kitchen and there to await developments. If Alfie and Edie were +already arrived by a punctual chance, she would learn from them the +manner and kind of the company hid in the parlor.</p> + +<p>The kitchen was empty. No tea was laid. Over her stole an extraordinary +sensation of misgiving. She felt as if she were standing at the foot of +a ladder watching Alfie about some mischievous business.</p> + +<p>Presently Ruby returned from the scullery, like a sudden draught.</p> + +<p>"However did you get in so quiet?" asked the newcomer. Then Jenny +remembered the street door had been open.</p> + +<p>"Who's in along of mother?"</p> + +<p>"That's right. Be nosey."</p> + +<p>"Tell us, Rube."</p> + +<p>"I can't tell what I don't know."<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a></p> + +<p>"But you do know," persisted Jenny; "so tell us."</p> + +<p>"D'you think we all wants to poke in where we isn't wanted, like you, +Miss Meddlesome? How should I know?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I told you yesterday what teacher called Edie, so tell us, Rube; +you might tell us."</p> + +<p>"There isn't nothing to tell, you great inquisitive monkey," Ruby +declared.</p> + +<p>Then there was a sound in the hall of a man's voice, a rich voice that +suited somehow the odor of the cigar. Jenny longed to peep round the +kitchen door at the visitor, but she was afraid that Ruby would carry on +about it. A moment or two's conversation, and the street door slammed, +and when her mother came back from the kitchen, Jenny was afraid to ask +bluntly:</p> + +<p>"Who was that?"</p> + +<p>Instead she announced:</p> + +<p>"We did sewing this afternoon. Teacher said I sewed well."</p> + +<p>"You sew on with your tea," said Mrs. Raeburn. "And wherever can Edie +and Alfie have got to?"</p> + +<p>A week or two afterwards Jenny returned to the same smell of cigar, the +same impression of a rich and unusual visitor, but this time the parlor +door gaped to a dark and cold interior, and when Jenny followed Ruby +into the kitchen, he was there, a large florid man, with a big cigar and +heavy mustache and a fur coat open to a snowy collar and shining +tie-pin.</p> + +<p>"And this is Jenny, is it?" he said in the cigar voice.</p> + +<p>Jenny kissed him much as she would have kissed the walrus he slightly +resembled; then she retreated, finger in mouth, backwards until she +bumped against the table by which she leaned to look at the stranger, +much as she would have looked at a walrus.</p> + +<p>Her father came in after a while, and his wife said:</p> + +<p>"Mr. Timpany."</p> + +<p>"Eh?" said Charlie.<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a></p> + +<p>"Mr. Timpany, a friend of father's."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Charlie. "Pleased to meet you," with which he retired to a +chair in a dusky corner and was silent for a long time. At last he +asked:</p> + +<p>"Have you been to Paris, Mr.... Tippery? Thrippenny, I should say."</p> + +<p>"Timpany, Charlie. I wish you'd listen. Have you got cloth ears? Of +course he's been to Paris, and, for gracious, don't you start your +stories. One would think to hear you talk as you were the only man on +earth as had ever been further than Islington."</p> + +<p>"I was in Paris once some years back—on business," Charlie remarked. "I +think Paris is a knockout, as towns go. Not but what I like London +better. Only you see more life in Paris," and he relapsed into silence, +until finally Mr. Timpany said he must be going.</p> + +<p>"Who's he?" demanded Mr. Raeburn, when his wife came back from escorting +her visitor to the door.</p> + +<p>"I told you once—a friend of father's."</p> + +<p>"Ikey sort of a bloke. He hasn't made a mistake coming here, has he? I +thought it was the Duke of Devonshire when I see him sitting there."</p> + +<p>"You are an ignorant man," declared Mrs. Raeburn. "Don't you know a +gentleman when you see one? Even if you have lost your own shop and got +to go to work every morning like a common navvy, you can tell a +gentleman still."</p> + +<p>"Are you bringing in any more dukes or markisses home to tea?" asked +Charlie. "Because let me know next time and I'll put on a clean pair of +socks."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn did not bring any more dukes or marquises home to tea; but +Mr. Timpany came very often, and Charlie took to returning from work +very punctually, and, though he was always very polite to Mr. Timpany +when he was there, he was very rude indeed about him when he was gone, +and Jenny used to think how funny it was to wait for Mr. Timpany's +departure before he began to make a fuss.<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a></p> + +<p>Vaguely she felt her father was afraid to say much. She could understand +his fear, because Mr. Timpany was very large and strong, so large and +strong that even her mother spoke gently and always seemed anxious to +please him. And looking at the pair side by side, her father appeared +quite small—her father whom she had long regarded as largeness +personified.</p> + +<p>One day Jenny came home late from school and found her parents in the +middle of a furious argument.</p> + +<p>"I ar'n't going to have him here," Charlie was saying, "not no more, not +again, the dirty hound!"</p> + +<p>"You dare say that, you vulgar beast."</p> + +<p>"I shall say just whatever I please. You're struck on him, that's what +you are, you soft idiot."</p> + +<p>"I'm no such thing," declared Mrs. Raeburn. "Nice thing that a friend of +father's can't come and have a cup of tea without your carrying on like +a mad thing."</p> + +<p>"Not so much 'cup of tea,' Mrs. Raeburn. It's not the tea I minds. It's +while the kettle's boiling as I objects to."</p> + +<p>"You're drunk," said the wife scornfully.</p> + +<p>"And it's —— lucky I am drunk. You're enough to make a fellow drunk +with your la-di-da behavior. Why, God help me, Florrie, you've been +powdering your face. Let me get hold of the——. I'll learn him to come +mucking round another man's wife."</p> + +<p>On the very next day Mr. Timpany came to tea for the last time. Possibly +Mrs. Raeburn had told her husband it was to be the last time, for he did +not put in an appearance. Ruby had gone out by permission. May was +secured by a fortified nursing-chair. Alfie was away on some twilight +adventure of bells and string. Edie was immerged in a neighboring +basement with two friends, a plate of jam, and the cordial teasing of +the friends' brother, young Bert; and Jenny, urged on by a passionate +inquisitiveness, crept along the passage and listened to the following +conversation:</p> + +<p>"You're wasted here, Flo, wasted—a fine woman like you<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> is absolutely +wasted. Why won't you come away with me? Come away to-night, I'll always +be good to you."</p> + +<p>"The children," said their mother.</p> + +<p>"They'll get on all right by themselves. Bring the little one—what's +her name, with fair hair and dark eyes?"</p> + +<p>"Jenny."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Jenny. Bring her with you. I don't mind."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't be fair to her. She'd never have a chance."</p> + +<p>"Rubbish! She'd have more chance in a cosy little house of your own than +stuck in this rat's hole. You'd have a slap-up time, Flo. A nice little +Ralli cart, if you're fond of horses, and—oh, come along, come now. I +want you."</p> + +<p>"No; I've fixed myself up. I was done with life when I married Charlie, +and I'm fixed up."</p> + +<p>"You're in a cage here," he argued.</p> + +<p>"Yes; but I've got my nest in it," she said.</p> + +<p>"Then it's good-bye?"</p> + +<p>"Good-bye."</p> + +<p>"I'm damned if I can understand why you won't come. I'd be jolly good to +you."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye."</p> + +<p>"You're a cold woman, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Am I?"</p> + +<p>"I think you are."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't always do to show one's feelings."</p> + +<p>"You're a regular icicle."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," whispered Mrs. Raeburn.</p> + +<p>Jenny stole back to the kitchen greatly puzzled. Whether the florid Mr. +Timpany kissed Mrs. Raeburn before he went out to look for the hansom +cab that was to jingle him out of her life, I do not know; but she waved +to him once as she saw him look round under a lamp post, for Jenny had +crept back and was standing beside her when she did so.</p> + +<p>"You come on in, you naughty girl," said Mrs. Raeburn, drowning love in +a copper bubbling with clothes.</p> + +<p>"Would you like that man better than father?" Jenny inquired<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a> presently, +pausing in the erection of a tower of bricks for the benefit of May, who +watched with somber eyes the quivering feat of architecture.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" said Mrs. Raeburn sharply.</p> + +<p>"Would you like father to go away and never, never come back here along +of us ever again and always have that man?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, I shouldn't, you silly child."</p> + +<p>"I would."</p> + +<p>"You would?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Jenny; "he smelt nice."</p> + +<p>"Ah, miss, when one's married, one's married."</p> + +<p>"Could I be married?"</p> + +<p>"When you grow up. Of course."</p> + +<p>"Could I have little boys and girls?"</p> + +<p>"Of course you could if you were married."</p> + +<p>"Could I have lots and lots?"</p> + +<p>"More than you bargain for, I daresay," declared her mother.</p> + +<p>"Did you marry to have a little girl like me?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps."</p> + +<p>Encouraged by her mother's unusual amenity to questions, Jenny went on:</p> + +<p>"Did you really, though?"</p> + +<p>"For that and other reasons."</p> + +<p>"Were you glad when you saw me first?"</p> + +<p>"Very glad."</p> + +<p>"Did I come in by the door?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Who brought me?"</p> + +<p>"The doctor."</p> + +<p>"Did he ring the bell?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Did father know I was coming?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Was I a present from father?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a></p> + +<p>"Would you like that gentleman to give you a present?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Would you like him to give you a li'l' girl like me?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all; and you stop asking questions, Mrs. Chatter."</p> + +<p>Her mother was suddenly aware of Jenny's cross-examinations, which she +had been answering mechanically with thoughts far away with a florid man +in a jingling hansom cab. Jenny was conscious of her dreaming and knew +in her sly baby heart that her mother was in a weak mood. But it was too +good to last long enough for Jenny to find out all she wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you send father away and have that gentleman as a lodger?"</p> + +<p>"I told you once; don't keep on."</p> + +<p>"But why don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Because I don't want to."</p> + +<p>In bed that night Jenny lay awake and tried to understand the +conversation in the parlor. At present her intelligence could only grasp +effect. Analysis had not yet entered her mind.</p> + +<p>She saw, in pictures on the ceiling, her mother and the rich strange +gentleman. She saw her father watching. She saw them all three as +primitive folks see tragedies, dimly aware of great events, but +powerless to extract any logical sequence. Lying awake, she planned +pleasant surprises, planned to bring back Mr. Timpany and banish her +father. It was like the dreams of Christmas time, when one lay awake and +thought of presents. She remembered how pleased her mother had professed +herself by the gift of a thimble achieved on Jenny's side by a great +parsimony in sweets. The gentleman had offered a cosy house. At once she +visualized it with lights in every window and the delicious smell that +is wafted up from the gratings of bakers' shops. But what was a Ralli +cart? Something to do with riding? And Jenny was to come, too, and share +in all this. He had said so distinctly. If he gave mother a house, why +should he not give her a doll's house<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a> such as Edie boasted of in the +house of a friend, such as Edie had promised to show her some day. She +began to feel a budding resentment against her mother for saying "No" to +all these delights, a resentment comparable with her emotions not so +long ago when her mother refused to let her go for a ride on an omnibus +with Mr. Vergoe.</p> + +<p>Good things came along very seldom, and when they did come, grown-up +people always spoiled them. Life, as Jenny lay awake, seemed made up of +small repressions. Life was a series of hopes held out and baffled +desires, of unjust disappointments and aspirations unreasonably +neglected. She lay there, a mite in flowing time, sensible only of +having no free will.</p> + +<p>Why couldn't she grow up all of a sudden and do as she liked? But then +grown-up people, whom she always regarded as entirely at liberty, did +not seem to be able to do as they liked. Her mother had said, "No, thank +you," to a cosy house, just as she was taught to say, "No, thank you," +to old gentlemen who offered her pennies to turn somersaults over +railings—surely a harmless way of getting money. But her mother had not +wanted to say "No, thank you." That Jenny recognized as a fact, +although, if she had been asked why, she would have had nothing +approaching a reason.</p> + +<p>"I will do as I like," Jenny vowed to herself. "I will, I will. I won't +be told." Here she bit the sheet in rage at her powerlessness. Desire +for action was stirring strongly in her now. "Why can't I grow up all at +once? Why must I be a little girl? Why can't I be like a kitten?" +Kittens had become cats within Jenny's experience.</p> + +<p>"I will be disobedient. I will be disobedient. I won't be stopped." +Suddenly a curious sensation seized her of not being there at all. She +bit the bedclothes again. Then she sat up in bed and looked at her +petticoats hanging over the chair. She was there, after all, and she +fell asleep with wilful ambitions dancing lightly through the gay +simplicities of her child's brain, and, as she lay there with tightly +closed, determined<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> lips, her mother with shaded candle looked down at +her and wondered whether, after all, she and Jenny would not have been +better off under the rich-voiced, cigar-haunted protection of Mr. +Timpany.</p> + +<p>And then Mrs. Raeburn went to bed and fell asleep to the snoring of +Charlie, just as truly unsatisfied as most of the women in this world.</p> + +<p>Only Charlie was all right. He had spent a royal evening in bragging to +a circle of pipe-armed friends of his firmness and virility at a moment +of conjugal stress.</p> + +<p>And outside the cold January stars were reflected in the puddles of +Hagworth Street.<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>Chapter VI: <i>Shepherd's Calendar</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">I</span>T was unlikely that Jenny's dancing could always be kept a secret. The +day came at last when her mother, in passing the playground of the +school, looked over the railings and saw her daughter's legs above a +semicircle of applauding children. Mrs. Raeburn was more than shocked: +she was profoundly alarmed. The visit of the aunts rose up before her +like a ghost from the heart of forgotten years. They had faded into a +gradual and secure insignificance, only momentarily displaced by the +death of Aunt Fanny. But the other two lived on in Carminia House like +skeletons of an outraged morality.</p> + +<p>Something must be done about this dancing craze. Something must be done +to check the first signs of a prophecy fulfilled. She thought of +Barnsbury; but Mrs. Purkiss had now two pasty-faced boys of her own, and +was no longer willing to act as deputy-mother to the children of her +sister. Something must certainly be done about Jenny's wilfulness.</p> + +<p>"How dare you go making such an exhibition of yourself?" she demanded, +when Jenny came home. "How dare you, you naughty girl?"</p> + +<p>Jenny made no reply but an obstinate frown.</p> + +<p>"You dare sulk and I'll give you a good whipping."</p> + +<p>The teacher was written to; was warned of Jenny's wild inclinations. The +teacher, a fish-like woman in a plaid skirt, remonstrated with her +pupil.</p> + +<p>"Nice little girls," she asserted "don't kick their legs up in the +air."<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a></p> + +<p>The class was forbidden to encourage the dancer; a mountain was made of +a molehill; Jenny was raised to the giddy pinnacle of heroism. She wore +about her the blazing glories of a martyr; she began to be conscious of +possessing an exceptional personality, for there had never been such a +fuss over any other girl's misdemeanor. She began to feel more acutely +the injustice of grown-up repression. She tried defiance and danced +again in the playground, but learned that humanity's prime +characteristic is cowardice; perceived, with Aristotle, that man is a +political animal, a hunter in packs. She thought the school would +support her justifiable rebellion, but, alas, the school deserted her. +Heroine she might be in corner conferences. Heroine she might be in +linked promenades; but when her feelings were crystallized in action, +the other girls thought of themselves. They applauded her intentions, +but shrank from the prominence of the visible result. Jenny abandoned +society. The germ of cynicism was planted in her soul. She came to +despise her fellows. In scarlet cloak she traveled solitary to school, +and hated everybody.</p> + +<p>The immediate and obvious result of this self-imposed isolation was her +heightened importance in the eyes of boys. One by one they approached +her with offers of escort, with tribute from sticky pockets. Little by +little she became attached to their top-spinning, marble-flicking +journeys to and from school; gradually she was admitted to the more +intimate fellowship of outlawry. She found that, in association with +boys, she could prosecute her quarrel with the world. With them she +wandered far afield from Hagworth Street; with them she tripped along on +many a marauding expedition. For them she acted as decoy, as scout +against policemen. With them she rang the bells of half a street at a +run. With them she broke the windows of empty houses; climbed ladders +and explored roofs and manipulated halfpennies stuck with wax to the +paving-stones. She was queen of the robbers' camp on a tin-sprinkled +waste of building-land. She acquired a fine contempt of girls, and +wished more than ever she had been fortunate<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a> enough to be born a boy. +Even Alfie condescended not merely to take notice of her, but also +sometimes to make use of her activity. She looked back with wonder to +the time when she had regarded her brother with a shrinking distaste. He +became her standard of behavior. She saw his point of view when nobody +else could, as on the occasion when he asked Edie if she dared him to +hit her on the head with the bar of iron he was swinging, and when Edie, +having in duty bound dared, found herself with a large cut on the +forehead. Alfie, finding other boys admired it, encouraged her dancing; +and they used to flock round the organs while Jenny learned step-dancing +from big, rough girls who were always to be found in the middle of the +music.</p> + +<p>One day, however, Mrs. Raeburn and Mrs. Purkiss, coming back together +from a spring hat foray, walked right into one of Jenny's performances. +Mrs. Raeburn might have endured the shame of it alone, but the company +of her sister upset her power of dealing with an awkward situation. If +in the past she had been inclined to compare Percy and Claude, her +pasty-faced nephews, unfavorably with her own children, on the present +occasion their mother drained the cup of revenge to the dregs.</p> + +<p>With Jenny between them, the two sisters walked back to Hagworth Street.</p> + +<p>"It isn't as if it was just showing her legs," said Mrs. Purkiss. +"That's bad enough, but I happened to notice she had a hole in her +stocking....</p> + +<p>"And those great, common girls she was hollering with. Wherever on earth +can she have picked up with them? Some of Charlie's friends, I +suppose....</p> + +<p>"It seems funny that Alfie shouldn't have more shame than go letting his +sister make such a sight of herself, but there, I suppose Alfie takes +after his father....</p> + +<p>"All I'm thankful for is that Bill wasn't with us, he being a man as +anything like that upsets for a week. He never did have what you might +call a good liver, and anything unpleasant<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a> turns his bile all the wrong +way. Only last week, when Miss Knibbs, our first assistant, sent an +outsize in combinations to a customer who's <i>very</i> particular about any +remark being passed about her stoutness, Bill was sick half of the +night....</p> + +<p>"I can't think why you don't send her away to Carrie's. The country +would do her good, and Carrie's got no children of her own. I'd like to +have her myself, only I'm afraid she'd be such a bad example to Percy +and Claude."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn was silent. Vulnerable through Jenny's lapse from modesty, +she had no sting for her nephews.</p> + +<p>Finally it was settled that Jenny should spend a year with Mrs. +Threadgale at Galton. It was laid on the shoulders of Hampshire to curb +her naughtiness. It remained to be seen how far country sights and +sounds would civilize her rudeness.</p> + +<p>Having made up her mind to banish the child, Mrs. Raeburn began at once +to regret the decision. With all her disobedience, Jenny was still the +favorite. "She was such a character," in her mother's words; and her +gay, dark eyes and silvery curls would be missed from Hagworth Street. +But the day of departure came along. A four-wheeler threw a shadow on +the door. There were kisses and handkerchiefs and last injunctions and +all the paraphernalia of separation. Jenny was bundled in. Mrs. Raeburn +followed.</p> + +<p>"Now mind, Ruby," cried the latter from the window, "don't you let May +get putting nothing in her mouth, and see Mr. Raeburn has his tea +comfortable, and, Alfie, you dare misbehave while I'm away. Good-bye, +all."</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>At last the train drew up at Galton along a gray gravel platform that +smelt fresh and flowery after the railway carriage. There was lilac in +bloom and red hawthorn, and a pile of tin trunks, and when the train had +puffed on, Jenny could hear birdsong everywhere.</p> + +<p>While the two sisters embraced, the little girl surveyed her<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a> new aunt. +She was more like her mother than Aunt Mabel. Nicer altogether than Aunt +Mabel, though she disliked the flavor of veil that was mingled with the +kisses of welcome.</p> + +<p>"They'll wheel the luggage along on a barrow," said Aunt Caroline. "It's +not far where we live."</p> + +<p>They turned into the wide country street with its amber sunlight and +sound of footsteps, and very soon arrived before the shop of James +Threadgale, Draper and Haberdasher. Jenny hoped they would go in through +the shop itself, but Mrs. Threadgale opened a door at the side and took +them upstairs to a big airy parlor that seemed to Jenny's first glance +all sunbeams and lace. Having been afforded a glimpse of Paradise, they +were taken downstairs again into the back parlor, which would have been +very dull had it not looked out on to a green garden sloping down to a +small stream.</p> + +<p>Uncle James, with pale, square face and quiet voice, came in from the +shop to greet them. Jenny thought he talked funny with his broad +Hampshire vowels. Ethel, the maid, came in, too, with her peach-bloom +cheeks and creamy neck and dewy crimson mouth. Jenny compared her with +"our Rube," greatly to our Rube's disadvantage.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn stayed a week, and Jenny said good-bye without any feeling +of home-sickness. She liked her new uncle and aunt. There were no +pasty-faced cousins, and Ethel was very nice. She was not sent to the +National School. Such a course would have been derogatory to Mr. and +Mrs. Threadgale's social position. So she went to a funny old school at +the top of the town kept by an old lady called Miss Wilberforce—a dear +old lady with white caps and pale blue ribbons and a big pair of +tortoise-shell spectacles. The school was a little gray house with three +gables and diamond lattices and a door studded with great nails over +which was an inscription that said, "Mrs. Wilberforce's School, 1828."</p> + +<p>In the class-room on one side was heard a perpetual humming of bees +among the wallflowers in the front garden, and<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> through the windows on +the far side, which looked away over the open country, floated the +distant tinkle of sheep-bells. All along one side hung rows of cloaks +and hats, and all over the other walls hung pictures of sheep and cows +and dogs and angels and turnips and wheat and barley and Negroes and Red +Indians: there were also bunches of dried grasses and glass cases full +of butterflies and birds' eggs and fossils, and along the window-sills +were pots of geraniums. On her desk Miss Wilberforce had an enormous +cane, which she never used, and a bowl of bluebells or wild flowers of +the season and a big ink-horn and quill pens and books and papers which +fluttered about the room on a windy day. There was a dunce's stool with +a fool's-cap beside it, and a blackboard full of the simplest little +addition sums. All the children's desks were chipped and carved and +inked with the initials of bygone scholars, and all the forms were +slippery with the fidgetings of innumerable little girls. About the air +of the warm, murmurous schoolroom hung the traditions of a dead system +of education.</p> + +<p>Jenny learned to darn and sew; to recite Cowper's "Winter Walk" after +Miss Wilberforce, who was never called "teacher," but always "ma'am"; to +deliver trite observations upon the nature of common animals, such as +"The dog is a sagacious beast," "The sheep is the friend of man," and to +acquire a slight acquaintance with uncommon animals such as the quagga, +the yak, and the ichneumon, because they won through their initials an +undeserved prominence in the alphabet. She learned that Roman Catholics +worshiped images and, incidentally, the toe of the Pope, and wondered +vaguely if the latter were a dancer. She was told homely tales about +Samuel and Elijah. She was given a glazed Bible which smelt of +oil-cloth, and advised to read it every morning and every evening +without any selection of suitable passages. She learned a hymn called +"Now the day is over," which always produced an emotion of exquisite +melancholy. She was awarded a diminutive plot of ground and given a +penny packet<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a> of nasturtium seeds to sow, but, being told by another +girl that they were good to eat, she ate them instead, and her garden +was a failure.</p> + +<p>There were delightful half-holiday rambles over the countryside, when +she, still in her scarlet serge, and half a dozen girls and boys danced +along the lanes picking flowers and playing games with chanted refrains +like "Green Gravel" and "Queen of Barbary." She made friends with +farmers' lads, and learned to climb trees and call poultry and find +ducks' eggs. Hay-making time came on, when she was allowed to ride on +the great swinging loads right into the setting sun, it seemed. She used +to lie on her back, lulled by the sounds of eventide, and watch the +midges glinting on the air of a golden world.</p> + +<p>She slept in a funny little flowery room next to her uncle and aunt, and +she used to lie awake in the slow summer twilights sniffing in the +delicious odor of pinks in full bloom below her window. Sometimes she +would lean out of the window and weave fancies round the bubbling stream +beyond the grass till the moon came up from behind a hop-garden and +threw tree-shadows all over the room. Below her sill she could pick +great crimson roses that looked like bunches of black velvet in the +moonlight, and in the morning she used to suck the honey from the sweet, +starry flowers of the jasmine that flung its green fountains over the +kitchen porch.</p> + +<p>Summer went on; the hay was cut, and in the swimming July heat she used +to play in the meadows till her face grew freckled as the inside of a +cowslip. Now was the time when she could wear foxglove blooms on every +finger. Now was the time to watch the rabbits scampering by the wood's +edge in the warm dusk. The corn turned golden, and there were +expeditions for wild raspberries. The corn was cut, and blackberry time +arrived, bringing her mother, who was pleased to see how well Jenny +looked and went back to Hagworth Street with a great bunch of fat purple +dahlias.</p> + +<p>In October there was nutting—best of all the new delights,<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a> +perhaps—when she wandered through the hazel coppices and shook the +smooth boughs until the ripe nuts pattered down on the damp, woodland +earth. Nutting was no roadside adventure. She really penetrated into the +heart of the woods and with her companions would peep out +half-affrighted by the lips of the October leaves along the glades, +half-afraid of the giant beeches with their bare gray branches twisted +to the likeness of faces and figures. She and her playmates would peep +out from the hazel coppice and dart across the mossy way out of the +keeper's eye, and lose themselves in the dense covert and point with +breathless whisper to a squirrel or scurrying dormouse. Home again in +the silvery mists or moaning winds, home again with bags of nuts slung +across shoulders, to await the long winter evenings and fireside +pleasures.</p> + +<p>Jenny was allowed to celebrate her ninth birthday by a glorious +tea-party in the kitchen, when little girls in clean pinafores and +little boys in clean collars stumped along the flagged passage and sat +down to tea and munched buns and presented Jenny with dolls' +tea-services and pop-guns and Michaelmas daisies with stalks warm from +the tight clasp of warm hands.</p> + +<p>She grew to love her Aunt Carrie and Uncle James with the quiet voice +and thin, damp hair.</p> + +<p>Winter went by to the ticking of clocks and patter of rain. But there +was snow after Christmas and uproarious snow-balling and slides in +Galton High Street. There was always a fine crackling fire in the +kitchen, and a sleek tabby cat, and copper kettles singing on the hob. +There was Ethel's love affair with the grocer's assistant to talk and +giggle over amid the tinkle and clatter of washing up the tea-things.</p> + +<p>And then in March Mrs. Threadgale caught cold and died quite suddenly; +and Jenny put some white violets on her grave and wore a black dress and +went home to Islington.</p> + +<p>The effect of this wonderful visit was not much more permanent than the +surprise of a new picture-book. Galton<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> had meant not so much a +succession of revelations as a volley of sensations. She was sad at +leaving the country; she missed the affection of her uncle and aunt. She +missed the easy sway she had wielded over everybody at Galton. But she +had very little experience to carry back to Hagworth Street. One would +like to say she carried the memory of that childish wondertime right +through her restless life, but, actually, she never remembered much +about it. It very soon became merely a vague interval between two long +similarities of existence, like a break in a row of houses that does not +admit one to anything more than an added space of sky. She never +communed with elves, or, like young Blake, saw God's forehead pressed +against the window-pane. Jenny was no mystic of nature, and the roar of +humanity would always move her more than the singing of waves and forest +leaves.</p> + +<p>Her great hold upon life was the desire of dancing. This she had +fostered on many a level stretch of sward, with daisy chains hung all +about her. She had danced with damson-stained mouth like a young +Bacchante. She had danced while her companions made arches and hoops of +slender willow-stems. She had danced the moon up and the sun down; and +once, when the summer dusk was like wine cooled by woodland airs, when a +nightingale throbbed in every roadside tree and glow-worms spangled the +grass, she had taken a spray of eglantine and led an inspired band of +childish revelers down into the twinkling lamplight of Galton.</p> + +<p>Yet this wonderful year became a date in her chronicle chiefly because +age or sunlight or wind tarnished her silver curls to that uncertain +tint which is, unjustly to mice, always called mouse-colored; so that +her arrival at Number Seventeen was greeted by a chorus of disapproval.</p> + +<p>"Good gracious!" cried Mrs. Raeburn, when she saw her. "Will you only +look at her hair?"</p> + +<p>"What's gone with it?" asked Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Why, what a terrible color. No color at all, you might say. I feel +quite disgusted."<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a></p> + +<p>"Perhaps she won't be quite such a Miss Vain now," Ruby put in.</p> + +<p>Jenny was discouraged. The London spring was trying after Galton, and +one day, a month or two after she came back, she felt horribly ill, and +her face was flushed.</p> + +<p>"The child's ill," said Mrs. Raeburn.</p> + +<p>"Ill? Nonsense!" argued Charlie. "Why, look at her color. Ill? Whoever +heard? Never saw no one look better in my life. Look how bright her eyes +is."</p> + +<p>"You ignorant man!" said his wife, and sent for the doctor.</p> + +<p>The doctor said it was scarlet fever, and Jenny was taken away in +blankets to the hospital. She felt afraid at first in the long, quiet +ward with all the rows of nurses and palms and thin beds from which +heads suddenly popped up.</p> + +<p>"Do you think you'll go to heaven when you die?" the charge-nurse +whispered to Jenny as she tucked her in.</p> + +<p>"I don't care where I go," said Jenny; "as long as there isn't no +castor-oil."</p> + +<p>As she lay waiting to get better and watched the lilac buds breaking +into flower outside the big windows, she could not help wishing she were +in Galton again, although in a way she liked the peace and regularity of +hospital life. It amused her to have breakfast at half-past five and +lunch at nine. The latter she laughed at all the time she was in the +hospital. Her convalescence was an exceptionally long one, but she had +two jolly weeks before she left, when she could run about and help to +carry the meals to the other patients. She danced once or twice then for +the benefit of the ward and was glad that everybody clapped her so +loudly. She cried when she left in August to go home to her family.<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>Chapter VII: <i>Ambition Wakes</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>HE great event came about because Mrs. Raeburn, in return for similar +favors in the past, went to superintend the behavior of pasty-faced +Claude and Percy so that her sister could spend a fortnight with a +brother-in-law lately elected to the Urban Council of an unimportant +town in Suffolk. So, with some misgivings on the side of his wife, +Charlie was left in charge of 17 Hagworth Street.</p> + +<p>One day Mr. Vergoe came downstairs to ask his landlord if he would let +Jenny and Alfie and Edie accompany him to the pantomime of "Aladdin" at +the Grand Theater. Charlie saw no harm in it, and the party was +arranged. It appeared that Miss Lilli Vergoe had been temporarily +released from the second line of girls at the Orient Theater of +Varieties in order to make one of a quartette of acrobatic dancers in +the pantomime. Under the circumstances, her grandfather considered +himself bound to attend at least one performance, although he felt +rather like a mute at his own obsequies.</p> + +<p>It was a clear winter's evening when they set out, a rosy-cheeked, +chattering, skipping party. Mr. Vergoe, wrapped in a muffler almost as +wide as a curtain, walked in the middle. Jenny held his hand. Edie +jigged on the inside, and Alfie, to whom had been intrusted the great +responsibility of the tickets, walked along the extreme edge of the +curb, occasionally jolting down with excitement into the frozen gutter. +They hurried along the wide raised pavement that led up to the theater. +They hurried past the golden windows of shops still gay with the +aftermath of Christmas. They hurried faster and faster till<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> presently +the great front of the theater appeared in sight, when they all huddled +together for a wild dash across the crowded thoroughfare. Ragged boys +accosted them, trying to sell old programmes. Knowing men inquired if +they wanted the shortest way to the pit.</p> + +<p>"No, thank you," said Mr. Vergoe proudly. "We have seats in the dress +circle."</p> + +<p>The knowing men looked very respectful and moved aside from the welded +plutocracy of Edie, Alfie, Jenny and Mr. Vergoe. Fat women with baskets +of fat oranges tried to tempt them by offering three at once, but Mr. +Vergoe declined. Oranges would not be polite in the dress circle.</p> + +<p>In the vestibule Alfie was commanded to produce the tickets. There was a +terrible moment of suspense while Alfie, nearly as crimson as the plush +all around him, dug down into one pocket after another. Were the tickets +lost? Edie and Jenny looked daggers. No; there they were: Row A, numbers +7, 8, 9, and 10. "Upstairs, please," said a magnificent gentleman in +black and gold. "This way, please," said a fuzzy-haired attendant. The +children walked over the thick carpet in awed silence. A glass door +swung open. They were in the auditorium of the Grand Theater, Islington, +in the very front row, by all that was fortunate; and, having bestowed +their hats and coats beneath the elegant and comfortable tip-up chairs, +they hung over the red-plush ledge of the circle and gazed down into +what seemed the whole of the population of London. The orchestra had not +yet come in. Down in the pit the people were laughing and talking. Up in +the gallery they were laughing and talking. Babies were crying; mothers +were comforting them. Everybody down below seemed to be eating oranges +or buns or chocolate. Alfie let his programme flutter down, and Jenny +nearly burst into tears because she thought they would all be turned out +of the theater.</p> + +<p>The whole of the vast audience was there for enjoyment. Enjoyment was in +the air like a great thrill of electricity. What could be more +magnificent than the huge drop curtain,<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> with its rich landscape and +lightly clothed inhabitants? What could be more exciting than the +entrance, one by one, of the amazingly self-possessed musicians?</p> + +<p>The orchestra was tuning up. The conductor appeared to the welcoming +taps of fiddle-bows. One breathless moment he held aloft his baton and +looked round at his attentive company, then altogether the fiddles and +the drums and the flutes and the cornets, the groaning double-bass and +the 'cello and the clarinets and the funny little piccolo and the big +bassoon and the complicated French horns and the trombones and the +triangle (perhaps the best-enjoyed instrument of all) and the stupendous +cymbals started off with the overture of the Christmas pantomime of the +Grand Theater, Islington.</p> + +<p>Could it be borne, this enthusiastic overture? Was it not almost too +much for children, this lilting announcement of mirth and beauty? Would +not Jenny presently fall head-foremost into the pit? Would not Alfie be +bound to break the seat by his perpetual leaps into the air? Would not +Edie explode in her anxiety to correct Jenny, devour bull's-eyes and see +more of a mysterious figure that kept peering through a little square +hole in the corner of the proscenium?</p> + +<p>The orchestra stopped for a moment. A bell had rung, shrill and pregnant +with great events. Green lights appeared, and red lights: there was +hardly a sound in the house. Was anything the matter?</p> + +<p>"They're just ringing up," said Mr. Vergoe.</p> + +<p>Slowly the rich landscape and lightly clothed inhabitants vanished into +the roof.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" exclaimed Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Hush!" whispered Edie.</p> + +<p>"My Gosh!" said Alfie.</p> + +<p>A weird melody began. Demons leaped maliciously round a caldron. Green +demons and red demons danced with pitchforks. The caldron bubbled and +steamed. There was a crash from the cymbals. A figure sprang from the +caldron, alighting<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a> on the board with a loud "ha-ha." Evil deeds were +afoot, and desperate dialogue of good and ill.</p> + +<p>The scene changed to a Chinese market-place. There were comic policemen, +comic laundrywomen. There was the Princess Balroubadour in a palanquin +more beautiful than the very best lampshade of the Hagworth Street +parlor. There was the splendidly debonair Aladdin. There was the +excruciatingly funny Widow Twankey. There was the Emperor with bass +voice and mustaches trailing to the ground to be continually trodden on +by humorists of every size and sort.</p> + +<p>It would be impossible to relate every scene. It was like existence in a +precious stone, so much sparkle and color was everywhere. The cave was +wonderful. The journey to the Enchanted Palace through Cloudland was +amazing. Then there were gilded tables, heaped with gigantic fruits, +that rose from the very ground itself. There was the devilishly cunning +Abanazar. There were songs and dances and tinsel and movement and +jingles and processions and laughter and gongs and lanterns and painted +umbrellas and magic doors and an exhaustingly funny bathing scene with +real water. There was the active and slippery Genius of the Lamp, the +lithe and agile Genius of the Ring, who ran right round the ledge of the +circle and slid down a golden pillar back on to the stage amid thunders +of applause.</p> + +<p>To Jenny, perhaps the most real excitement of all was the appearance of +her darling Lilli, first in gold and blue, and then in white, and then +in black, and finally in a dress that must have been stolen from the +very heart of a rainbow, such scintillating streams of color flickered +and gleamed and radiated from its silken folds.</p> + +<p>How gloriously golden looked her hair, how splendidly crimson her lips, +how nobly brilliant were her eyes. And how she danced, first on one leg, +then on the other; then upside down and inside out, and over one girl +and under another. How the people clapped her and how pleased she +looked, and how Jenny waved to her till Alfie and Edie simultaneously<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> +suppressed such an uncontrolled and conspicuous display of feelings. +Then there was the transformation scene, which actually surpassed all +that had gone before, with its bouquets of giant roses turning into +fairies, with its clouds and lace and golden rocks and jewels and silver +trees and view of magic oceans and snowy mountains and gaudy birds.</p> + +<p>Suddenly crimson lights flared. There was a jovial shout from somewhere, +and "Here we are again!" cried Joey, as round and round to "Ring a ring +o' roses" galloped Clown and Pantaloon and Harlequin and Columbine. +Jenny looked shyly up into Mr. Vergoe's face and could just see tears +glittering in his eyes.</p> + +<p>Down came the front cloth of the harlequinade with shops and mischievous +boys and everlastingly mocked policemen and absent-minded nursemaids and +swaggering soldiers. Inspiring were the feats achieved by the Clown, +wild were the transformations and substitutions effected by the trim and +ubiquitous Harlequin. But what Jenny loved most were the fairy entrances +of Columbine, as, like a pink feather, she danced before the footlights +and in and out of the shops. Oh, to be a Columbine, she thought, to +dance in silver and pink down Hagworth Street with a thousand eyes to +admire her, a thousand hands to acclaim the beautiful vision.</p> + +<p>It came to an end, the pantomime of Aladdin. It came to an end with the +Clown's shower of crackers. Triumph of triumphs, Jenny actually caught +one.</p> + +<p>"You and me will pull it," she whispered to Mr. Vergoe, clasping his +hand in childish love.</p> + +<p>But it came to an end, the pantomime of Aladdin; and home they went +again to Hagworth Street. Home they went, all three children's hearts +afire with the potential magic of every street corner. Home they went, +talking and laughing and interrupting and imitating and recalling, while +Mr. Vergoe thought of old days. How quiet and dark Hagworth Street +seemed when they reached it.</p> + +<p>But it was very delightful to rush in past Ruby and turn<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> somersaults +all the way to the kitchen. It was very delightful to stand in a knot +round their father and tell him the whole story and recount each +separate splendor, while he and Mr. Vergoe sipped a glass of Mr. +Vergoe's warm whisky with a slice of lemon added. It was good fun to +disconcert Ruby by tripping her up. It was fine to seize the poker and +chase her all round the kitchen.</p> + +<p>The bedtime of this never-to-be-forgotten evening came at last. Jenny +and Edie lay awake and traced in the ceiling shadows startling +similarities to the action of the harlequinade. Edie fell asleep, but +Jenny still lay awake, her heart going pitter-pat with a big resolve, +her breath coming in little gasps with the birth of a new ambition. She +must go on the stage. She must dance for all the world to gaze at her. +She would. She would. She must. What a world it was, this wonderful +world of the stage—an existence of color and scent and movement and +admiration.</p> + +<p>The oilcloth of Hagworth Street seemed more than usually cold and dreary +on the following day. Alfie, too, was in a very despondent mood, having +fallen deeply in love with Miss Letty Lightbody, who had played the part +of Pekoe, Aladdin's friend and confidant. An air of staleness permeated +everything for a week. Then Mrs. Raeburn came back from Barnsbury, and +Jenny raised the question of going on the stage.</p> + +<p>The former was very angry with her husband for allowing the visit to the +pantomime. Mr. Vergoe tried to take the blame, but Mrs. Raeburn was +determined the brunt of the storm should fall on Charlie. Jenny was +ordered to give up all ideas of the stage. Schooltime came round again, +and the would-be dancer behaved more atrociously than ever. She was the +despair of her mistresses, and at home she would sit by the fire +sulking. She began to grow thin, and her mother began to wonder whether, +after all, it would not be wiser to let her have her own way. She went +upstairs to consult Mr. Vergoe.<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a></p> + +<p>"You'll make a big mistake," he assured her, "if you keep her from what +she's set her heart on, so to speak. She has it in her, too. A proper +little dancer she'll make."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn was still loath to give in. She had a dread of putting +temptation in the child's path. She did not know how to decide, while +Jenny continued to sulk, to be more and more unmanageable, to fret and +pine and grow thinner and thinner.</p> + +<p>"Where could she go and learn this dancing?" the bewildered mother +asked.</p> + +<p>"Madame Aldavini's," said the old clown. "That's where my granddaughter +learned."</p> + +<p>It was a profession, after all, thought Mrs. Raeburn. What else would +Jenny do? Go into service? Somehow she could not picture her in a +parlormaid's cap and apron. Well, why not the stage, if it had got to +be? She discussed the project with her sister Mabel, who was horrified.</p> + +<p>"A ballet-girl? Are you mad, Florence? Why, what a disgrace. Whatever +would Bill say? An actress? Better put her on the streets at once."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn could not make up her mind.</p> + +<p>"If any daughter of yours goes play-acting," went on Mrs. Purkiss, "I +can't allow her to come to tea with my Percy and my Claude any more, and +that's all about it."</p> + +<p>"Jenny doesn't think going to tea with her cousins anything to wave +flags over."</p> + +<p>"Pig-headed, that's what you are, Florence. All the years you've been a +sister of mine, I've known you for a pig-headed woman. It doesn't matter +whether you're ill or well, right or wrong, no one mustn't advise you. +That's how you come to marry Charlie."</p> + +<p>The opposition of Mrs. Purkiss inclined her sister to give way before +Jenny's desire. It only needed a little more family interference, and +the child would be taken straight off to Madame Aldavini's School for +Dancing.</p> + +<p>Miss Horner supplied it; for, two or three days after, a<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> letter came +from Clapton, written in a quavering hand crossed and recrossed on thin, +crackling paper, deeply edged in black.</p> + +<div class="blockd"><p class="r"><span class="smcap">Carminia House</span>,<br /> +February 20th.</p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">Dear Florence</span>,</p> + +<p>My niece Mabel writes to tell us you intend to make your little +girl an actress. This news has been a great shock to me. You must +not forget that she is a granddaughter of Frederick Horner, the +Chymist. She must not be a harlot given over to paint and powder. +God is jealous of the safety of His lambs. This plan of dancing is +a snare of Satan. You should read the Word, my dear niece. You will +read of young maidens who danced before the Ark of the Covenant in +the joy of the Lord, but that is not to say your little girl should +dance for lewdness and gold when she might be singing the sweet +songs of Salvation and joining in the holy mirth of the Children of +Israel. If you had let us adopt her, this desire would not have +come. We do not let the Devil into our house. You will be the cause +of my death, niece, with your wicked intentions. I am an old woman +very near to Emmanuel. This great sin must not be.</p> + +<p class="r"><span style="margin-right: 2em;">Your loving aunt,</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Alice Horner</span>.<br /> +</p> + +<p>P. S.—I am in bed, but with the warmer weather I shall come to see +you, my dear niece, and warn you again.—A. H.</p> +</div> + +<p>"Good thing she is in bed," commented Mrs. Raeburn, as she finished +reading her aunt's letter.</p> + +<p>"What's all this about Jenny going for a dancer?" asked Charlie that +evening.</p> + +<p>"Whatever has it got to do with you, I should like to know?" said his +wife.</p> + +<p>"Well, I am her father, when all's said and done. Aren't I?"</p> + +<p>"And a nice example to a child. I suppose somebody's got to look after +you when I die."</p> + +<p>"I expect the old man will die first. I've been feeling very poorly this +year."<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a></p> + +<p>"First I've heard of it."</p> + +<p>"Why, only last night my finger was hurting something chronic."</p> + +<p>"Show me."</p> + +<p>"Be careful." Mr. Raeburn offered the sick finger for his wife's +inspection.</p> + +<p>"I can't see nothing."</p> + +<p>"There, blessed if I'm not showing of you the wrong hand."</p> + +<p>"You must have been shocking bad."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's better now."</p> + +<p>"That's enough of you and your fingers. Why shouldn't Jenny be a +dancer?" persisted Mrs. Raeburn.</p> + +<p>"Don't go blaring it all over the neighborhood, anyhow, and don't give +me the blame for it if anything goes wrong."</p> + +<p>"Look here, Charlie, when I married you, I hadn't got nothing better to +do, had I?"</p> + +<p>Charlie shook his head in sarcastic astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Yes," went on Mrs. Raeburn. "You can wag your great, silly head, but +I'm not going to have my Jenny marrying <i>any</i>body. She's going to be +able to say, 'No, thank you,' to a sight of young chaps. And if I can't +look after her sharp when she's at the theater, I can't look after her +anywhere else, that's very certain."</p> + +<p>"Well, I call it rank nonsense—rank nonsense, that's what I call it, +and don't you turn round on me and say I put it into her head. What +theater's she going to?"</p> + +<p>"You silly man, she's got to learn first."</p> + +<p>"Learn what?"</p> + +<p>"Learn dancing—at a school."</p> + +<p>"Learn dancing? If she's got to learn dancing, what's the sense in her +going for an actress?"</p> + +<p>"You had to learn carpentering, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, but that's very different to dancing. Anybody can +dance—some better than others; but <i>learn</i> dancing—well, there, the +ideas some women gets in their heads, it's against all nature."<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a></p> + +<p>"Have you finished? Because I got my washing to see to. You go and talk +it over at the 'Arms.' I reckon they've got more patience than me."</p> + +<p>Jenny was in bed when her mother told her she should become a pupil of +Madame Aldavini.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you glad?" she asked, as her daughter made no observation.</p> + +<p>"Yes; it's all right," said Jenny, coldly it seemed.</p> + +<p>"You are a comical child."</p> + +<p>"Shall I go to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"We'll see."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn thought to herself, as she left the room, how strange +children were; and, having settled Jenny's future, she began to worry +about May, who was just then showing symptoms of a weak spine, and lay +awake thinking of her children half the night.<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>Chapter VIII: <i>Ambition Looks in the Glass</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">O</span>N Mr. Vergoe's recommendation, Madame Aldavini granted an interview to +Mrs. Raeburn and her daughter, and the old clown was to accompany them +on the difficult occasion.</p> + +<p>It was a warm April day when they set out, with a sky like the matrix of +turquoise. The jagged purple clouds were so high that all felt the +outside of an omnibus was the only place on such a day. Mrs. Raeburn and +Jenny sat in front, and Mr. Vergoe sat immediately behind them, pointing +out every object of interest on the route. At least, he pointed out +everything until they reached Sadlers Wells Theater, after which +reminiscences of Sadlers Wells occupied the rest of the journey. They +swung along Rosebery Avenue and into Theobald's Road and pulled up at +last by Southampton Row. Then they walked through a maze of narrow +streets to Madame Aldavini's school, in Great Queen Street. No longer +can it be found; whatever ghosts of dead <i>coryphées</i> haunt the portals +must spend a draughty purgatory in the very middle of Kingsway.</p> + +<p>It was a tall, gray Georgian house, with flat windows and narrow sills +and a suitable cornice of dancing Loves and Graces over the door, which +had a large brass plate engraved with "School of Dancing," and more +bells beside it than Jenny had ever seen beside one door in her life. +She thought what games could be played with Great Queen Street and its +inhabitants,<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a> if it were in Islington and all the houses had as many +bells. Mr. Vergoe pressed a button labeled "Aldavini," and presently +they were walking along a dark, dusty passage into a little paneled room +with a large desk and pictures of dancers in every imaginable kind of +costume. At the desk sat Madame Aldavini herself in a dress of tawny +satin. Jenny thought she looked like an organ-woman, with her dark, +wrinkled face and glittering black eyes.</p> + +<p>"And how is Mr. Vergoe?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"How are <i>you</i>, Madame?" he replied, with great deference.</p> + +<p>"I am very well, thank you."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn was presented and dropped her umbrella in embarrassment, +making Jenny feel very much ashamed of her mother and wish she were +alone with Mr. Vergoe. Then she was introduced herself, and as Madame +Aldavini fixed her with a piercing eye, Jenny felt so shy that she was +only able to murmur incoherent politeness to the floor.</p> + +<p>The dancing-mistress got up from her desk and looked critically at the +proposed pupil.</p> + +<p>"You think the child will make a dancer?" she said, turning sharply to +Mrs. Raeburn.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, really I—well, she's always jigging about, if that's +anything to go by."</p> + +<p>Madame Aldavini gave a contemptuous sniff.</p> + +<p>"I think she will make a very good dancer," Mr. Vergoe put in.</p> + +<p>"You've seen her?"</p> + +<p>"Many times," he said. "In fact, this visit is due to me—in a manner of +speaking."</p> + +<p>"Come, we'll see what she can do," said the mistress, and led the way +out of the little room along a glass-covered arcade into the +dancing-room.</p> + +<p>The latter was probably a Georgian ballroom with fine proportions and +Italian ceiling. A portion of it was curtained off for the pupils to +change into practice dress, and all the way round the walls was a rail +for toe-dancing. At the far end<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> was a dais with a big arm-chair and a +piano, over which hung a large oil painting of some bygone ballet at the +Théâtre de l'Opéra in Paris, and also an engraving of Taglioni signed +affectionately by that great Prima Ballerina Assoluta.</p> + +<p>Madame Aldavini rang a bell, and presently Miss Carron, her pianist and +assistant teacher, came in. Miss Carron was a Frenchwoman, who had lived +so long in London that she spoke English better than French, except in +moments of great anger, when her native tongue returned to her with an +added force of expression from such long periods of quiescence.</p> + +<p>"What tune do you like, miss?" inquired Madame. "What is her name? +Jenny? <i>Si</i>, I have no Jenny at present."</p> + +<p>But the would-be dancer had no tune by name.</p> + +<p>"Play the what's it called from what's its name," suggested Mr. Vergoe, +to help matters along.</p> + +<p>"<i>Hein?</i>" said Miss Carron sharply.</p> + +<p>"The—you know—the—the—well, anyway, it goes like this," and he +hummed the opening bars of the Intermezzo from "Cavalleria."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Miss Carron. "But that's no tune to dance to. You want +something to show off the twiddly-bits."</p> + +<p>"Play the Intermezzo," commanded Madame Aldavini.</p> + +<p>Miss Carron began, but Jenny could only wriggle in a shamefaced way, and +was too shy to start.</p> + +<p>"You great stupid," said her mother.</p> + +<p>"One, two, three, off," said Mr. Vergoe.</p> + +<p>"You are frightened, yes? Timid? Come, I shall not eat you," declared +Madame.</p> + +<p>At last the novice produced a few steps.</p> + +<p>"Enough," said Madame. "I take her. She will come once a week for the +first year, twice a week for the second year, three times a week the +third year and every day—how old is she?"</p> + +<p>"Ten."</p> + +<p>"Every day when she is thirteen."</p> + +<p>The further details of Jenny's apprenticeship were settled in<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> the +little paneled room, while Jenny listened to wonderful instructions +about stockings and shoes and skirts. When it was all over the three +visitors walked out of the gray house, where Jenny was to spend so many +hours of childhood, into Great Queen Street and an April shower +sprinkling the pavement with large preliminary drops. Mr. Vergoe +insisted on standing tea at a shop in Holborn for the luck of the +adventure. Jenny's first chocolate <i>éclair</i> probably made a more abiding +impression on her mind than the first meeting with Madame Aldavini.</p> + +<p>So Jenny became a dancer and went, under her mother's escort, to Great +Queen Street once a week for a year.</p> + +<p>The pupils of Madame Aldavini all wore pink tarlatan skirts, black +stockings clocked with pink, and black jerseys with a large pink A +worked on the front. There were about twenty girls in Jenny's class, who +all had lockers and pegs of their own in the anteroom curtained off by +black velvet draperies. Fat theatrical managers with diamond rings and +buttonholes sometimes used to sit beside Madame and watch the pupils. +She sat on the dais, whence her glittering black eyes and keen face +could follow the dancers everywhere. Jenny used to think the mistress +was like a black note of the piano come to life. There was something so +clean and polished and clear-cut about Madame. Her eyes, she used to +think, were like black currants. Madame's feet in black satin shoes were +restless all the while beneath her petticoats; but she never let them +appear, so that the children should have no assistance beyond the long +pole with which she used to mark the beat on the floor and sometimes on +the shoulders of a refractory dancer.</p> + +<p>Two years rolled by, and Jenny was able to go alone now. She was +considered one of Madame Aldavini's best pupils, and several managers +wanted her for fairy parts, but Mrs. Raeburn always refused, and Madame +Aldavini, because she thought that Jenny might be spoilt by too +premature a first appearance, did not try persuasion.</p> + +<p>As might have been expected, the instant that Jenny had her own way and +was fairly set on the road to the gratification of<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a> her wishes, she +began to be lazy. She was so far a natural dancer that nearly every step +came very easily to her. This facility was fatal, for unless she learned +at once, she would not take the trouble to learn at all. Madame used to +write home to Hagworth Street complaints of her indolence, and Mrs. +Raeburn used to threaten to take her away from the school. Then for a +very short time Jenny would work really hard.</p> + +<p>At thirteen she went every day to the dancing school, and at thirteen +Jenny had deliciously slim legs and a figure as lithe as a hazel wand. +Her almond eyes were of some fantastic shade of sapphire-blue with deep +gray twilights in them and sea-green laughters. They were extraordinary +eyes whose under-lids always closed first. Her curls never won back the +silver they lost in the country; but her complexion had the bloom and +delicate texture of a La France rose, although in summer her straight +little nose was freckled like a bird's egg. Her hands were long and +white; her lips very crimson and translucent, but the under-lip +protruded slightly, and bad temper gave it a vicious look. Her teeth +were small, white, and glossy as a cat's. She cast a powerful +enchantment over all the other girls, so that when, from tomboy +loiterings and mischievous escorts, she arrived late for class, they +would all run round for her with shoes and petticoats and stockings, +like little slaves. Laughingly, she would let them wait upon her and +wonder very seldom why she was the only girl so highly favored. She had +a sharp tongue and no patience for the giggles and enlaced arms of +girlhood. She had no whispered secrets to communicate. She never put out +a finger to help her companions, although sometimes she would prompt the +next girl through a difficult step. She was entirely indifferent to +their adoration. As if the blood of queens ran in her veins, she +accepted homage naturally. Perhaps it was some boyish quality of +debonair assurance in Jenny that made the rest of them disinclined to +find any fault in her. She seemed as though she ought to be spoilt, and +if, like most spoilt children, she was unpleasant at<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> home, she was very +charming abroad. Her main idea of amusement was to be "off with the +boys," by whom she was treated as an equal. There was no sentiment about +her, and an attempted kiss would have provoked spitfire rage. There was +something of Atalanta about her, and in Hellas Artemis would have +claimed her, running by the thyme-scented borders of Calydon.</p> + +<p>Madame Aldavini, with some disapproval, watched her progress. She was +not satisfied with her pupil and determined to bring her down to the +hard facts of the future. Jenny was called up for a solo lesson. These +solo lessons, when Madame used to show the steps by making her fingers +dance on her knees, were dreaded by everybody.</p> + +<p>"Come along now," she said, and hummed an old ballet melody, tapping her +fingers the while.</p> + +<p>Jenny started off well enough, but lost herself presently in trying to +follow those quick fingers.</p> + +<p>"Again, foolish one," cried the mistress. "Again, I say. Well can you do +it, if you like."</p> + +<p>"I can't," declared Jenny sulkily. "It's too difficult."</p> + +<p>Madame Aldavini seized her long pole and brandished it fiercely.</p> + +<p>"Again, self-willed baby, again."</p> + +<p>Jenny, with half a screwed-up eye on the pole, made a second attempt; +the pole promptly swung round and caught her on the right shoulder. She +began to cry and stamp.</p> + +<p>"I can't do it; I can't do it."</p> + +<p>"You will do it. You shall do it."</p> + +<p>Once more Jenny started, and this time succeeded so well that it was +only at the very end of the new step that Madame angrily pushed the pole +between her pretty ankles, rattling it from side to side to show her +contempt for Jenny's obstinacy.</p> + +<p>"For it is obstinacy," she declared. "It is not stupidity. Bah! well can +you do it, if you like."</p> + +<p>So Madame conquered in the end with her long pole and<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> her sharp tongue, +and Jenny learned the new and difficult step.</p> + +<p>"Listen to me," said the former. "Do you not wish to become a Prima +Ballerina?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," murmured Jenny, the sooner to be out of Madame's reach, and back +with the boys in Islington.</p> + +<p>"You have not the banal smile of the <i>danseuse</i> who takes her strength +from her teeth. You have not the fat forearm or dreadful wrist of those +idiots who take their strength from them, and, thanks to me, you might +even become a Prima Ballerina Assoluta."</p> + +<p>The words of an old comic song about a girl called Di who hailed from +Utah and became a Prima Ballerina Assoluta returned, with its jingling +tune, to Jenny's head, while Madame was talking.</p> + +<p>"Whistle not while I talk, inattentive one," cried her mistress, banging +the pole down with a thump.</p> + +<p>"Have you dreams of success, of bouquets and sables and your own +carriage? Look around you, lazy one. Look at the great Taglioni whom +emperors and kings applauded. Yet you, miserable child, you can only now +make one 'cut.' Why do you come here unless you have ambition to +succeed, to be <i>maîtresse</i> of your art, to sweep through the stage door +with silk dresses? Do I choose you from the others to dance to me, +unless I wish your fortune—eh? If, after this, you work not, I finish +with you. I let you go your own pig-headed way."</p> + +<p>Jenny did work for a while, and even persevered and practiced so +diligently as to be able to do a double cut and a fairly high beat, +sweeping all the cups and saucers off the kitchen table as she did so. +But when she had achieved this accomplishment, how much nearer was she +to a public appearance, a triumphant success? What was the use of +practicing difficult steps for the eyes of Ruby? What was the use of +holding on to the handle of the kitchen door and putting one leg +straight up till her toes twinkled over the top of it? Ruby only said, +"You unnatural thing," or drew her breath in through ridged<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> teeth in +horrified amazement. What was the good of slaving all day? It was better +to enjoy one's self by standing on the step of young Willie Hopkins' new +bicycle and floating round Highbury Barn with curls and petticoats +flying, and peals of wild laughter. It was much more pleasant to shock +old ladies by puffing the smoke of cigarettes before them, or to play +Follow my Leader over the corrugated-iron roof of an omnibus depot.</p> + +<p>Sometimes she took to playing truant for wind-blown afternoons by +Highgate Ponds in the company of boys, and always made the same excuse +to Madame of being wanted at home, until Madame grew suspicious and +wrote to Mrs. Raeburn.</p> + +<p>Her mother asked why Jenny had not gone to her dancing-lesson, and where +she had been.</p> + +<p>"I <i>was</i> there," vowed Jenny. "Madame can't have noticed me."</p> + +<p>So Mrs. Raeburn wrote and explained the mistake, and Jenny managed with +great anxiety to obtain possession of the letter, ostensibly in order to +post it, but really in order to tear it to a hundred pieces round the +corner.</p> + +<p>She was naturally a truthful child, but the long restraint of childhood +had to be mitigated somehow, and lying to those in authority was no +sacrifice of her egotism, the basis of all essential truthfulness. With +her contemporaries she was always proudly, indeed painfully, frank.</p> + +<p>This waiting to grow up was unendurable. Everybody else was emancipated +except herself. Ruby went away to be married—a source of much +speculation to Jenny, who could not understand anybody desiring to live +in a state of such corporeal intimacy with Ruby.</p> + +<p>"I'm positive he don't know she snores," said Jenny to her mother.</p> + +<p>"Well, what's it got to do with you?"</p> + +<p>What, indeed, had anything to do with her? It was shocking how utterly +unimportant she was to Hagworth Street.</p> + +<p><a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a>Edie had gone away to learn dressmaking, and Alfie had vanished into +some Midland town to learn something else, and occupying his room there +was another lodger whom she liked. Then one day he came into the kitchen +in a queer brown suit and said he was "off to the Front."</p> + +<p>"Gone for a soldier?" said her father, when he heard of it. "Good Lord! +some people don't know when they're well off, and that's a fact."</p> + +<p>There was nobody to inflame Jenny with the burning splendors of +patriotism. It became merely a matter of clothes, like everything else. +She gathered it was the correct thing to wear khaki ties, sometimes with +scarlet for the soldiers or blue for the sailors. It was also not +outrageous to wear a Union Jack waistcoat. But any conception of a small +nation fighting inch by inch for their sun-parched country, of a great +nation sacrificing even its sense of humor to consolidate an empire and +avenge a disgrace, was entirely outside her imaginative experience.</p> + +<p>What had it got to do with her?</p> + +<p>There was nobody to implant ideals of citizenship or try to show her +relation to the rest of mankind. Her education at the board school was +mechanical; the mistresses were like mental coffee-grinders, who, having +absorbed a certain number of hard facts roasted by somebody else, +distributed them in a more easily assimilated form. They tried to give +children the primary technique of knowledge, but without any suggestions +as to the manner of application. She had enough common sense to grasp +the ultimate value of drearily reiterated practice steps in dancing. She +perceived that they were laying the foundation of something better. It +was only her own impatience which nullified some of the practical +results of much academic instruction. But of her intellectual education +the foundations were not visible at all. The teachers were building on +sand a house which would topple over as soon as she was released from +attendance at school. Jenny was a sufferer from the period of transition +through which educational theories were passing, and might have been +better off under the old<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> system of picturesque misapprehensions of +truth, or even with no deliberate education at all. It is important to +understand the stark emptiness of Jenny's mind now and for a long while +afterwards. Life was a dragging, weary affair unless she was being +amused. There had been no mental adventures since, flashing and +glorious, the idea of dancing came furiously through the night as she +lay awake thinking of the pantomime. The fault was not hers. She was the +victim of sterile imaginations. Her soul was bleak and cold as the life +of man in the days before Prometheus stole fire from heaven.</p> + +<p>If it had not been for May, Jenny would have been even less satisfactory +than she was. But May, with her bird-like gayety—not obstreperous like +a blackbird's, but sweet and inconspicuous as the song of a goldfinch +dipping through the air above apple-orchards—May, with her easy +acceptance of physical deformity, shamed her out of mere idle +discontent. Jenny would talk to her of the dancing-school till May knew +every girl's peculiarity.</p> + +<p>"She's funny, my sister. She's a caution, is young May. Poor kid, a +shame about her back."</p> + +<p>They quarreled, of course, over trifles, but May was the only person to +whom Jenny would behave as if she were sorry for anything she had done +or said. She never admitted her penitence in word to anybody on earth. +It was a pleasure to Mrs. Raeburn, this fondness of Jenny for May, and +once in a rare moment of confidence, she told the elder child that she +depended on her to look after May when she herself was gone.</p> + +<p>"With her poor little back she won't ever be able to earn her +living—not properly, and when you're on the stage and getting good +money, you mustn't leave May out in the cold."</p> + +<p>Here was something vital, a tangible appeal, not a sentiment broadly +expressed without obvious application like the culminating line of a +hymn. Here was a reason, and Jenny clung fast to it as a drowning +seafarer will clutch at samphire, unconscious<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a> of anything save greenery +and blessed land. People were not accustomed to give Jenny reasons. When +she had one, usually self-evolved, she held fast to it, nor cared a jot +about its possible insecurity. Reasons were infrequent bits of greenery +to one battered by a monotonous and empty ocean; for Jenny's mind was +indeed sea-water with the flotsam of wrecked information, with wonderful +hues evanescent, with the sparkle and ripple of momentary joys, with the +perpetual booming of discontent, sterile and unharvested.</p> + +<p>One breezy June day, much the same sort of day as that when Jenny danced +under the plane-tree, Madame Aldavini told her she could give her a +place as one of the quartette of dancers in a Glasgow pantomime.</p> + +<p>"But, listen," said Madame, "what they want is acrobatic dancing. If you +join this quartette, it does not mean you give up dancing—ballet-dancing, +you understand; you will come back to me when the pantomime is over +until you are able to join the Ballet at Covent Garden. You will not +degrade your talent by sprawling over shoulders, by handsprings and +splits and the tricks which an English audience likes. You understand?"</p> + +<p>Jenny did not really understand anything beyond the glorious fact that +in December she would be away from Hagworth Street and free at last to +do just as she liked.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn, when she heard of the proposal, declined to entertain its +possibility. It was useless for Jenny to sulk and slam doors, and demand +furiously why she had been allowed to learn dancing if she was not to be +allowed ever to make a public appearance.</p> + +<p>"Time enough for that in the future," said her mother. "There'll always +be plenty of theaters."</p> + +<p>Jenny became desperate. Her dreams of a glorious freedom were fading. +That night she took to bed with her a knife.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing with that knife?" said May.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to kill myself," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>Pale as a witch, she sat on the edge of the bed. White was<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> her face as +a countenance seen in a looking-glass at dawn. Her lips were closed; her +eyes burned.</p> + +<p>May shrieked.</p> + +<p>"Mother—dad—come quick: Jenny's going to kill herself with the +carving-knife."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn rushed into the room and saw the child with the blade +against her throat. She snatched away the knife.</p> + +<p>"Whatever was you going to do?"</p> + +<p>"I want to go to Glasgow," said Jenny; "and I'll kill myself if I +don't."</p> + +<p>"I'll give you 'kill yourself,'" cried Mrs. Raeburn, slapping her +daughter's cheeks so that a crimson mark burned on its dead paleness.</p> + +<p>"Well, I will," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"We'll see about it," said Mrs. Raeburn. Jenny knew she had won; and +deserved victory, for she had meant what she said. Her mother was +greatly perplexed. Who would look after Jenny?</p> + +<p>Madame Aldavini explained that there would be three other girls, that +they would all live together, that she herself would see them all +established, as she had to go north herself to give the final touches to +the ballet which she was producing; that no harm would come to Jenny; +that she would really be more strictly looked after than she was at +home.</p> + +<p>"That's quite impossible," said Mrs. Raeburn.</p> + +<p>Madame smiled sardonically.</p> + +<p>"However," Mrs. Raeburn went on, "I suppose she's got to make a start +some time. So let her go."</p> + +<p>Now followed an interlude from toe-dancing—an interlude which Jenny +enjoyed, although once she nearly strained herself doing the "strides." +But acrobatic dancing came very easily to her, and progress was much +more easily discernible than in the long and tiresome education for the +ballet.</p> + +<p>Of the other three girls who were to make up the Aldavini Quartette, +only one was still at the school. She was a plump girl called Eileen +Vaughan, three years older than Jenny, prim<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a> and, in the latter's +opinion, "very stuck up." Jenny hoped that the other two would be more +fun than Eileen. Eileen was a pig, although she liked her name.</p> + +<p>Great problems arose in Hagworth Street out of Jenny's embarkation upon +the ship of life. So long as she had been merely a pupil of Madame +Aldavini's, family opposition to her choice of a profession had +slumbered; but with the prospect of her speedy debut, it broke out again +very fiercely.</p> + +<p>Old Miss Horner had died soon after her letter of protest against the +dancing notion, and Miss Mary was left alone in Carminia House—in +isolated survival, a pathetic more than a severe figure. However, she +ventured to pay a visit to her niece in order to present a final +remonstrance, but she lacked the power of her two elder sisters. What +they commanded, she besought. What they declared, she hinted. Mrs. +Raeburn felt quite sorry for the poor old thing, as she nodded on about +salvation and temptation and the wages of sin. Old Miss Horner used to +be able to wing her platitudes with the flame of God's wrath, but Miss +Mary let them appear as the leaden things they really were. She made no +impression but that of her own loneliness, went back to Carminia House +after declining a slice of cherry cake, and died shortly afterwards, to +the great comfort of the Primitive Methodists of Sion Chapel, who gained +velvet cushions for the pews in consequence, and became less primitive +than ever.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn could not help speculating for an hour or two upon the +course of Jenny's life if she had accepted her aunts' offer, but went to +sleep at the end of it thinking, anyway, it would be all the same a +hundred years hence.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Purkiss came and registered a vow never to come again if Jenny +really went; but she had registered so many vows in her sister's hearing +that Mrs. Raeburn had come to regard them with something of that +familiarity which must ultimately dull the surprise of a Commissioner +for Oaths, and treated them as a matter of course.</p> + +<p>Uncle James Threadgale, with face as pale and square as<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a> ever, but with +hair slightly damper and thinner, suggested that Jenny should come down +to Galton for a bit and think it over. This offer being pleasantly +declined, he gave her a roll of blue serge and asked a blessing on the +undertaking.</p> + +<p>Charlie, having found that he was easily able to keep all knowledge of +his daughter's lapse into publicity from his fellow-workmen at the shop +in Kentish Town, decided to celebrate her imminent departure to the +boreal pole (Glasgow soon achieved a glacial topography in Hagworth +Street), by giving a grand supper-party.</p> + +<p>"We'll have old Vergoe and Madame Neverseenher"—his witty periphrasis +for Aldavini—"and a brother of mine you've none of you never seen +either, a rare comic, or he used to be, though where he is now, well, +that wants knowing."</p> + +<p>"What's the good of saying he's to come to supper, then?" inquired Mrs. +Raeburn.</p> + +<p>"Only if he's about," explained Charlie. "If he's about, I'd like Jenny +here to meet him, because he was always a big hand at club concerts +twenty years ago, before he went to Africa. Arthur his name <i>was</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh, for goodness sake, stop your talking," said Mrs. Raeburn.</p> + +<p>"And you can't ask Madame," announced Jenny, who was horrified by the +contemplation of a meeting between her father and the dancing-mistress.</p> + +<p>"<i>And</i> why not? <i>And</i> why not? Will anybody here kindly tell me why +not?"</p> + +<p>"Because you can't," said Jenny decidedly.</p> + +<p>"Of course not. The child's quite right," Mrs. Raeburn corroborated.</p> + +<p>"Well, of course, you all know better than the old man. But I daresay +she'd like to talk about Paris with your poor old dad."</p> + +<p>However, notwithstanding the elision of all Mr. Raeburn's proposed +guests from the list of invitations, the supper did happen, and the +master of the house derived some consolation<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a> from being allowed to +preside at the head of his own table, if not sufficiently far removed +from his wife to enjoy himself absolutely. Mr. Vergoe, getting a very +old man now, came with Miss Lilli Vergoe, still a second-line girl at +the Orient Theater of Varieties, and Edie arrived from Brixton, where +she was learning to make dresses. Eileen Vaughan came, at Mrs. Raeburn's +instigation and much to Jenny's disgust, and Mr. Smithers, the new +lodger, a curly-headed young draper's assistant, tripped down from his +room upstairs. May, of course, was present, and Alfie sent a picture +postcard from Northampton, showing the after-effects of a party. This +was put upon the mantelpiece and greatly diverted the company. Mrs. +Purkiss was invited, and pasty-faced Percy and Claude and Mr. Purkiss +were also invited, but Mrs. Purkiss signalized her disapproval by taking +no notice of the invitation, thereby throwing Mrs. Raeburn into a +regular flutter of uncertainty. Nevertheless, she turned up ten minutes +late with both her offspring, to everybody's great disappointment and +Mrs. Raeburn's great anxiety, when she saw with what a will her nephews +settled down to the tinned tongue.</p> + +<p>The supper passed off splendidly, and nearly everything was eaten and +praised. Mrs. Purkiss talked graciously to Mr. Smithers about the +prospects of haberdashery and the principles of window-dressing and, +somewhat tactlessly, about the advantage of cash registers. Charlie gave +a wonderfully humorous description of his first crossing of the English +Channel. Percy and Claude ate enormously, and Percy was sick, to his +uncle's immense entertainment and profound satisfaction, as it gave him +an excuse to tell the whole story of the Channel crossing over again, +ending up with: "It's all right, Perce. Cheer up, sonny, Dover's in +sight."</p> + +<p>Eileen ate self-consciously and gazed with considerable respectfulness +at Miss Lilli Vergoe, who related pleasantly her many triumphs over the +snares and duplicity of the new stage manager at the Orient. Mr. Vergoe +chatted amiably with everybody in turn and made a great feature of +helping the<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> stewed tripe. May went into fits of laughter at everything +and everybody, and Jenny discussed with Edie what style of dress should +be made from the roll of blue serge presented to her by Uncle James.</p> + +<p>After supper everybody settled down to make the evening a complete +success.</p> + +<p>Mr. Vergoe sang "Champagne Charlie" and "In Her Hair She Wore a White +Camelia," and Mr. Raeburn joined in the chorus of the former with a note +of personal satisfaction, while Mrs. Raeburn always said:</p> + +<table summary="poetry" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> +<tbody><tr><td>"Champagne Charlie <i>is</i> his name,</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Half a pint of porter <i>is</i> his game."</span></td></tr> +</tbody></table> + +<p>Neither Miss Vergoe nor Miss Vaughan would oblige with a dance, to the +great disappointment of Mr. Smithers, who had hoped for a solution of +many sartorial puzzles from such close proximity to two actresses. +Jenny, however, was set on the table when the plates had been cleared +away, and danced a breakdown to the great embarrassment of Mrs. Purkiss, +who feared for pasty-faced Percy and Claude's sense of the shocking.</p> + +<p>Percy recited Casabianca, and Claude, though he did not recite himself, +prompted his brother in so many of the lines that it became, to all +purposes, a duet. Edie giggled in a corner with Mr. Smithers, and told +the latter once or twice that he was a sauce-box and no mistake. Mr. +Smithers himself sang "Queen of My Heart," in a mildly pleasant tenor +voice, and, being encored, sang "Maid of Athens," and told Miss Vergoe, +in confidence, that several persons had passed the remark that he was +very like Lord Byron. To which Miss Vergoe, with great want of +appreciation, replied, "Who cares?" and sent Mr. Smithers headlong back +to the readier admiration of Edie.</p> + +<p>It was a very delightful evening, indeed, whose most delightful moment, +perhaps, was Mrs. Purkiss's retirement with Percy and Claude, leaving +the rest of the party to settle themselves round the kitchen fire, roast +chestnuts, eat oranges and<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> apples, smoke, and drink the various drinks +that became their ages and tastes.</p> + +<p>"And what's Jenny going to call herself on the stage?" asked Mr. Vergoe.</p> + +<p>"What <i>does</i> the man mean?" said Mrs. Raeburn.</p> + +<p>"Well, she must have a stage name. Raeburn is too long."</p> + +<p>"It's no longer than Vergoe," argued Mrs. Raeburn, looking at Lilli.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but she already had a stage name—so to speak," explained the old +man proudly. "What's Jenny's second name?"</p> + +<p>"Pearl," said Mrs. Raeburn.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother, you needn't go telling everybody."</p> + +<p>"There you are," said Charlie, who had waited for this moment fourteen +years. "There you are; I told you she wouldn't thank you for it when you +would give it her. Pearl! Whoever heard? Tut-tut!"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't she call herself Jenny Pearl—Miss Jenny Pearl?" said Mr. +Vergoe. "If it isn't a good Christian name, it's a very showy stage +name, as it were—or wait a bit—what about Jenny Vere? There was a +queen or something called Jennivere—no now, I come to think of it, that +was Guinevere."</p> + +<p>"I can't think whatever on earth she wants to call herself anything +different from what she is," persisted the mother.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know either, but it's done. Even Lilli here, she spells +her first name differently—L-i-double l-i, and Miss Vaughan here, I'll +bet Vaughan ain't her own name—in a manner of speaking."</p> + +<p>"Yes it is," said Miss Vaughan, pursing up her mouth so that it looked +like a red flannel button.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Vergoe was right—Miss Eileen Vaughan in Camberwell was Nellie +Jaggs. Jenny soon found that out when they lived together, and wrote a +postcard to Mr. Vergoe to tell him so.</p> + +<p>"But why must she be Jenny Pearl?" asked Mrs. Raeburn.<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> "Although, mind, +I don't say it isn't a very good name," she added, remembering it was +her own conjunction.</p> + +<p>"It's done," Mr. Vergoe insisted. "More flowery—I suppose—so to +speak."</p> + +<p>So Jenny Raeburn became Jenny Pearl, and her health was drunk and her +success wished.</p> + +<p>A few weeks afterward she stood on Euston platform, with a queer +feeling, half-way between sickness and breathlessness, and was met by +Madame Aldavini with Eileen and two older girls, and bundled into a +reserved compartment. Very soon she was waving a handkerchief to her +mother and May, already scarcely visible in the murk of a London fog. +Life had begun.<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>Chapter IX: <i>Life, Art and Love</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">E</span>ILEEN VAUGHAN was, of course, perfectly familiar to Jenny, but the two +other girls who were to be her companions for several weeks had to be +much observed during the first half-hour of the journey north.</p> + +<p>Madame Aldavini was in a first-class compartment, as she wanted to be +alone in order to work out on innumerable sheets of paper the +arrangement of a new ballet. So the Aldavini Quartette shared between +them the four corners of a third-class compartment. Jenny felt important +to the world, when she read on the slip pasted to the window: "Reserved +for Aldavini's Quartette, Euston to Glasgow." It was written in +looking-glass writing, to be sure, but that only made the slow +deciphering of it the more delightful.</p> + +<p>However, it was read clearly at last, and Jenny turned round once more +to look at her companions. Immediately opposite was Valérie Duval—a +French girl with black fountains of hair, with full red lips and a +complexion that darkened from ivory to warm Southern roses when the +blood coursed to her cheeks. Her eyes glowed under heavy brown lids as +she talked very sweetly in a contralto French accent. Soon she took +Jenny on her knees and said:</p> + +<p>"You will tell me all your secrets—yes?"</p> + +<p>To which Jenny scoffingly answered:</p> + +<p>"Secrets? I'm not one for secrets."</p> + +<p>"But you will confide to me all your <i>passions</i>, your loves,—yes?"</p> + +<p>"Love?" said Jenny, looking round over her shoulder at Valérie. "Love's +silly."<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a></p> + +<p>Valérie smiled.</p> + +<p>The other new friend was Winnie Ambrose—raspberries and cream and +flaxen hair and dimpled chin and upper lip curling and a snub nose. She +was one of those girls who never suggest the presence of stays, who +always wear white blouses of crêpe de chine, cut low round a plump neck. +They have bangles strung on their arms, and each one possesses a locket +containing the inadequate portrait of an inadequate young man. But +Winnie was <i>very</i> nice, always ready for a joke.</p> + +<p>The train swept them on northwards. Once, as it slowed to make a sharp +curve, Jenny looked out of the window and saw the great express, like a +line of dominoes with its black and white carriages. There was not much +to look at, however, as they cleft the gray December airs, as they +roared through echoing stations into tunnels and out again into the +dreary light. They ate lunch, and Jenny drank Bass out of a bottle and +spluttered and made queer faces and wrinkled up her gay, deep eyes in +laughter unquenchable. They swept on through Lancashire with its +chimneys and furnaces and barren heaps of refuse. They swung clear of +these huddled populations and, through the gathering twilight, cut a way +across the rolling dales of Cumberland. Jenny thought what horrible +places they were, these sweeping moorland wastes with gray cottages no +bigger than sheep, with switchback stone walls whence the crows flew as +the train surged by. She was glad to be in the powdered, scented, untidy +compartment in warmth and light. The child grew tired and, leaning her +head on Valérie's breast, went to sleep; she was drowsily glad when +Valérie kissed her, murmuring in a whisper melodious as the splash of +the Saône against the warm piers of her native Lyons:</p> + +<p>"Comme elle est gentille, la gosse."</p> + +<p>Pillowed thus, Jenny spent the last hours of the journey with the dark +crossing of the border, waking in the raw station air, waking to bundles +being pulled down and papers<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> gathered together and porters peering in +through the door. Madame Aldavini said before she left them:</p> + +<p>"To-morrow, girls, eleven o'clock at the theater."</p> + +<p>And all the girls said, "Yes, Madame," and packed themselves into a cab +with velvet cushions of faded peacock-blue and a smell of damp straps. +There they sat with bundles heaped on their knees, and were jolted +through the cold Glasgow streets. It was Saturday night, and all the +curbstones were occupied by rocking drunkards, except in one wide street +very golden and beautiful, from which they turned off to climb +laboriously up the cobbles of a steep hill and pull up at last before a +tall house in a tall, dark, quiet road.</p> + +<p>They walked up the stairs and rang the bell. The big door swung open, to +Jenny's great surprise, apparently without human agency. They stood in +the well of a great winding stone staircase, while a husky voice called +from somewhere high above them to come up.</p> + +<p>They had a large sitting-room, too full of hangings and overburdened +with photographs of rigid groups; but the fire was blazing up the +chimney and the lamp was throwing a warm and comfortable halo on the +ceiling. Jenny peeped out of the window and could see the black roofs of +Glasgow in the starlight. They had tea when they arrived, with porridge, +which Jenny disliked extremely, and oatcakes which made her cough; and +after tea they unpacked. It was settled that Jenny should sleep with +Valérie. The bedroom was cosy with slanting bits of ceiling flung +anywhere, like a box of toy bricks put carelessly away. The bed, to +Jenny's enormous diversion, was buried in a deep alcove.</p> + +<p>"Whoever heard?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"We'll be all to ourselves," said Valérie in her deep voice; and Jenny +felt a thrill at the idea of lying snug in the alcove with Valérie's +warm arm about her.</p> + +<p>The sitting-room looked a very different place when the four girls had +scattered over it their various belongings, when they had flung all the +antimacassars into the corner in a cold<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a> white heap, when they had stuck +a fan-shaped line of photographs round the mirror over the +mantelpiece—photographs of fluffy-haired girls in gay dancing +attitudes, usually inscribed "Yours sincerely Lottie, or Amy, or Madge, +or Violet."</p> + +<p>When she had pulled off most of the blobs on the valance of the +mantelpiece and examined all the photographs, Jenny sat down on the +white rabbit-skin rug with her back to the high iron fender and looked +at her companions—at Winnie sprawling over a shining leather arm-chair, +twisting one of the buttons that starred its round back, while she read +"Will He Remember?"; at Eileen, writing home to Camberwell; at Valérie, +as deep in a horse-hair sofa as the shape of it allowed, smoking a +cigarette. She thought, while she sat there in the warmth and quiet, how +jolly it was to be quit of the eternal sameness of Hagworth Street. She +almost felt that Islington no longer existed, as if up here in this +Glasgow flat she were in a new world.</p> + +<p>"This is nice," she said. "Give us a cigarette, Val, there's a duck."</p> + +<p>Bedtime came not at any fixed boring moment, but suddenly, with all the +rapture of an inspiration. Bedtime came with Valérie taking, it seemed, +hours to undress as she wandered round the room in a maze of white lace +and pink ribbons. Jenny lay buried in the deep feather bed, watching her +shadow on the crooked ceiling, following with drowsy glances the shadowy +combing of what, in reflection, seemed an absolute waterfall of hair.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly Valérie blew out the candlelight.</p> + +<p>"Oo-er!" cried Jenny. "We aren't going to sleep in the dark?"</p> + +<p>"Of course we are, kiddie," said Valérie; and somehow darkness did not +matter when Jenny could sail off into sleep clasping Valérie's soft hot +hand.</p> + +<p>Gray morning came with the stillness of Sunday in Glasgow, with +raindrops pattering against the window in gusts of wind, with Mrs. +McMeikan and breakfast on a tray.<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a></p> + +<p>"This is grand, isn't it?" said Jenny, and "Oo-er!" she cried, as she +upset the teapot all over the bed.</p> + +<p>Then the bell had to be rung.</p> + +<p>"Whoever heard of a bell-rope in such a place?" said Jenny, and pulled +it so hard that it broke. Then, of course, there was loud laughter, and +when Mrs. McMeikan came in again Jenny buried herself in the bedclothes +and Valérie had to explain what had happened.</p> + +<p>"Eh, the wild wee lassie," said the landlady, and the high spirits of +the child, hidden by the patchwork quilt in the deep alcove, won the old +Scotswoman's heart, so that whatever mischief Jenny conceived and +executed under her roof was forgiven because she was a "bonnie wean, and +awfu' sma', she was thenkin', to be sent awa' oot tae airn her ain +living."</p> + +<p>There was a rehearsal on Sunday because Madame Aldavini had to go back +on Sunday night to London. The four girls walked along the gray Glasgow +streets in the sound of the many footsteps of pious Presbyterian +worshipers, until they arrived at the stage door of the Court Theater. +Jenny asked, "Any letters for me?" in imitation of Valérie and Winnie.</p> + +<p>"Any letters for Raeburn—for Pearl, I should say?"</p> + +<p>Of course there was not so much as a postcard, but Jenny felt the +prouder for asking.</p> + +<p>The rehearsal of "Jack and the Beanstalk" went off with the usual air of +incompleteness that characterizes the rehearsal of a pantomime. Jenny +found that the Aldavini Quartette were to be Jumping Beans; and Winnie +and Jenny and Valérie and Eileen jumped with a will and danced until +they shook the boards of the Court Theater's stage. Madame Aldavini went +back to London, having left many strict injunctions with the three older +girls never to let Jenny out of their keeping. But Jenny was not +ambitious to avoid their vigilance. It was necessary, indeed, +occasionally, to slap Eileen's face and teach her, but Winnie and +Valérie were darlings. Jenny had no desire to talk to men, and if lanky +youths with large tie-pins saluted her by the stage door, she passed on +with her<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a> nose as high as a church tower. And when, lured on by Jenny's +long brown legs and high-brown boots and trim blue sailor dress, they +ventured to remove the paper from their cuffs and follow in long-nosed, +fishy-eyed pursuit, Jenny would catch hold of Valérie's hand and swing +along in front of them as serenely cold as the Huntress Moon sailing +over the heads of Bœotian swineherds.</p> + +<p>Those were jolly days in Glasgow, sweet secluded days of virginal +pastimes and young enjoyment. They danced at night in their green +dresses and scarlet bean-blossom caps. They were encored by the shrewd +Glasgow audience, who recognized the beauty and freshness and spirit of +the four Jumping Beans. They walked through the gray Glasgow weather +down Sauchiehall Street and stared at the gay shopwindows. They walked +through wind-swept Kelvin Grove. They laughed at nothing, and gossiped +about nothing, and ate large teas and smoked cigarettes and lolled in +arm-chairs and read absurd stories and listened to Mrs. McMeikan's +anecdotes with hardly concealed mirth. Nor did Mrs. McMeikan care a jot +how much they laughed at her, "sae bonny was their laughter."</p> + +<p>Everybody in the pantomime was very kind and very pleasant to Jenny. +Everybody gave her chocolates and ribbons and photographs signed "Yours +sincerely Lottie, or Amy, or Madge, or Violet." Everybody wanted her to +be as happy and jolly as possible. She was a great favorite with the +gallery boys, who whistled very loudly whenever she came on. She was +contented and merry. She did not feel that Winnie or Valérie or even +Eileen was trying to keep her down. She knew they were loyal and was +fond of them, but not so fond of them as they of her. Eileen, however, +thought she should be snubbed now and then.</p> + +<p>Jenny was at a critical age when she went to Glasgow. It was the time of +fluttering virgin dreams, of quickening pulses and heartbeats +unaccountable. If Jenny had been at a high school, it would have been +the age of girlish adorations for<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a> mistresses. She might have depended +on the sanctifying touch of some older woman with sympathy. She might +have adopted the cloistral view of human intercourse, that light-hearted +world of little intimate jokes and sentimental readings and pretty +jealousies for the small advantage of sitting next some reverend mother +or calm and gentle sister.</p> + +<p>However, it is not to be supposed that the transition from childhood to +womanhood was altogether unmarked. There were bound to be moments of +indestructible languor when she was content to be adored herself. Had +she met Abelard, Abelard could have made her an Heloise. They existed +truly enough, the passionate fevers and deep ardors of adolescence. They +flowed up in momentary caresses and died as soon in profound shynesses. +Now was the time to feed the sensuous imagination with poetry and lull +the frightened soul with music. She should have been taken to enchanted +lands.</p> + +<p>But there was nothing.</p> + +<p>Here was a child worthy of a Naiad's maternity, if grace of limb counted +immortally, and when for the first time she was given the world to look +at, her finite vision and infinite aspirations were never set in +relation to each other. She was given a telescope, and nobody had taken +off the shutter. Her soul was a singing bird in a cage. Freedom was the +only ideal. She might have been moved by Catholicism, but nobody gave it +to her. It may be idle to speculate on the effect of incense-haunted +chapels, of blazing windows and the dim accoutrements of Mass. Perhaps, +after all, they would merely have struck her comically. Perhaps she was +a true product of London generations, yet maybe her Cockney wit would +have glittered more wonderfully in a richer setting—haply in Lacedæmon, +with sea-green tunic blown to the outline of slim beauty by each wind +coming southward from Thessaly.</p> + +<p>Anyway, it was impossible to think of her enticed by the ready-made +gallantries of raw-boned Sawnies by the stage door of the Court Theater. +Her temperament found greater satisfaction in Valérie's more beautifully +expressed adoration. The<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a> latter may not have roused her to encounter +life, may not have supplied a purpose, a hope or a determination, but at +least it kept her contented in the shy season of maidenhood. It helped +to steer her course between incidental viciousness and eventful passion. +She went back to Hagworth Street with no red thorns of impure +associations to fester and gather. The days went by very quickly without +any great adventures except the dance on the occasion of the pantomime's +last night. Jenny was not invited to this entertainment. She was +supposed to be too young, and her mouth went dry with disappointment and +a lump of unshed tears came into her throat, and it almost seemed as if +her heart must stop.</p> + +<p>"I ought to go; oh, it is a shame; I ought to go."</p> + +<p>Jenny went up of her own accord to the stage-manager himself and said:</p> + +<p>"Please, Mr. Courtenay-Champion, why aren't I asked to the dance?"</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" said Mr. Courtenay-Champion. "A kid like you? No, my dear, +you're too young. It goes on too late. After the show, some hours."</p> + +<p>But Jenny sobbed and cried, and was so clearly heart-broken by the idea +of being left out that Mr. Courtenay-Champion changed his mind and told +her she could come. She was instantly transfigured as by dazzling +sunlight after days of mist. It was to be a splendid dance, with jellies +and claret-cup, and Jenny went with Valérie to buy the widest pink sash +that ever was known, and tied it in the largest pink bow that ever was +seen. She danced every single dance and even waltzed twice with the +great comedian, Jimmy James, and, what is more, told him he couldn't +dance, to his great delight, which seems to show that Mr. James had a +sense of humor in addition to being a great comedian.</p> + +<p>It really was a splendid evening, and perhaps the most splendid part of +it was lying in bed with Valérie and talking over with her all the +partners and taking them off with such excited demonstration of their +methods that the bed became<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a> all untucked and had to be made over again +before they could finally settle themselves down to sleep.</p> + +<p>In February Jenny was back again in Hagworth Street, with memories of +"Jack and the Beanstalk" fading slowly like the colors of a sunset. She +had enjoyed her personal success in Glasgow, but already success was +beginning to prove itself an empty prize—a rainbow bubble easily burst. +The reason is obvious. Jenny had never been taught to concentrate her +mind. She had no power of retrospective analysis. The applause endured a +little while in her meditations, but gradually died away in the +occupations of the present. She could not secure it as the basis of a +wider success on the next occasion. She began to ask: "What's the good +of anything?" Within a few weeks of the resumption of ordinary life, the +Glasgow theater had become like a piece of cake that one eats +unconsciously, then turns to find and discovers not. She was no farther +forward on the road to independence. She became oppressed by the dead +weight of futurity.</p> + +<p>At home, too, there was a very real repression, which she grew to hate +more and more deeply on each occasion of its exercise. A breath of +maternal interference and she would fly into a temper—a scowling, +chair-tilting, door-slamming rage. She would fling herself out of the +house with threats never to return. One day when she was reproached with +staying out longer than she was allowed, she rushed out again and +disappeared. Her mother, in despair, went off to invoke the aid of +Madame Aldavini, who wisely guessed that Jenny would be found with +Valérie Duval. There she was, indeed, in Valérie's rooms in Soho, not at +all penitent for her misbehavior, but sufficiently frightened by +Madame's threat of expulsion to come back home without argument.</p> + +<p>Freedom was still Jenny's religion. She was much about with boys, but +still merely for the life and entertainment of their company, for no +sentimental adventures. It would have been wiser to let her alone, but +nobody with whom she was brought into contact could realize the +sexlessness of the child.<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a> The truest safeguard of a girl's virtue is +familiarity with the aggregated follies of masculine adolescence.</p> + +<p>Jenny fought her way desperately into her seventeenth year, winning +freedom in jots. She liked most of anything to go to Collin's Music-hall +with a noisy gang of attendant boys, not one of whom was as much a +separate realized entity to her as even an individual sheep is to a +shepherd. Alfie came home in the summer before her seventeenth birthday +and abetted cordially her declarations of independence. May, too, was +implicated in every plot for the subversion of parental authority.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn worried terribly about her daughter's future. She ascribed +her hoyden behavior to the influence of the stage.</p> + +<p>"We don't want your theatrical manners here," she would say.</p> + +<p>"Well, who put me on the stage?" Jenny would retort.</p> + +<p>In the Christmastide after Alfie came home Jenny went to Dublin in a +second Aldavini Quartette, and enjoyed herself more than ever. She had +now none of the desire for seclusion that marked her Glasgow period, no +contempt of man in the abstract, and was soon good friends with a +certain number of young officers whom she regarded much as she regarded +the boys of Islington.</p> + +<p>One of them, Terence O'Meagh, of the Royal Leinster Fusiliers, made her +his own special property; he was a charming good-looking, conceited +young Irishman, as susceptible to women as most of his nation, and +endowing the practice of love with as little humor as most Celts. He +used to wait at the stage door and drive her back to her lodgings in his +own jaunting car. He used to give her small trinkets so innocently +devoid of beauty as almost to attract by their artlessness. He was a +very young officer who had borne the blushing honors of a scarlet tunic +for a very short while, so that, in addition to the Irishman's naïve +assumption of universal popularity, he suffered from the sentiment that +a soldier's red coat appeals to every woman.</p> + +<p>Jenny, with her splendid Cockney irreverence, thought little<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a> of Mr. +O'Meagh, less of his red coat, but a very great deal of the balmy +February drives past the vivid green meadows of Liffey.</p> + +<p>"You know," Terence would say, leaning gracefully over the division of +the car, "you know, Jenny, our regiment—the 127th of the Line, as we +call ours—was absolutely cut to pieces at Drieufontein; and at +Riviersdorp they held the position against two thousand Boers."</p> + +<p>"Who cares?" said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"You might take a little interest in it."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Jenny, "how can I?"</p> + +<p>"But you might be interested because, after all, it is my regiment, and +I'm awfully fond of you, little girl."</p> + +<p>"Don't be soppy," Jenny advised him.</p> + +<p>"You're so cursedly matter-of-fact."</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"So—oh, well, damn it, Jenny, you don't seem to care whether I'm with +you or not."</p> + +<p>"Why should I?"</p> + +<p>"Any other girl would be fond of me."</p> + +<p>"Ah—any other girl would."</p> + +<p>"Then why aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you'll pass in a crowd."</p> + +<p>"Dash it, I'm frightfully in love with you," vowed Terence.</p> + +<p>"What's the good of spoiling a fine day by being silly?"</p> + +<p>"Damn it, nobody else but me would stick your rudeness."</p> + +<p>And Terence would sulk, and Jenny would hum, and the jaunting car would +go jaunting on.</p> + +<p>On the last night of the pantomime Mr. O'Meagh called for her as usual, +and, as they drove off, said:</p> + +<p>"Look here, Miss Jenny, you're coming back to my rooms with me +to-night."</p> + +<p>"Am I?" said Jenny. "That's news."</p> + +<p>"By Jove, you are!"</p> + +<p>"No fear."</p> + +<p>"You shall!"<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a></p> + +<p>Terence caught hold of her hand.</p> + +<p>"Let me go," Jenny said.</p> + +<p>"I'm damned if I will. Look here, you know, you can't make a fool of an +Irishman."</p> + +<p>"That's quite right," Jenny agreed.</p> + +<p>"When an Irishman says he'll have a thing, he'll have it."</p> + +<p>"Well, you won't have Jenny Pearl."</p> + +<p>"Look here, I've been jolly good to you. I gave you——"</p> + +<p>"What?" interrupted Jenny in dangerous tones. "Look!"</p> + +<p>She unbuckled a wrist-watch and flung it into the road.</p> + +<p>"There's your watch, anyway. Going to get down and pick it up?"</p> + +<p>Terence whipped up the horse.</p> + +<p>"You little devil, you shall come with me."</p> + +<p>Jenny caught hold of the reins.</p> + +<p>"Shut up!" said O'Meagh. "Shut up! Don't you know better than that?"</p> + +<p>"Well, stop," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>The subaltern, in order to avoid a scene, stopped.</p> + +<p>"Look here," Jenny told him. "You think yourself a lad, I know, and you +think girls can't say 'no' to you; but I can, see? You and your little +cottages for two! Not much!" and Jenny slipped down from the car and +vanished.</p> + +<p>"Men," she said to Winnie Ambrose, the only one left of the Glasgow +Quartette. "Men! I think men are awful. I do. Really. Conceited! Oh, no; +it's only a rumor."</p> + +<p>It had been arranged by Madame Aldavini that Jenny, on her return from +Dublin, should join the ballet of the opera at Covent Garden. +Unfortunately her first appearance in London had to be postponed for a +year owing to the fact of there being no vacancy. Jenny was +disheartened. It was useless for Madame Aldavini to assure her that the +extra year's practice would greatly benefit her dancing. Jenny felt she +had been practicing since the world was made. She continued to practice +because there was nothing else to do, but time had quenched the fire of +inspiration. She was tired of hearing that<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> one day she might, with +diligence and application, become a Prima Ballerina. She knew she was a +natural dancer, but Terpischore having endowed her with grace and +lightness and twinkling feet, left the spirit that could ripen these +gifts to some other divinity. She had, it is true, escaped the doom of +an infant prodigy, but it might have been better to blossom as a prodigy +than to lie fallow when the warmth and glory of the footlights were +burning without her.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Hagworth Street had not changed much in seventeen years. The +tall plane-tree at the end was taller. The London County Council, not +considering it possessed any capacity for decoration, had neglected to +lop off its head, and, as there was no other tree in sight, did not +think it worth the trouble of clipping to an urban pattern. Year by year +it shed its bark and, purged of London vileness, broke in May fresh and +green and beautiful. In October more leaves pattered down, more leaves +raced along the gutters than on the night of Jenny's birth. The gas-jets +burned more steadily in a mantle of incandescent light. This method of +illumination prevailed indoors as well as outside, shedding arid and +sickly gleams over the front-parlor of Number Seventeen, shining, livid +and garish, in the narrow hall. The knob was still missing from the +bedstead, and for seventeen years Charlie had promised to get a new one. +Charlie himself had changed very slightly. He still worked for the same +firm in Kentish Town. He still frequented the "Masonic Arms." He cared +less for red neckties and seemed smaller than of old. Yet he could drink +more. If his hair was thinner, his eyebrows, on the other hand, were +more bushy, because he blew off his old ones in the course of an +illustrated lecture on the management of gas-stoves. For the constant +fingering of his ragged moustache, he substituted a pensive manipulation +of his exceptional eyebrows.</p> + +<p>Mr. Vergoe was dead, and most of his property adorned his +granddaughter's room in Cranbourne Street. She was still a second-line +girl in the <i>Corps de Ballet</i> of the Orient Palace<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> of Varieties. Jenny, +however, possessed the picture of the famous dead Columbine. It hung +above the bed she shared with May, beside a memorial card of the donor +set in a shining black Oxford frame. The room itself grew smaller every +year. Jenny could not imagine that once to Edie and herself it had been +illimitable. Nowadays it seemed to be all mahogany wardrobe, and +semicircular marble-topped washstand and toilet-table and iron bedstead. +On the door were many skirts and petticoats. On the walls were +shrivelled fans with pockets that held curl-papers mostly. There was +also a clouded photograph of Alfie, Edie, Jenny and May, of which the +most conspicuous feature was the starched frills of Jenny, those +historic frills that once, free of petticoats, had seemed a talisman to +masculinity. The toilet-table was inhabited by a collection of articles +that presented the most sudden and amazing contrasts. Next to a comb +that might easily have been rescued from a dustbin was a brush backed +with silver repoussé. Beside seven broken pairs of nail-scissors was a +scent-bottle with golden stopper. Jenny's nightgown was daintily +ribboned and laced, and looked queerly out of place on the pock-marked +quilt.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Purkiss still visited her sister, but Jenny was not allowed to +associate with Percy or Claude, both more pasty-faced than ever, because +Percy was going to be a missionary and Claude was suspected of premature +dissipation, having been discovered kissing the servant in the bathroom.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn, in the jubilee of her age, was still a handsome woman, and +was admired even by Jenny for her smartness. She still worried about the +future of her children. She was more than ever conscious of her +husband's inferiority and laughed over most of the facts of her life. +May's back, however, and Jenny's perpetual riotousness caused her many +misgivings. But Alfie was doing well, and Edie seemed happy, making +dresses over at Brixton. There had been no recurrence of Mr. Timpany, +and she now viewed that episode much as she would have regarded a +trifling piece of domestic negligence.<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> As for the Miss Horners, their +visit had long faded absolutely from her mind. It would have taken a +very great emotional crisis to inspire such another speech as she made +to them seventeen years ago. Charlie still snored beside her, as he had +snored in sequel to seven or eight thousand nightly undressings. She +still saw to the washing, added up the accounts, bought a new dress in +the spring and a new bonnet in the autumn. She still meant to read the +paper this week, but never had time, and every night she hoped that all +would go smooth. This habit of hope was to her what the candle-lit +chapter of a Bible with flower-stained pages or counterpane prayers or +dreams of greatness are to minds differently constituted. Her life was +by no means drab, for she went often to the theater, and occasionally to +the saloon bar of a discreet public-house, where, in an atmosphere of +whisky and Morocco leather, she would sometimes listen to Mrs. Purkiss's +doubts of Jenny's behavior, but more often tell diverting tales of +Charlie.</p> + +<p>Such was Hagworth Street, when, on a cold Sunday in the front of May, +Edie came over from Brixton. She looked pale and anxious as she sat for +a while in the kitchen twisting black kid gloves round her fingers.</p> + +<p>"How's Brixton, Edie?" asked her mother.</p> + +<p>"Grand."</p> + +<p>"You've not been up to see us for a long time."</p> + +<p>"No-o-o," agreed the eldest daughter.</p> + +<p>"Busy?"</p> + +<p>"Not so very. Only you never know when you will be. I'll go upstairs and +take my things off. Come with us Jenny," she said, turning to her +sister.</p> + +<p>"There's a cheek. Whatever next?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are hateful! Come on up."</p> + +<p>Jenny, with every appearance of unwillingness, followed Edie upstairs, +and flung herself down on the bed they had once shared.</p> + +<p>"Don't be all night," she protested, as she watched Edie staring +aimlessly at herself in the glass.<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a></p> + +<p>"Jenny," said the latter suddenly, "I done it."</p> + +<p>"Done what?"</p> + +<p>"Myself, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"What d'ye mean?"</p> + +<p>"You know," said Edie.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I know, that's why I'm asking."</p> + +<p>"You remember that fellow I was going about with?"</p> + +<p>"Bert Harding?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Bert."</p> + +<p>"You're never going to marry him, Edie?"</p> + +<p>"I got to—if I can."</p> + +<p>Jenny sat up on the bed.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean——"</p> + +<p>"That's right," said Edie.</p> + +<p>"Whatever made you?"</p> + +<p>"I am a fool," said Edie helplessly.</p> + +<p>"Whatever will Alfie say?" Jenny wondered.</p> + +<p>"What's it got to do with Alfie?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, only he's very particular. But this Bert of yours, I +suppose he will marry you?"</p> + +<p>"He says so. He says nothing wouldn't stop him."</p> + +<p>"Are you mad to marry him?"</p> + +<p>"I must."</p> + +<p>"But you don't want to?"</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't—not if I hadn't got to. I wouldn't marry anybody for a +bit."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't anyhow," said Jenny decidedly.</p> + +<p>"Don't talk silly. I've got to."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I do think it's a shame. A pretty girl like you, Edie. Men! Can he +keep you?—comfortable and all that?"</p> + +<p>"He's got enough, and he expects to make a bit more soon, and then +there's my dressmaking."</p> + +<p>"Men!" declared Jenny. "No men for me. I wouldn't trust any man."</p> + +<p>"Don't say nothing to mother about it."</p> + +<p>"As if I should."<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a></p> + +<p>The two sisters went downstairs.</p> + +<p>"I'll bring him over soon," said Edie.</p> + +<p>"And I'll properly tell him off," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>A month went by, and Mr. Albert Harding had many important engagements. +Another month went by and Edie began to fret.</p> + +<p>Jenny went over to Brixton to see her sister.</p> + +<p>"Looks as if this marriage was only a rumor," she said.</p> + +<p>"He hasn't got the time, not for a week or two."</p> + +<p>"What?" exclaimed Jenny.</p> + +<p>"He's going to take me to the Canterbury to-morrow. He's all right, +Jenny. Only he's busy. He is, really."</p> + +<p>Jenny, jolting homewards in the omnibus that night, wondered what ought +to be done. Although she felt to the full the pity of a nice girl like +Edie being driven into a hasty marriage, no alternative presented itself +clearly. She thought with quickening heart, so terrible was the fancy, +how she would act in Edie's place. She would run away out of the world's +eyes, out of London.</p> + +<p>Yet Edie did not seem to mind so much.</p> + +<p>The malignity of men enraged her. The selfishness and grossness sickened +her. Boys were different; but men, with their conceit and lies, were +beasts. They should never make a fool of her. Never. Never. Then she +wondered if her mother had been compelled to marry. On no other basis +could her father be explained. Men were all alike.</p> + +<p>Bert Harding, greasy, dark-eyed, like a dirty foreigner. He was +nice-looking, after a fashion, yes, but even more conceited than most +men. And Edie had <i>got</i> to marry him.</p> + +<p>Alfie was on the doorstep when she reached home.</p> + +<p>"You?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Come over for the night. Got some business in Islington to-morrow +morning."</p> + +<p>"Alfie, you know Bert Harding?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You've got to make him marry Edie."<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a></p> + +<p>"I'll smash his face in if he don't."</p> + +<p>"They'll be at the Canterbury to-morrow night."</p> + +<p>It was a poor fight in the opinion of the Westminster Bridge Road. Bert +was overmatched. He was perfectly willing to marry Edie at once, as it +happened, but Jenny enjoyed seeing one of his dark eyes closed up by her +brother. Alfie, having done his duty, never spoke to Bert or Edie again.</p> + +<p>"However could she have been so mad," said Mrs. Raeburn. "Soft! Soft! +That's you," she went on, turning on her husband.</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course it's me. Everything's me," said Charlie.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is you. You can't say no to a glass of beer and Edie can't say +no to a man."</p> + +<p>"What would you have done, mother," asked Jenny, "if Edie's Bert had +gone away and left her?"</p> + +<p>"She'd never have come inside my house again—not ever again."</p> + +<p>"You're funny."</p> + +<p>"Funny?" said Mrs. Raeburn. "You try and be funny, and see what +happens."</p> + +<p>"Who cares?" said Jenny. "It wouldn't trouble me. I'm sick of this dog's +island. But men. Whatever next? Don't you imagine I'll let any man—— +Not much."</p> + +<p>"Don't you be too sure, Mrs. Clever," said the mother.</p> + +<p>"But I am. I'm positive. Love! There's nothing in it."</p> + +<p>"Hark at her," jeered Charlie.</p> + +<p>Jenny lay awake in a fury that night. One after another, man in his +various types passed across the screen of her mind. She saw them all. +The crimson-jointed, fishy-eyed Glasgow youths winked at her once more. +The complacent subalterns of Dublin dangled their presents and waited to +be given her thanks and kisses. Old men, from the recess of childish +memories, rose up again and leered at her. Her own father, small and +weak and contemptible, pottered across the line of her mental vision. +Bert Harding was there, his black boot-button eyes glittering. And to +that her sister had surrendered herself,<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> to be pawed and mauled about +and boasted of. Ugh! Suddenly in the middle of her disgust Jenny thought +she heard a sound under the bed.</p> + +<p>"Oo—er, May!" she called out. "May!"</p> + +<p>"Whatever is it, you noisy thing?"</p> + +<p>"Oo—er, there's a man under the bed! Oh, May, wake up, else we shall +all be murdered!"</p> + +<p>"Who cares?" said May. "Go to sleep."</p> + +<p>And just then the Raeburns' big cat, tired of his mouse-hole, came out +from underneath the bed and walked slowly across the room.<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="X" id="X"></a>Chapter X: <i>Drury Lane and Covent Garden</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>O compensate Jenny for her disappointment over Covent Garden, Madame +Aldavini secured a place for her in the Drury Lane pantomime. She was no +longer to be the most attractive member of an attractive quartette, but +one of innumerable girls who changed several times during the evening +into amazingly complicated dresses, designed not to display individual +figures, but to achieve broad effects of color and ingenuity.</p> + +<p>Straight lines were esteemed above dancing, straight lines of Frenchmen +or Spaniards in the Procession of Nations, straight lines of Lowestoft +or Dresden in the Procession of Porcelain, straight lines of +Tortoise-shell Butterflies or Crimson-underwing Moths in the Procession +of Insects. Jenny's gay deep eyes were obscured by tricolor flags or the +spout of a teapot or the disproportionate antennæ of a butterfly. There +was no individual grace of movement in swinging down the stage in the +middle of a long line of undistinguished girls. If the audience +applauded, they applauded a shaft of vivid color, no more +enthusiastically than they would have clapped an elaborate arrangement +of limelight. Everything was sacrificed to the cleverness of a merely +inventive mind. More than ever Jenny felt the waste of academic +instruction in her art. She had been learning to dance for so many +years, and there she was beside girls who could neither dance nor move, +girls who had large features and showy legs and so much cubic space for +spangles.<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a></p> + +<p>But if her personality did not carry over the footlights and reach the +mighty audience of Drury Lane, behind the scenes it gradually detached +itself from the huge crowd of girls. Great comedians with great salaries +condescended to find out her name. Great principal boys with great +expanses of chest nodded at her over furs. Dainty principal girls with +dainty tiers of petticoats smiled and said good evening in their +mincing, genteel, principal girl voices. Even the stage doorkeeper never +asked her name more than once. Everybody knew Jenny Pearl, except the +public. So many people told her she was sure to get on that she began to +be ambitious again, and used to go, without being pressed, to Madame +Aldavini's for practice. The latter was delighted and prophesied a +career—a career that should date from her engagement (a real engagement +this time) at Covent Garden in the spring.</p> + +<p>Jenny's popularity at the theater made her more impatient than ever of +home. She bore less and less easily her mother's attempts to steer her +course.</p> + +<p>"You'll come to grief," Mrs. Raeburn warned her.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so."</p> + +<p>"A nice mess Edie made of things."</p> + +<p>"I'm not Edie. I'm not so soft."</p> + +<p>"Why you can't meet some nice young chap, and settle down comfortable +with a home of your own, I can't think."</p> + +<p>"Like Edie, I suppose, and have a pack of kids. One after another. One +after another. And a husband like Bert, so shocking jealous he can't see +her look at another man without going on like a mad thing. Not this +little girl."</p> + +<p>Jenny never told her mother that half the attraction of boys' society +nowadays lay in the delight of making fools of them. If she had told her +Mrs. Raeburn might not have understood. Jenny was angry that her mother +should suspect her of being fast. She was sure of her own remoteness +from passionate temptation. She gloried in her security. She could not +imagine herself in love, and laughed heartily at girls who did. She was +engaged to sixteen boys in one year, to not one<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> of whom was vouchsafed +the light privilege of touching her cheeks. They presented her with +cheap jewelry, which she never returned on the decease of affection, and +scarcely wore during its short existence. It was put away in a cigar-box +in a tangled heap of little petrified hearts.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn, however, who beheld in these despised youths a menace to +her daughter's character, was never tired of dinning into her ears the +tale of Edith's disaster. The more she scolded, the more she held a +watch in her hand when Jenny came back from the theater, the more +annoying was Jenny, the longer did she delay her evening home-comings.</p> + +<p>The fact that Bert and Edie had settled down into commonplace married +life did not make her regard more kindly the circumstance-impelled +conjunction. She reproduced in her mental view of the result something +of her mother's emotion immediately before her own birth. Long ago Mrs. +Raeburn had settled down into an unsatisfied contentment; long ago she +had renounced extravagance of hope or thought, merely keeping a hold on +laughter; but Jenny felt vaguely the waste of life, the waste of love, +the waste of happiness which such a marriage as Edie's suggested. She +could not have formulated her impressions. She had never been taught to +co-ordinate ideas. Her mind was a garden planted with rare shrubs whose +labels had been destroyed by a careless gardener, whose individual +existence was lost in a maze of rank weeds. Could the Fates have given +her a rich revenge for the waste of her intelligence, Jenny should have +broken the heart of some prominent member of the London School Board, +should have broken his heart and wrecked his soul, herself meanwhile +blown on by fortunate gales to Elysium.</p> + +<p>May was often told of her sister's crusade, of the slain suitors too +slow to race with Atalanta.</p> + +<p>"Men <i>are</i> fools," Jenny proclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Did you see Fred to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; he saw me home."</p> + +<p>"What did he say?"<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a></p> + +<p>"Nothing much. I told him not to talk because he got on my nerves, and I +wanted to think about my new costume for the spring."</p> + +<p>"Didn't he mind?"</p> + +<p>"I can't help his troubles. He asked if he might kiss me."</p> + +<p>"What did you say?"</p> + +<p>"I told him after the next turning, and every time we come to the next +turning I told him the next, till we got to our gate. I said good night, +and he said, 'What about my kiss?' I said, 'There's a cheek; you don't +want much'; and he said, 'I give you a brooch last week, Jenny'; and I +said, 'There's your brooch,' and I threw it down."</p> + +<p>"What did he do?"</p> + +<p>"He couldn't do much. I trod on it and ran in."</p> + +<p>"Somebody'll shoot you one day," prophesied May.</p> + +<p>"Who cares? Besides, they haven't got no pluck. Men are walking +cigarettes, that's what men are."</p> + +<p>Drury Lane pantomime came to an end.</p> + +<p>"And a good job," said Jenny, "for it isn't a pantomime at all; it's +more of a Lord Mayor's show."</p> + +<p>Jenny now had to rehearse hard for the ballet at Covent Garden, but +there was still plenty of time in the lengthening spring dusks with +their silver stars and luminous horizons, to fool plenty of men. There +was a quarrelsome interlude with Alfie on this account. The latter had +rashly presented one of his own friends for Jenny's sport. The friend +had spent most of his income on chocolates and pit-stalls, and at one +swoop a whole week's salary on a garnet bracelet.</p> + +<p>"Look here," said Alfie, "don't you get playing your tricks on any of my +friends, because I won't have it."</p> + +<p>"Hark at him. Hark at Alfred Proud. As if your friends were better than +anyone else's."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not going to have fellows say my sister's hot stuff."</p> + +<p>"Who did?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind who did. Somebody said it."<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a></p> + +<p>"Arthur?"</p> + +<p>Arthur was the melancholy Romeo introduced by Alfie.</p> + +<p>"Somebody said you was to Arthur."</p> + +<p>"And what did he do?"</p> + +<p>"He was quite disgusted. He walked away."</p> + +<p>"Didn't he have a fight over it?"</p> + +<p>"No. He said he would have done, only you treated him so off-hand."</p> + +<p>"Well, he needn't come whistling outside for me no more."</p> + +<p>"You're not going to chuck him?"</p> + +<p>"Chuck him? I never had him. He worried me to go out with him. I didn't +want to go."</p> + +<p>"You'll get a bullet in your chest one of these days. You'll get shot."</p> + +<p>"Not by one of your massive friends."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Why, there isn't hardly one of 'em as would have the pluck to hold a +pistol, and not one as would have the money to buy one."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't say I never told you."</p> + +<p>"You and your friends' pistols!"</p> + +<p>With the pride and insolence of maiden youth, Jenny took the London +streets. Through the transient April rains she came from Islington to +Covent Garden every day. From King's Cross she rode on the green omnibus +that jogged by the budding elms of Brunswick Square. Down Guilford +Street she rode and watched its frail inhabitants coming home with their +parcels of ribbons and laces. Through Great Queen Street into Long Acre +she came, sitting along on the front seat of the green omnibus more like +a rosy lily now than a La France rose—down Long Acre till she came to +Bow Street, through which she would run to the theater past the groups +of porters who nodded and smiled at her, for they soon recognized the +swift one running through the April rains.</p> + +<p>Italian opera appealed to Jenny most. She did not care greatly for +"Tannhäuser," thinking the Venusberg ballet very<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a> poor and Venus herself +a sight. Teutonic extravagance affected her with a slight sense of +discomfort as of being placed too near trombones. Her training as a +dancer had begotten a feeling of meticulous form which the expansive +harmonies of Wagner disconcerted. Jenny did not enjoy suffering a +sea-change. Novelty and strangeness were to her merely peculiar. Strauss +would have bored her, not as Brahms might have bored her to somnolence, +but as an irritating personality bores one to rudeness or sudden flight. +To speculate how far it might have been advisable to hang her +intelligence with Gothic tapestries is not worth while. Probably the +imposition of decorated barbarism on her lucid and sensitive enjoyment +of Verdi would have obscured the small windows of her soul with gloomy +arras. Notwithstanding her education at the board school, she had a +view, and it was better she should preserve an instinct for a sanity +that was sometimes pathos rather than, in the acquirement of an +epileptic appreciation, she should lose what was, after all, a classical +feeling in her sensuous love of obvious beauty.</p> + +<p>The sugar-plums of Italian opera melted innocently in her mouth, leaving +behind them nothing but a memory of sweetness, as one steps from a +garden of shaded bird-song with a thought of music. Wagner was more +intoxicating, but bequeathed no limpid exultation to the heart of the +wearied listener. Moreover, she had a very real sense of being a square +peg in a round hole when she and the other minions of Venus tripped +round the frequent rocks of Venusberg. It was as if a confectioner had +stuck a shepherdess of pink icing on the top of a plum-pudding. Jenny +felt, in her own words, that it was all unnatural. There was nothing of +Walpurgis in their stereotyped allurement. It was Bobbing Joan in +Canterbury Close. The violins might wail through the darkened opera +house, but an obese Tannhäuser caught by the wiles of an adipose Venus +during the inexpressive seductions of an Italian ballet was silly; the +poses to be sustained were fatiguing and ineffective. More fatiguing +still was Jenny's almost unendurable<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> waiting as page while the +competitors sang to Elizabeth. There were four pages in purple velvet +tunics. Jenny looked her part, but the other three looked like Victoria +plums. The one scene in German opera that she really enjoyed was the +Valkyries' ride, when she and a few selected girls were strapped high up +to the enchanted horses and rocked exhaustingly through the terrific +clamor.</p> + +<p>But these excursions into Gothic steeps among the distraught populations +of the north were not the main feature of the opera season. They were a +<i>tour de force</i> of rocks in a dulcet enclosure. Over Covent Garden hung +the magic of an easy and opulent decoration. It sparkled from the tiaras +in the grand circle. It flashed from the tie-pins of the basses, from +the rings of the tenors. It breathed on the oceanic bosoms of the +contraltos. It trembled round the pleated hips of the sopranos. +Everything was fat—a pasha's comfortable dream.</p> + +<p>Jenny, being little and svelte, was distressed by the prevalent +sumptuousness. A fine figure began to seem a fine ambition.</p> + +<p>"My dear child, you are thin," some gracious prima donna would murmur +richly just before she tripped on to the stage to play consumptive Mimi.</p> + +<p>Jenny could not see that she was advancing to fame at Covent Garden. Nor +was she, indeed, but Madame Aldavini tried to console her by insisting +upon the valuable experience and pointing out the products of success +that surrounded her. Covent Garden was only a stepping-stone, Madame +reminded her.</p> + +<p>Here she was at seventeen without a chance to display her +accomplishments. It was more acting than dancing at Covent Garden. +Jenny, too, was always chosen for such voiceless parts as were +important. Some of these she did not like. In Rigoletto, for instance, +Previtale, the great singer, expressed a wish that she should play the +girl in the sack whom he was to fondle. Jenny did not like being +fondled. Other girls<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a> would have loved the conspicuous attractions of +Previtale, but Jenny thought his breath was awful, as indeed it was.</p> + +<p>Her principal friend at Covent Garden was a girl called Irene, or rather +spelled Irene, for she was always called Ireen. Irene Dale was a mixture +of the odd and the ordinary in her appearance. At first glance she +seemed the commonplace type produced in hundreds by English <i>coulisses</i>. +Perhaps the expression of her face in repose first suggested a +possibility of distinction. The intensely blue eyes in that circumstance +had a strange, listless ardor, as if she were dreaming of fiery moments +fled long ago. The blue eyes were enhanced by hair, richly brown as +drifted leaves under the sunlight. Her mouth was prettiest when she was +being pleasantly teased. Her nose came to an end, and then began again. +Her chin was deeply cleft and her complexion full of real roses. In the +company of Jenny, Irene gave an impression of slowness; not that Jenny, +except when late for rehearsal, ever seemed in a hurry, but with her +there was always the suggestion of a tremulous agility. Irene had been +at Madame Aldavini's school, where she and Jenny in their childhood had +wasted a considerable amount of time in romping, but, since they never +happened to go on tour together, they never achieved a girlish +friendship until at Covent Garden they found themselves dressing next to +each other.</p> + +<p>Jenny tried to inspire Irene with the hostility to men felt by herself. +But Irene, although she enjoyed the lark, had a respect for men at the +bottom of it all, and would not always support Jenny in the latter's +freely expressed contempt. While she was at Covent Garden, Irene met a +young man, unhealthily tall, who made much of her and gave her expensive +rings, and for a fancy of his own took her to a fashionable milliner's +and dressed her in short skirts. Jenny had heard something of Irene's +Danby and was greatly annoyed by the latter's unsympathetic influence.</p> + +<p>"Your Danby," she would protest. "Whatever can you see in him? Long +idiot!"<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a></p> + +<p>"My Danby's a gentleman," said Irene.</p> + +<p>"Well, I think he looks terrible. Why, he wears his teeth outside."</p> + +<p>Then Jenny, meeting Irene and her Danby in Leicester Square, beheld her +friend in the childish costume.</p> + +<p>"Oh, sight!" she called out.</p> + +<p>"You are rude," said Irene.</p> + +<p>"You're a very rude little girl," said Danby; "but will you come and +have a drink with us?"</p> + +<p>"No, thanks," said Jenny, and passed on coldly. That evening she +attacked Irene in the dressing-room.</p> + +<p>"To let a man make such a shocking sight of you!"</p> + +<p>"He likes to see me in short skirts."</p> + +<p>"Whatever for? And those boots!"</p> + +<p>"He wants me to marry him," declared Irene.</p> + +<p>"Marry you? That's only a rumor, young Irene. I've properly rumbled your +Danby. Marry you! I don't think."</p> + +<p>"He is when he comes back from Paris, and he said you were a very bad +example for me."</p> + +<p>"Crushed!" said Jenny in mock humility. Then she went on, "Yes, you and +your Parises. Any old way, you can tell Tin Ribs from me I should be +ashamed to make a girl I was fond of look such a terrible sight."</p> + +<p>"His brother said he'd like to be introduced to you."</p> + +<p>"Yes; I daresay. Tin Ribs the Second, I suppose. No, thanks, not this +little girl."</p> + +<p>London deepened into summer, and the golden people coming out of Covent +Garden seemed scattered with star dust from the prodigal June stars, +while the high moon made of Jenny a moonbeam as, in white piqué, she sat +in the front of the green omnibus going home.</p> + +<p>These were happy days at Covent Garden, and when the season ended Jenny +was sorry. She did not enjoy Yarmouth with its swarming sands and +goat-carriages and dust and fleas and switchback flung down on the +barren coast like a monstrous skeleton. She was glad to come back to +London in the<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> effulgence of a fine September; glad to rehearse again +for the autumn opera season, and pleased, when that was over, to return +to Drury Lane for the Christmas pantomime.</p> + +<p>After her second spring season of opera was over she and Irene discussed +the future. Danby had retired to Paris on his business. His rings +sparkled unseen in the safe of a Camden Town pawnbroker, although the +whisky and soda which they served to buy had long ceased to sparkle for +Mrs. Dale. Irene said she was tired of being in three months and out +three months.</p> + +<p>"I think we ought to go to the Orient, Jenny."</p> + +<p>"I don't care where we go," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Well, let's."</p> + +<p>"All right. I'll meet you Camden Town station to-morrow. Don't you be +late."</p> + +<p>"No fear."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Mrs. Punctual, you're never late!" scoffed Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Well, I won't be to-morrow."</p> + +<p>On the following morning Jenny dressed herself up to impress the +ballet-master of the Orient, and arrived in good time at Camden Town +station. Irene was nowhere in sight. Jenny waited half an hour. People +began to stare at the sprays of lilac in her large round hat. Really, +they were looking at the blue facets of her eyes and her delicate, +frowning eyebrows. But Jenny, feeling herself a-blush, thought it was +the lilac, thought her placket was undone, thought there was a hole in +her stocking, became thoroughly hot and self-conscious.</p> + +<p>She waited another blushful quarter of an hour. Then, thinking that +Irene must surely have mistaken the meeting-place, she called at the +shop in Kentish Town where her father worked and asked him if he'd seen +Irene.</p> + +<p>"Irene Dale?" said Charlie.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you know."</p> + +<p>"Haven't you seen her?"</p> + +<p>"No."<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a></p> + +<p>"Why, she was in here asking for you. She's been waiting outside Kentish +Town Station."</p> + +<p>"That's Mrs. Brains all over. Ta-ta!"</p> + +<p>Jenny dashed off to Kentish Town, where she caught Irene on the verge of +departure. Most of the way to the Orient they argued which was right.</p> + +<p>When they reached the famous theater of varieties, Irene said she was +afraid to go in.</p> + +<p>"Who cares?" said Jenny. "If they don't want us, they won't eat us, any +way."</p> + +<p>Monsieur Corontin, the Maître de Ballet, interviewed them in his little +room that was hidden away at the end of one of the innumerable passages. +He looked at Jenny curiously.</p> + +<p>"Dance, please, miss."</p> + +<p>Jenny danced as well as she could in the diminutive room.</p> + +<p>"Now, please, miss," he said to Irene, who also danced.</p> + +<p>"You are engaged," said Mr. Corontin.</p> + +<p>"Both?" asked Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Both of you."</p> + +<p>They lost themselves several times in the course of their descent.</p> + +<p>"What an unnatural place," said Jenny. "Gee! How many more stairs? I +suppose we're ballet girls now."</p> + +<p>At home that evening Charlie remonstrated with his daughter for +intruding upon him at Kentish Town.</p> + +<p>"Don't come asking me for your flash friends," he said. "Why, the men +wondered who you were."</p> + +<p>"Didn't they know I was your daughter?"</p> + +<p>"I tried to pretend you wasn't, but one of 'em heard you calling me +dad."</p> + +<p>"What did he say?"</p> + +<p>"What did he say? He said, 'Charlie, is your daughter a—— princess?'"</p> + +<p>"Well, you ought to have been very proud," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Proud, with all the men in the shop laughing at me? Why, they'll think +I've no business to be working."<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a></p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"And don't you never recognize me in the street," went on Charlie.</p> + +<p>"Why ever not?"</p> + +<p>"Well, look at you; look at your hat. People, I know, wonders whatever +on earth you are."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my own father's ashamed of me now; and what about you? Beer and +bed's all you think about."</p> + +<p>Jenny thought she would go and see Lilli Vergoe, in Cranbourne Street, +and tell her of the engagement.</p> + +<p>Lilli sat with her feet on the mantelpiece, smoking a cigarette.</p> + +<p>"I've joined the ballet," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"At the Orient."</p> + +<p>"You won't like it."</p> + +<p>"Who cares? I sha'n't stay if I don't."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you will. You'll stay. Everybody stays in the Orient. I've stayed +there twelve years, and I'm still a second-line girl. You'll stay twelve +years and, if you don't get fat, you'll still be a second-line boy."</p> + +<p>"What about if I get married?"</p> + +<p>"You'll still stay."</p> + +<p>"You'll give me a headache, you and your staying. I intend to enjoy +myself. You're worse than a wet week, you are."</p> + +<p>Jenny was standing by the window looking down into Cranbourne Street +baking in the July heat.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it shocking hot?" said Lilli.</p> + +<p>"I think summer's simply lovely," Jenny answered.<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>Chapter XI: <i>The Orient Palace of Varieties</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>HE Orient Palace of Varieties rose like a cliff from the drapery shops +of Piccadilly. On fine summer dusks, in a mist of golden light, it +possessed a certain magic of gayety; seemed to capture something of the +torch-lit merriment of a country fair. As one loitered on the island, +lonely and meditative, the Orient was alluring, blazed upon the vision +like an enchanted cave, or offered to the London wanderer a fancy of the +scents and glossy fruits and warblers of the garden where Camaralzaman +lost Badoura; and in autumn, stained by rosy sunsets, the theater +expressed the delicate melancholy of the season. But when the rain +dripped monotonously, when fogs transformed the town, when London was +London vast and gray, the Orient became unreal like the bedraggled +palaces of an exhibition built to endure for a little while. After all, +it was an exotic piece of architecture, and evoked an atmosphere of +falseness, the falseness of an Indian gong in a Streatham hall. Yet +fifty years it had stood without being rebuilt. In addition to having +seen two generations pass away, something in the character of its +entertainment, in the lavishness of its decoration, lent it the sacred +permanence of a mausoleum, the mausoleum of mid-Victorian amusement.</p> + +<p>The Orient did not march with the times, rising from insignificance. It +never owned a chairman who announced the willingness of each successive +comedian to oblige with a song.<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> Old men never said they remembered the +Orient in the jolly old days, for they could not have forgotten it. In +essentials it remained the same as ever. Dancers had gone; beauties had +shrivelled; but their ghosts haunted the shadowy interior. The +silver-footed <i>coryphées</i> now kept lodging-houses; the swan-like +Ballerinas wore elastic stockings; but their absence was filled by +others: they were as little missed as the wave that has broken. The lean +old vanities quizzed and ogled the frail ladies of the Promenade and +sniffed the smoke-wreathed air with a thought of pleasures once worth +enjoyment. They spent now an evening of merely sentimental dissipation, +but because it was spent at the Orient, not entirely wasted; for the +unchanged theater testified to the reality of their youth. It may not +have been able to rejuvenate them, but, as by a handkerchief that +survives the departure of its owner, their senses were faintly +stimulated.</p> + +<p>The Orient was proud because it did not enter into competition with any +other house of varieties; preened itself upon a cosmopolitan programme. +With the snobbishness of an old city firm, it declined to advertise its +ware with eye-arresting posters, and congratulated itself on the +inability to secure new clients. Foreigners made up a large proportion +of the audience, and were apparently contented by equestrian mistresses +of the <i>haute école</i>, by bewildering assemblages of jugglers, even by +continental mediocrities for the sake of hearing their native tongue. +They did not object to interminable wire-acts, and put up with +divination feats of the most exhausting dullness. After all, these +incidental turns must occur; but the ballets were the feature of the +evening. For many who visited the Orient, the stream of prostitutes +ebbing and flowing upon the Promenade was enough. Yet the women of the +Orient Promenade would strike a cynic with uneasiness.</p> + +<p>Under the stars, the Piccadilly courtesans affect the onlooker less +atrociously. Night lends a magic of softness to their fretful beauty. +The sequins lose their garishness; the painted faces preserve an +illusion of reality. Moonlight falls gently<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a> on the hollow cheek; +kindles a spark of youth in the leaden eye. The Piccadilly courtesans +move like tigers in a tropic gloom with velvet blazonries and a stealthy +splendor that masks the hunger driving them out to seek their prey. On +the Orient Promenade, the finer animalism has vanished; it was never +more than superficially æsthetic. The daughters of pleasure may still be +tigers, but they are naphtha-lit, pacing backwards and forwards in a +cage. They all appear alike. Their hats are all too large, their figures +are too brutal, their cheeks too lifeless. They are automatic machines +of lust waiting to be stirred into action by pennies.</p> + +<p>Under the stars they achieve a pictorial romance; but on the carpet of +the Promenade, they are hard and heartless and vile. Their eyes are +coins; their hands are purses. At their heels patter old men like +unhealthy lap-dogs; beefy provincials stare at them, their foreheads +glistening. Above all the frangipani and patchouli and opoponax and +trèfle incarnat steals the rank odor of goats. The orchestra thunders +and crashes down below; the comfortable audience lean back in the +stalls; the foreigners jabber in the gallery; the Orient claque +interrupts its euchre with hired applause. The corks pop; the soda +splashes; money chinks; lechery murmurs; drunkards laugh; and down on +the stage Jenny Pearl dances.</p> + +<p>The night wears on. The women come in continually from the wet streets. +They surge in the cloak-room, quarrel over carrion game, blaspheme, +fight and scratch. A door in the cloak-room (locked of course) leads +into the passage outside the dressing-room, where Jenny changes five or +six times each night. Every foul oath and every vile experience and +every detestable adventure is plainly heard by twenty ladies of the +ballet.</p> + +<p>Dressing-room number forty-five was a long, low room, with walls of +whitewashed brick. There was one window, seldom opened. There was no +electric light, and the gas-jets gave a very feeble illumination, so +feeble that everybody always put on too much grease paint in their fear +of losing an effect.<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a> The girls dressed on each side of the room at a +wide deal board with forms to sit upon. There was a large wardrobe in +one corner, and next to Jenny's place an open sink. The room was always +dark and always hot. There were about eighty stone stairs leading up to +it from the stage, and at least half a dozen ascents in the course of +the evening. The dresser was a blowsy old Irish woman, more obviously +dirty than the room, and there were two ventilators, which gave a +perpetual draught of unpleasant air. The inspectors of the London County +Council presumably never penetrated as far as Room 45, a fact which +seems to show that the extent of municipal interference has been much +exaggerated.</p> + +<p>The dressing-rooms were half on one side of the stage, half on the +other. Those on the side nearer to the stage-door were less unpleasant. +The architect evidently believed in the value of first impressions. +Anybody venturing into either warren without previous acquaintanceship +would have been bewildered by the innumerable rooms and passages, tucked +away in every corner and branching off in every direction. Some of the +former seemed to have been inhabited for years. One in particular +contained an ancient piano, two daguerrotypes and a heap of mouldering +stuffs. It might have been the cell where years ago a Ballerina was +immured for a wrong step. It existed like a monument to the despair of +ambition.</p> + +<p>The Orient stifled young life. The <i>Corps de Ballet</i> had the engulfing +character of conventual vows. When a girl joined it, she cut herself off +from the world. She went there fresh, her face a mist of roses, hope +burning in her heart, fame flickering before her eyes. In a few years +she would inevitably be pale with the atmosphere, with grinding work and +late hours. She would find it easy to buy spirits cheaply in the canteen +underneath the stage. She would stay in one line, it seemed, forever. +She would not dance for joy again.</p> + +<p>When Jenny went to the Orient first, she did not intend to stay long. +She told the girls this, and they laughed at her. She did not know how +soon the heavy theater would become<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> a habit; she did not realize what +comfort exists in the knowledge of being permanently employed. But not +even the Orient could throttle Jenny. She was not the daughter and +granddaughter of a ballet girl. She had inherited no traditions of +obedience. She never became a marionette to be dressed and undressed and +jigged, horribly and impersonally. She yielded up her ambition, but she +never lost her personality. When, soon after her arrival, the Maître de +Ballet took her in his dark little corner and pinched her arm, she +struck him across the mouth, vowed she would tell the manager, and burnt +up his conceit with her spitfire eyes. He tried again later on, and +Jenny told his wife, a yellow-faced, fat Frenchwoman. Then he gave her +up, and, being an artist, bore her no malice, but kept her in the first +line of boys.</p> + +<p>It is not to be supposed that the eighty or ninety ladies of the ballet +were unhappy. On the contrary, they were very happy, and, so far as it +accorded with the selfishness of a limited company, they were well +looked after. The managing director called them "Children," and was +firmly convinced that he treated them as children. Actually, he treated +them as dolls, and in the case of girls well into the thirties, with +some of the sentimental indulgence lavished on old broken dolls. Perhaps +it was the crowd of men who waited every night at the end of the long, +narrow court that led from Jermyn Street down to the Orient stage door, +which has helped to preserve the vulgar and baseless tradition of +frailty still sedulously propagated. Every night, about half-past +eleven, the strange mixture of men waited for the gradual exodus of the +ladies of the ballet. A group of men, inherently the same, had stood +thus on six nights of the week for more than fifty years.</p> + +<p>They had stood there with Dundreary whiskers, in rakish full capes and +strapped overalls. They had waited there with the mutton-chop whiskers +and ample trousers of the 'seventies. Down the court years ago had come +the beauties, with their striped stockings and swaying crinolines and +velvety chignons. Down the court they had tripped in close-fitting +pleated skirts<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> a little later, and later still with the protruding +bustles and skin-tight sleeves of the 'eighties. They had taken the +London starlight with the balloon sleeves of the mid-'nineties. They +took the starlight now, as sweet and tender as the fairs of long ago. +They came out in couples, in laughing companies, and sometimes singly +with eager, searching glances. They came out throwing their wraps around +them in the sudden coolness of the air. They lingered at the end of the +court in groups delicate as porcelain, enjoying the freedom and reunion +with life. Their talk was hushed and melodious as the conversation of +people moving slowly across dusky lawns. They were dear to the +imaginative observer. He watched them with pride and affection as he +would have watched fishing-boats steal home to their haven about sunset. +Every night they danced and smiled and decked themselves for the +pleasure of the world. They rehearsed so hard that sometimes they would +fall down after a dance, crying on the stage where they had fallen from +sheer exhaustion. They were not rich. Most of them were married, with +children and little houses in teeming suburbs. Many, of course, were +free to accept the escort of loiterers by the stage-door. The latter +often regarded the ladies of the ballet as easy prey, but the ladies +were shy as antelopes aware of the hunter crawling through the grasses. +They were independent of masculine patronage; laughed at the fools with +their easy manners and genial condescension. They might desire applause +over the footlights, but under the moon they were free from the +necessity for favor. They had, with all its incidental humiliations, the +self-respect which a great art confers. They were children of Apollo.</p> + +<p>The difference between the gorgeousness of the ballet and the dim air of +the court was unimaginable to the blockheads outside. They had seen the +girls in crimson and gold, in purple and emerald, in white and silver; +they had seen them spangled and glittering with armor; they had heard +the tinkle of jewelry. They had watched their limbs; gloated upon their +poses. They had caught their burning glances; brooded on<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> their lips and +eyes and exquisite motion. Inflamed by the wanton atmosphere of the +Orient, they had thought the ladies of the ballet slaves for the delight +of fools, but round the stage-door all their self esteem was blown away +like a fragment of paper by a London night wind. Their complacent selves +by most of the girls were brushed aside like boughs in a wood. Some, +Jenny and Irene amongst them, would ponder awhile the silly group and +gravely choose a partner for half an hour's conversation in a café. But +somewhere close to twelve o'clock Jenny would fly, leaving not so much +as a glass slipper to console her sanguine admirer. Home she would fly +on the top of a tram and watch in winter the scudding moon whipped by +bare blown branches, in summer see it slung like a golden bowl between +the chimney stacks. The jolly adventures of youth were many, and the +partnership of Jenny and Irene caused great laughter in the +dressing-room when the former related each diverting enterprise.</p> + +<p>The tale of their conquests would be a long one. Most of the victims +were anonymous or veiled in the pseudonym of a personal idiosyncrasy. +There was Tangerine Willy, who first met them carrying a bag of oranges. +There was Bill Hair and Bill Shortcoat and Sop and Jack Spot and Willie +Eyebrows and Bill Fur. They all of them served as episodes mirthful and +fugitive. They were mulcted in chocolates and hansoms and cigarettes. +They danced attendance, vainly dreaming all the time of conquest. Jenny +held them in fee with her mocking eyes, bewitched them with musical +derision, and fooled them as Hera fooled the passionate Titan.</p> + +<p>In winter-time the balls at Covent Garden gave Jenny some of the +happiest hours of her life. Every Tuesday fortnight, tickets were sent +round to the stage-door of the Orient, and it was very seldom indeed +that she did not manage to secure one. On the first occasion she went +dressed as a little girl in muslin, with a white baby hat and white +shoes and socks, and, wherever they might attract a glance, bows of pink +silk. When the janitors saw her first, they nearly refused to admit +such<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a> youthfulness; could not believe she was really grown up; consulted +anxiously together while Jenny's slanting eyes glittered up to their +majesties. They were convinced at last, and she enjoyed herself very +much indeed. She was chased up the stairs and round the lobby. She was +chased down the stairs, through the supper-room, in and out of half a +dozen boxes, laughing and chattering and shrieking all the while. She +danced nearly every dance. She won the second prize. Three old men tried +to persuade her to live with them. Seven young men vowed they had never +met so sweet a girl.</p> + +<p>To the three former Jenny murmured demurely:</p> + +<p>"But I'm a good little girl; I don't do those things."</p> + +<p>And of course they pointed out that she was much too young to come to so +wicked a place as Covent Garden. And of course, with every good +intention, they offered to escort her home at once.</p> + +<p>With the seven young men's admiration Jenny agreed.</p> + +<p>"I am sweet, aren't I? Oh, I'm a young dream, if you only knew."</p> + +<p>And as a dream was she elusive. She gloried in her freedom. She was glad +she was not in love. She had no wish to do anything but enjoy herself to +the top of her bent. And she succeeded. Then at half-past six o'clock of +a raw November morning, she rumbled home to Hagworth Street in a +four-wheel cab with five other girls—a heap of tangled lace. She went +upstairs on tiptoe. She undressed herself somehow, and in the morning +she woke up to find on each wrist, as testimony of the night's +masquerade, a little pink bow, soiled and crumpled.</p> + +<p>She went often after that first visit and had many adventures. On one +occasion she fell in with the handsome wife of a Surrey publican, and +drove back after breakfast beside her to whatever Surrey village Mrs. +Argles astonished with her figure and finery. Irene came, too, and the +girls went to bed in a dimity-hung bedroom and were taken for a drive in +the afternoon and sat so long in the cosy bar-parlor watching the<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> dusk +stealing through the misted trees that they decided to send a telegram +to the theater announcing their illness. Then they stayed another night +and went for another drive, laughing and chatting down the deep Surrey +lanes. After dinner Jenny went back to Hagworth Street, and had a +flaming quarrel with her mother, who accused her of "going gay"; +demanded to know how she dared put in an appearance dressed in another +woman's clothes; insisted that she was to come home immediately after +the theater; forbade a hundred things, and had the door slammed in her +face for the advice. There were mad days as well as spangled nights. +There were days at the Zoo with Bill Fur, a schoolmaster always full of +information until he found his hat in the middle of the giraffes' +enclosure, or perceived his gloves viewed with dislike by a cassowary. +Bill Fur, however, would gladly have lost more than gloves or hat to be +free for a while from the Margate school where he taught delicate boys +the elements of Latin. To himself he was Don Juan in bravery of black +satin slashed with purple. To the girls he was, as Jenny put in, a +scream. To the world, he was a rather foolish middle-aged schoolmaster.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was Colonel Walpole who first suggested to Jenny that all men +were not merely ridiculous. From his seat in the front row of stalls, he +perceived her charm; sent round a note to the stage door; took her out +to supper and champagne. When he found she was a good girl, he seemed to +like her more than ever, and gave her tea in the flat whose windows +looked over the sunlit tree-tops of Green Park. He also gave her some +pretty dresses and hats. The other girls whispered and giggled when +Jenny's back was turned. Her mother was sharply inquisitive and +extremely suspicious.</p> + +<p>"Who cares?" said Jenny. "There's <i>nothing</i> in it."</p> + +<p>Colonel Walpole took her for long motor drives, gave her salmon +mayonnaise at Weybridge, chicken mayonnaise at Barnet, salmon mayonnaise +at Henley, chicken mayonnaise at Cobham, and lobster <i>au gratin</i> at +Brighton. Colonel Walpole was very paternal, and Jenny liked him. He had +a cool, clean<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> appearance and a pleasant voice. Whatever may have been +his ultimate intentions, he behaved very well, and she was sorry when he +went away on a Tibetan shooting expedition.</p> + +<p>"My friend, the Prince, has gone away," she told the girls; and "don't +laugh," she added, "because I <i>don't</i> like it."</p> + +<p>Jenny was nineteen. The mark of the Orient was not yet visible. A few +roses had withered, but eighteen months of the fusty old theater had +been balanced by laughter outside. There seemed to be no end of her +enjoyment of life. In essentials she was younger than ever. Mrs. Raeburn +worried ceaselessly; but her daughter was perfectly well able to look +after herself. Indeed, the mistakes she made were due to wisdom rather +than folly. She knew too much about men. She had "properly rumbled" men. +She was too much of a cynic to be taken in. Her only ambition was +excitement; and love, in her opinion, did not provide it. She was always +depressed by the sight of lovers. She hated the permanency of emotion +that their perpetual association implied. She and Irene liked to choose +a pair from the group of men who waited by the stage door, as one picks +out two horses for a race. The next evening the pair of last night would +be contemptuously ignored, and a fresh couple dangled at the end of a +string as long as their antics were novel enough to divert.</p> + +<p>Jenny still vowed she had no intention of remaining at the Orient, and +if people asked her about her dancing, she mocked.</p> + +<p>"What's the good of working? You don't get nothing for it. I <i>could</i> +have danced. Yes, once. But now. Well, I can now, only I don't want to. +See? Besides, what's the good?"</p> + +<p>If anyone had foretold a career, she would have mocked louder.</p> + +<p>"You don't know the Orient; I reckon they don't <i>want</i> to see a girl get +on at the Orient. If you make a success in one ballet, you're crushed in +the next."</p> + +<p>One morning Jenny looked at herself in the glass.</p> + +<p>"May," she called out, "I think if I was to get old, I'd<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> drown myself. +I would really. Thirty! What a shocking idea!"</p> + +<p>"Why, you're only nineteen."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know, but I <i>shall</i> be thirty. Thirty! What an unnatural age! +Who cares? Perhaps I sha'n't never be thirty."<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>Chapter XII: <i>Growing Old</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">I</span>N her twentieth year, when the Covent Garden season of balls was over, +the dread of growing old sometimes affected Jenny. It came upon her in +gusts of premonition and, like a phantom, intruded upon the emptiness of +her mind. The nervous strain of perpetual pleasure had made her restless +and insecure. Day by day she was forced into a still greater dependence +on trivial amusement, notwithstanding that every gratified whim added +the lean ghost of another dread hour to haunt her memory. Headaches +overtook her more easily now, and fits of depression were more frequent. +She was vaguely aware that something could cure her discontent, and once +or twice in moments of extreme weakness caught herself envying the girls +who seemed so happy with their mild lovers. She began to contemplate the +prospect of mating with one of the swains who inhabited, awkwardly +enough, the desolation of Sunday evenings. She even went so far as to +award the most persistent an afternoon at the Hackney Furnishing +Company; but when, blushful and stammering, he discussed with the +shopman the comparative merits of brass and iron bedsteads, Jenny, +suddenly realizing the futility of the idea, fled from the jungle of +furniture.</p> + +<p>These negotiations with domesticity drove her headlong into a more +passionate pursuit of folly, so that, with the colorless shadow of mere +matrimony filling her soul, her clutch upon the sweet present became +more feverish. She watched the adventures of girlhood fall prettily +about her; saw them like unsubstantial<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> snowflakes that are effective +only in accumulation. Yet the transitory lovers of the stage door were +beginning also to become intolerable. She could not brook, so slim and +proud was she, their immediate assumption of proprietorship. She hated +the cheapening of her kisses and their imperviousness to her womanhood.</p> + +<p>Where among these eager-handed wooers was the prince of destiny? Not he +with box-pleats underneath his eyes, nor he with the cold, slick +fingers, nor he peppered with blackheads. Love was a myth, a snare, a +delusion of women, who sacrificed their freedom in marriage. She +remembered how in old days Santa Claus had turned into her mother on +tiptoe. Love was another legend. The emotion that begot the fancy of +armed boyhood mischievous to man was as incredible to her as the dimpled +personification is to a Hyde Park materialist.</p> + +<p>Jenny asked Irene if the love of Danby had brought her satisfaction. +When her friend said she rather liked him, she inquired what was the +good of it all.</p> + +<p>"I think he's making a proper fool of you. Why don't <i>I</i> fall in love? +Because I'm not so soft. Besides, you're not in love. You're just +walking round yourselves having a game with each other."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, what of it?" said Irene sulkily.</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly. I never knew such a girl as you. You can't talk +sensible for a minute. I want to know what this love is."</p> + +<p>"You'll find out one day."</p> + +<p>"Ah, one day. <i>One</i> day I shall go and drown myself. Irene Dale, I think +I'm funny. I do really. Sometimes I can dance all over the place and +kick up a shocking row, laughing and that. And then I cry. Now what +about? I ask you. What have I got to cry about? Nothing. I just sit and +cry my eyes out over nothing."</p> + +<p>Jenny was beginning to take an interest in herself. Introspection was +dawning on her mind. She did not practice the meditation of age, +infirmity and death; when these spectres<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> confronted her, she dismissed +them as too impalpable to count. Nor did she examine her conscience +arduously like a Catholic neophyte. Unreasonable fits of weeping and +long headaches were, nevertheless, very disconcerting; and she was bound +to search her mind for the cause.</p> + +<p>The first explanation that presented itself was age; but she was +unwilling to admit the probability of growing old at twenty, and turned +to health for the reason. She could not honestly assert that she was +ill. Then she asked herself if disappointment was the cause, and +wondered whether, if she were suddenly invited to head the Orient +playbill, she would be exhilarated out of tears forever. Finally she +decided, breathless in the solitude of a warm May dusk, that she wanted +to fall in love. Desire, winged with the scent of lilac blossom, stole +in through the sapphire window. Desire flooded her soul with ineffable +aspirations. Desire wounded her heart as she whispered, timidly, +faintly, "darling, my darling." From that moment she began to seek the +unknown lover in the casual acquaintance. She began to imagine the +electric light shining in the blue eyes of some newly-met fellow was not +electric light at all. She would meet him on the next day, and, +beholding him starkly dull, would declare again that men were "awful." +The readiness with which they all capitulated puzzled her. Why was she +attractive? Irene told her she made eyes; but this was false, or, if she +did make eyes, they were made unconsciously. Men told her she led them +on. There must be some lure in her personality fatal long before she +attempted to exercise it; for, though latterly she had been deliberately +charming to most men at first, she was so very ungracious the following +day that anybody else but a man would have left her alone. The poor +fools, however, seemed actually to rejoice in her hardness of heart. +Moreover, why had this fascination never helped her to renown? She could +dance better than many of the girls who were given <i>pas seuls</i>; but she +had never escaped from the front line of boys. What was the good of +working? Nothing came of it. She remained<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> obscure and undefined to the +public. It was not hers to trip from a rostrum into the affection of an +audience. It was not hers to acknowledge the favor of applause by taking +a call. There was no shower of carnations or rain of violets round her +farewell curtseys. If she never danced again, it would not matter. Half +bitterly she recalled the spangled dreams of childhood, and revived the +splendor of a silver and pink ballet-skirt that now would seem such +tawdry, trumpery apparel.</p> + +<p>"Fancy," she said to May; "I used to want to be a Columbine and dance +about Islington. Think of it. What an unnatural child!"</p> + +<p>Columbine appeared fitfully in the Ballet-divertissements that opened +the Orient's entertainment, but Jenny never portrayed that elusive +personage. Certainly she played Harlequin once, when a girl was ill; and +very gay and sweet she looked in the trim suit checkered with black and +gold.</p> + +<p>Jenny wondered why she had longed to grow up.</p> + +<p>"I used to think that it was glorious to be grown up. But there's +nothing in it. There might be, but there isn't. I wish I could be what I +thought I would be as a kid."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jenny, don't talk so much, and get dressed," said Irene. "Aren't +you coming out to-night?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," Jenny answered. "I wish I couldn't. I wish I'd <i>got</i> to +meet somebody. There, now I've told you."</p> + +<p>"Hark at her. Hark at Jenny Pearl."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, I'm sick of going out with <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>Irene sulked awhile; then asked:</p> + +<p>"Have you seen the peroxide they've sent up for our arms?"</p> + +<p>"Oo-er! Why?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Walters said all the girls was to use it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, aren't they shocking, Irene? I do think they're awful."</p> + +<p>"Somebody said the Hesperides didn't look nice from the front."</p> + +<p>Jenny examined the purple bottle which would idealize their forms to an +Hellenic convention. After the first indignation had worn itself out, +she began to be amused by the transformations<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a> of the drug. Lying in bed +next morning, she began to play with the notion of dyeing her hair. The +tradition of youthful fairness from the midst of which glowed her deep +blue eyes, was still vital in Hagworth Street. Other girls dyed their +hair, and already once or twice Jenny had considered the step; but the +exertion of buying the peroxide had hitherto stifled the impulse. Here, +however, was the opportunity, and surely the experiment was worth the +trial. She jumped out of bed and examined herself critically in the +toilet-glass; tried to picture the effect of fairness. It would be a +change, anyhow it would be something to vary the monotony of existence. +It would be interesting to learn if her new appearance provoked +admiration greater than ever. It would be interesting to see if the +change impressed the authorities of the Orient. Best of all, perhaps, +would be the exclamations of surprise when the dressing-room first +beheld the alteration.</p> + +<p>Having conceived the plan, she began to hate her present appearance, to +ascribe to her present shade all the boredom that was clinging round her +like a fog. Her own hair, paradoxically enough, came to be considered an +unnatural color. After all, she was really fair, and had been cheated of +her natural hue merely by the freak of time. It was not as if she were +truly dark. She could herself remember the glories of her complexion +before they paled in the gloomy airs of the Orient. For a moment, +however, the birth of artifice dismayed her. She wondered if, in +addition to going fair, she would also go magenta, like some of the +girls who always made up. Again the phantom of age laughed over her +shoulder; but the contemplation of futurity was fleeting, and she +decided that if she was going fair, the sooner she went the better it +would be; if she waited till thirty the world might laugh with reason. +She would chance it. Jenny appropriated a bottle of the management's +peroxide that very night, and excited by the prospect of entertainment, +came home immediately after the performance, alarming Mrs. Raeburn so +much by her arrival that the latter exclaimed:<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a></p> + +<p>"You <i>are</i> early. Is anything the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Anything the matter? Whatever should be the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Well, it's only a quarter to twelve."</p> + +<p>"Who cares?"</p> + +<p>"Don't say that to me."</p> + +<p>"I shall say <i>what</i> I like, and I'm going to bed."</p> + +<p>May, however, was wide awake when Jenny reached their room; so the deed +had to be postponed. May, elated by her sister's unaccustomed earliness, +chattered profusely, and it was two o'clock in the morning before she +fell asleep. Then Jenny crept out of bed and by the faintest glimmer of +gaslight achieved the transformation.</p> + +<p>She woke up in the morning to May's cries of disgust.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you sight! Whatever have you done?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Don't</i> make such a shocking noise. I've gone fair."</p> + +<p>"Gone fair!" exclaimed her sister. "Gone white, you mean. Get up and +look at yourself. You look terrible."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" asked Jenny. "Here, give me hold of the hand-glass."</p> + +<p>Her reflection upset her. She must have put on too much in the uncertain +light.</p> + +<p>"It's like milk," cried May.</p> + +<p>"Don't annoy me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jenny, it's awful. It's like that canary of Alfie's who died so +sudden. It's shocking. What <i>will</i> all my friends say?"</p> + +<p>"Who cares about your friends? <i>They're</i> nobody. Besides, it'll be quite +all right soon. It's bound to sink in."</p> + +<p>"What will Alfie say?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, damn Alfie!"</p> + +<p>"There's a lady. Now swear."</p> + +<p>"Well, you annoy me. It's my own hair, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's your own hair right enough. Nobody else wouldn't own it."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I'll come down to breakfast this morning. Say I've got a +most shocking headache, and fetch me up a cup of tea, there's a little +love."<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a></p> + +<p>"Mother'll only come up and see what's the matter, so <i>don't</i> be silly. +You've got to go downstairs some time."</p> + +<p>"Oo-er, May, I wish I hadn't done it now. It's going whiter all the +time. Look at it. Oh, what unnatural stuff. It can't go lighter than +white, can it?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn, in the act of pouring out tea, held the pot suspended, +and, shaking with laughter, looked at her daughter. Charlie, too, +happened to be at home.</p> + +<p>"Good gracious alive!" cried the mother.</p> + +<p>"I thought I'd see how it looked," Jenny explained, with apologetic +notes in her voice.</p> + +<p>"You'll think your head right off next time," said Charlie profoundly.</p> + +<p>Jenny was seized with an idea.</p> + +<p>"I had to do it for the theater. At least, I thought—oh, well—<i>don't</i> +all stare as if you'd never seen a girl with fair hair. You'll get used +to it."</p> + +<p>"I sha'n't," said Charlie hopelessly. "I shouldn't never get used to +that, not if I lived till I was a hundred. Not if I never died at all."</p> + +<p>"Depend upon it," said Mrs. Raeburn, "her Aunt Mabel will come and see +us this very day and ask what I've been doing."</p> + +<p>"What about it?" said Jenny defiantly. "Who's she? Surely I can do what +I like with my own hair without asking <i>her</i>."</p> + +<p>"Now, what 'ud you say if I went and dyed my hair?" asked Charlie, "and +come down with it the color of an acid drop. That's what I'd like to +know."</p> + +<p>A silence of pent-up laughter held the breakfast party, while, under the +mirthful glances of her mother and sister, Jenny began to regret the +change. At last she volunteered:</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, it's done now."</p> + +<p>"Done in, I should say," corrected Charlie.</p> + +<p>It was a gusty morning of clouds in early June, and the Hagworth Street +kitchen was dark. The sun, however,<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a> streamed in for a moment in the +wake of Charlie's correction, and Jenny's new hair was lighted up.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's worse than I thought," said Mrs. Raeburn.</p> + +<p>"You look like a funny turn."</p> + +<p>"It looks like that ginger-beer we had on Whit-Monday," said her father.</p> + +<p>"Oh, who cares?" cried Jenny, flouncing upstairs out of the room. When +she came down again, she was dressed to go out.</p> + +<p>"You're never going out in broad daylight?" asked May.</p> + +<p>"Let her go," said Mrs. Raeburn. "Her hat covers it up a <i>bit</i>. I only +hope if we have company, she'll have the goodness to keep her hat on all +the time."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, that would be a game of mine. I don't think!" protested Jenny.</p> + +<p>The latter's belief in herself was restored by the attitude of the +dressing-room. The girls all vowed the change improved her. There was an +epidemic of peroxide, and Irene actually tarnished her own rich copper +with the dye, so that for a while her hair seemed streaked with +verdigris. Moreover, the unnatural fairness wore off as the weeks went +by, and at last even the family was compelled to admit that she had not +made a mistake. Only Alfie remained unconvinced, declaring she deserved +a hiding for messing herself about. As for the suitors, they ran faster +than before, but never swiftly enough to catch Jenny.</p> + +<p>"I'm bound to get off with a nice young chap, now," she told the girls. +"I wish I could fall in love."</p> + +<p>"How would you like my Willie?" asked Elsie Crauford proudly.</p> + +<p>"Your Willie? I don't think he's anything to tear oilcloth over."</p> + +<p>"Didn't you think he looked nice in his evening dress?"</p> + +<p>"Your Willie's never bought himself an evening dress! <i>What!</i> Girls, +listen. The Great Millionaire's bought himself an evening dress."<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a></p> + +<p>"You are rude, Jenny Pearl."</p> + +<p>"Well, I call it silly. Swanking round in evening dress with a bent +halfpenny and his latchkey. And you needn't give me those perishing +looks, young Elsie."</p> + +<p>"You are a hateful thing."</p> + +<p>"Your <i>Willie</i> in evening dress. Oh, no, it can't be done."</p> + +<p>"Shut up, Jenny Pearl," cried Elsie, stamping her foot.</p> + +<p>"Now get in a paddy. I suppose it was you edged him on to go without his +dinner for a week to buy it."</p> + +<p>"I hope you'll fall in love, and I hope he'll go away to New Zealand the +same as Nelly Marlowe's Jack did."</p> + +<p>"Oh! There's an unnatural girl! <i>Don't</i> you worry yourself. Not this +little girl. Not Jenny Pearl. I wouldn't let any <i>man</i> make a fool of +me."</p> + +<p>That night a thunderstorm ruined Jenny's hat.</p> + +<p>Next day she bought another, pale green with rosy cherries bobbing at +each side. "I think this hat's going to bring me luck," she announced.</p> + +<p>"The cherries is all right, but green isn't lucky," said Irene.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," said Jenny, "I'll chance it, any old way."<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>Chapter XIII: <i>The Ballet of Cupid</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>HE thunderstorm which ruined Jenny's hat destroyed summer. Blowy August +twilights began to harass the leaves: darkness came earlier, and people, +going home, hurried through the streets where lately they had lingered. +Jenny's new green hat with bobbing cherries seemed to have strayed from +the heart of a fresher season, and passers-by often turned to regard her +as she strolled along Coventry Street toward the Orient. September +brought louder winds and skies swollen with rain; but Jenny, rehearsing +hard for a new ballet on the verge of production, had no leisure to +grumble at chilly dusks and moonless journeys home to Hagworth Street.</p> + +<p>The Orient was in a condition of excitement, for the new ballet, like a +hundred before it, was expected to eclipse entirely the reputation of +its predecessors. Two Ballerinas had arrived from Rome, winter migrants +who in their lightness and warmth, would bring to London a thought of +Italy. A Premier Danseur, more agile than a Picador, had traveled over +from Madrid, and a fiery Maître de Ballet had been persuaded to forsake +Milan. Yet the first night of Cupid was hard upon the heels of a theater +apparently utterly unprepared for any such date. The master carpenter +was wrangling with the electrician. The electrician was insulting the +wardrobe-mistress. The wig-maker was talking very rapidly in French to +the costumier's draftsman, who was replying equally rapidly in Italian. +From time to time the managing director shouted from the back of the +Promenade to know the reason for some delay. The<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a> new Maître de Ballet, +having reduced most of the girls to hysteria by his alarming rages, +abused his interpreter for misrepresenting his meaning. The Ballerinas +from Rome were quarreling over precedence, and the Spanish Danseur was +weeping because the letters of his name were smaller by four inches than +those which announced on the playbills the advent of his feminine +rivals. The call-boy was losing his youth. Everybody was talking at +once, and the musical director was always severely punctual.</p> + +<p>When the dress rehearsal lasted eleven hours, everybody connected with +the Orient prophesied the doom of Cupid; and yet, on the twenty-first of +September, the ballet was produced with truly conspicuous success. The +theme was Love triumphant through the ages, from the saffron veils and +hymeneal torches and flickering airs of Psyche's chamber, through +Arthur's rose-wreathed court and the mimic passions of Versailles, down +to modern London transformed by the boy god to a hanging garden of +Babylon.</p> + +<p>The third scene was a Fête Champêtre after Watteau at sunset. Parterres +of lavender and carnations bloomed at the base of statues that gradually +disappeared in shadow as the sunset yielded to crimson lanterns. The +scene was a harmony of gray and rose and tarnished silver. Love himself +wore a vizard, and the dances were very slow and stately. The leisured +progress of the scene gave Jenny her first opportunity to scan the +audience. She saw a clear-cut face, dead white in the blue haze that +hung over the stalls. She was conscious of an interest suddenly aroused, +of an interest more profound than anything within her experience. For +the first time the width of the orchestra seemed no barrier to +intercourse. She felt she had only to lean gently forward from her place +in the line to touch that unknown personality. She checked the impulse +of greeting, but danced the rest of the movement as she had not danced +for many months, with a joyful grace. When the <i>tempo di minuetto</i> had +quickened to the <i>pas seul</i> of a Ballerina and the stage was still, +Jenny stood far down in the corner nearest<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> to the audience. Here, very +close to the blaze of the footlights, the auditorium loomed almost +impenetrable to eyes on the stage, but the man in the stalls, as if +aware that she had lost him, struck a match. She saw his face flickering +and, guided by the orange point of a cigar, whispered to Elsie Crauford, +who was standing next to her:</p> + +<p>"See that fellow in evening dress in the stalls?"</p> + +<p>"Which one?"</p> + +<p>"The one with the cigar—now—next to the fat man fanning himself. See? +I bet you I get off with him to-night."</p> + +<p>"You think everybody's gazing at you," murmured Elsie.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't. But he is."</p> + +<p>"Only because he can see you're making eyes at him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm not."</p> + +<p>"Besides, how do you know? He isn't waving his programme nor nothing."</p> + +<p>"No; but he'll be waiting by the stage-door."</p> + +<p>"I thought you didn't care for fellows in evening dress," said Elsie.</p> + +<p>"Well, can't you see any difference between that fellow and your +Willie?"</p> + +<p>"No, I can't."</p> + +<p>"Fancy," said Jenny mockingly.</p> + +<p>The Ballerina's final pose was being sustained amid loud applause. The +ballet-master began to count the steps for the final movement. The stage +manager's warning had sounded. The curtain fell, and eighty girls +hurried helter-skelter to their rooms in order to change for the last +scene.</p> + +<p>"All down, ladies," cried the call-boy, and downstairs they trooped.</p> + +<p>The curtain rose on Piccadilly Circus, gray and dripping. Somber figures +danced in a saraband of shadows to a yearning melody of Tschaikovsky. +The oboe gave its plaintive summons; like sea-birds calling, the rest of +the wood-wind took up the appeal until it died away in a solitary flute, +which<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a> sounded a joyful signal very sweet and low. A cymbal crashed: a +golden ray of light came slanting on to the stone figure of Cupid, +infusing him with life until, warm and radiant, he sprang from his +pedestal to bewitch the sad scene. Roses tumbled from the clouds; lilies +sprang up, quivering in the wind of dancing motion. A fountain gushed +from the abandoned pedestal; the scene was a furnace of color. The +Ballerinas led the <i>Corps de Ballet</i> in a Bacchic procession round and +round the twirling form of Cupid. With noise of bell and cymbal, they +ran leaping through an enchanted Piccadilly seen in amber or cornelian. +They might have stepped from a canvas of Titian dyed by the sun of a +spent Venetian afternoon. Individual members of the audience began to +applaud, and the isolated hand-claps sounded like castanets, until, as +the dance became wilder, cheers floated on to the stage like the noise +of waves heard suddenly over the brow of a hill.</p> + +<p>Jenny, in a tunic of ivory silk sprayed with tawny roses, her hair bound +with a fillet of gold, turned from the intoxication of the dance to +search the stalls. Across the <i>arpeggios</i> of the misted violins, his +eyes burned a path. Yet, although she knew that he asked for a signal to +show her consciousness of him, she could not give one. Had his glances +seemed less important, she would have smiled; but since for the first +time in her life a man stirred her, bashfulness caught her icily and, +while her heart flamed, her eyes were cold. The curtain fell, rising +again at once to let the bouquets fall softly round the silver shoes of +the Ballerinas. The odor of stephanotis, mingled with the sharper +perfume of carnations, seemed almost visible. The emotion of the +audience struck the emotion of the dancers and kindled a triumph. The +man in the stalls leaned forward, and the intensity of his gaze was to +Jenny as real an offering as a bouquet. The curtain fell for the last +time and as it touched the stage, instead of hurrying to her +dressing-room, she stood a moment staring at what, for the first time, +seemed an agent of deprivation not relief. Suddenly, too, she realized +that she was very lightly clothed, and, as she walked slowly up the<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> +stone stairs to the dressing-room, was not sure whether she was sorry or +glad.</p> + +<p>In the crowd of chatting girls, Jenny began to call herself a fool, to +rail at her weakness, and to ascribe the whole experience to the extra +Guinness of a first night. Yet all the time she wondered if he would be +waiting at the end of the court; there had been no wave of hand or +flutter of a programme to confirm the hopes of imagination. Moreover, +what was he really like? Outside he would be "awful," like the rest of +them. Outside he would smirk and betray his sense of ownership. Outside +he would destroy the magic that had waked her at last from the dull +sleep of ordinary life. She began to hurry feverishly her undressing, +and the more she hurried, the more she dreamed. At last, having, as it +seemed, exhausted herself with speed, she sat down on the bench, and, +looking round, perceived that the other girls were well in front of her. +She lost confidence and wished for support in the adventure.</p> + +<p>"Coming out to-night?" she asked Irene.</p> + +<p>"If you like," said the latter.</p> + +<p>Jenny, although she longed to be out of the theater, could not be quick +that night. As she watched the other girls leave the dressing-room, she +asked herself why she had wanted Irene to wait for her. If he were +outside, Irene would spoil it all; for, together, they would giggle, and +he would think what a shocking couple of girls he had fallen in with. +She wished now that Irene would become impatient and go, but the latter +seemed perfectly willing to dawdle, though by now they were the only two +inhabitants of the dressing-room.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do move yourself!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I can't, Irene. Whoever made these unnatural stays?"</p> + +<p>"We shall get locked in," said Irene.</p> + +<p>But Jenny was dressed at last, and together they passed out into the +cool September night. He was there. Instinctively Jenny recognized the +careless figure in opera hat and full black coat. She drew back and +clutched her friend's wrist, aware of hot blushes that surely must flame +visibly in the darkness.<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a></p> + +<p>"Who's he?" whispered Irene.</p> + +<p>"Who's who?"</p> + +<p>"The fellow by himself at the end of the court?"</p> + +<p>"How ever on earth should I know? Do you think I'm a walking <i>Answers</i>?"</p> + +<p>The two girls passed him by. He hesitated; then, as if by an effort, +raised his hat.</p> + +<p>Irene giggled foolishly.</p> + +<p>"How d'ye do, Tootoose?" said Jenny, self-possessed through his +embarrassment.</p> + +<p>"I liked your dancing," he said simply.</p> + +<p>"Did you? Who ca——?" She stopped. Somehow the formula was inadequate.</p> + +<p>"Can't we go and have supper somewhere?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Just as <i>you</i> like."</p> + +<p>"Where shall we go?"</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter to me," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Gatti's?"</p> + +<p>"Um."</p> + +<p>"But do you like Gatti's?" persisted the stranger.</p> + +<p>"It's all right."</p> + +<p>"We can all squash into a hansom, can't we?"</p> + +<p>"Rather," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>They rattled off to Gatti's, and were soon sitting on red velvet, rulers +of gayety.</p> + +<p>"What's your name, Claude?" inquired Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Raymond," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oo-er! What a soppy name!"</p> + +<p>The young man hesitated. He looked for a moment deep into Jenny's eyes: +perceived, it may be, her honesty, and said:</p> + +<p>"Well, as a matter of fact, my real name is Maurice—Maurice Avery."</p> + +<p>"Oh, and he wasn't going to tell us," cried Jenny, clapping her hands. +"We shall have to call him careful Willie."</p> + +<p>"No, I say, really, do forgive me for being a silly ass."</p> + +<p>"Now he's being rude to himself."<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a></p> + +<p>Here a fat waiter interposed with a dish, and Avery had time to recover +himself. Meanwhile, Jenny regarded him. She liked his fresh complexion +and deep-blue eyes. She liked better still his weak, girlish mouth and +white teeth. She liked best of all his manner, which was not too easy, +although it carried some of the confidence of popularity.</p> + +<p>"Whatever made you come on the first night? I think the ballet's rotten +on the first night," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"I'm awfully glad I did. But, as a matter of fact, I had to. I'm a +critic. I'm going to write a notice of the ballet for the <i>Point of +View</i>."</p> + +<p>Something in the intonation of this announcement would have warned +anybody of the world that Avery's judgment had not long ago been +demanded for the first time.</p> + +<p>"A reporter?" asked Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Well, a sort of reporter."</p> + +<p>"You don't look much like a reporter. I knew a reporter once who was +going to photograph me in a bathing-dress for <i>Fluffy Bits</i>. But his +flat was too high up for this little girl."</p> + +<p>Maurice Avery wished that Jenny were alone. He would in that case have +attempted to explain the difference between a reporter and a dramatic +critic. Under the circumstances, however, he felt that the subject +should be dropped, and turned politely to Irene.</p> + +<p>"You're not talking much."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but I think the more."</p> + +<p>The conversation became difficult, almost as difficult as the <i>macaroni +au gratin</i> which the three of them were eating. Maurice wished more than +ever that Irene was out of the way. He possessed a great sense of +justice which compelled him to be particularly polite to her, although +his eyes were all for Jenny. The unsatisfactory meal evaporated in +coffee, and presently they stood on the pavement.</p> + +<p>"I say, I ought to drive you girls home," said Maurice. "But to-night I +absolutely must get back and finish this notice in<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a> time to catch the +three o'clock post. Couldn't we all three meet to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>Inwardly he lamented the politeness which led him to include Irene in +the suggested reunion.</p> + +<p>"All right, Willie Brains," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. Outside the Palace. Good night."</p> + +<p>They shook hands discreetly, and though Maurice held Jenny's hand longer +than was necessary, he held Irene's just as long in case she might have +noticed and felt hurt by the greater attention paid to her friend.</p> + +<p>Jenny and Irene turned in the direction of the Tube station by Leicester +Square.</p> + +<p>"He might have stood us a cab home," complained the latter.</p> + +<p>"Why should he?" said Jenny.</p> + +<p>Irene looked at her in perplexity.</p> + +<p>"You're usually the one to get all you can out of a fellow. And it was +your turn to ask to-night."</p> + +<p>"I like Maurice," Jenny replied. "And what's more, I think I shall like +him again to-morrow."</p> + +<p>The afternoon arrived. Jenny and Irene, walking down Shaftesbury Avenue, +perceived Maurice gazing at the photographs outside the Palace.</p> + +<p>"There he is," cried Jenny.</p> + +<p>Avery turned round.</p> + +<p>"You <i>are</i> punctual," he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Tea, at whatever tea-shop they drank it, was dull. The acquaintance did +not seem to advance.</p> + +<p>When it was time for the girls to go into the theater, Maurice said +desperately:</p> + +<p>"Could I drive you—both home to-night?"</p> + +<p>At the last moment he was afraid to exclude Irene. "I'll wait outside," +he went on, "till you come out."</p> + +<p>Rain fell that night, and Maurice was glad when, along the court, he +could see them strolling towards him.</p> + +<p>"A hansom, eh?" he said. "Or let's have a drink first."<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a></p> + +<p>In the Monico, they sat round a table and nothing mattered to Maurice +and Jenny, except eyes. The room seemed full of eyes, not the eyes of +its chattering population, but their own. Never before had a London +night seemed so gay. Never before had <i>crême de menthe</i> been dyed so +richly green. They began to discuss love and jealousy. As Romeo +hesitated before he joined the fatal masquerade, Maurice was seized with +an impulse to make himself as poor a thing as possible.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't be jealous," he vowed. "I think everybody can be in love +with two or three people at once."</p> + +<p>"I don't," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, it's absurd to be jealous. Quite absurd. Different people suit +different moods. The only trouble is when they meet."</p> + +<p>He had caught hold of Jenny's hand while they were speaking, and now she +drew it away.</p> + +<p>"I think I know what he means," said Irene.</p> + +<p>"You think so," scoffed Jenny. "You! You're potty, then."</p> + +<p>Maurice felt sorry for Irene and weakly took her hand. She let it +recline in his listlessly. It was cold and damp after Jenny's vitality.</p> + +<p>"If I loved a man," said Jenny, "I should be most shocking jealous."</p> + +<p>"What would you do if you met him with another girl?" asked Maurice.</p> + +<p>"I should never speak to him again."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't that be rather foolish?"</p> + +<p>"Foolish or not, that's what I should do."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not jealous," vowed Maurice. "I never have been."</p> + +<p>"Then you're silly," asserted Jenny. "Jealous! I'm terribly jealous."</p> + +<p>"It's a mistake," said Maurice. "It spoils everything and turns a +pleasure into a nuisance."</p> + +<p>"I don't think I'm jealous of you-know-who," put in Irene.<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a></p> + +<p>"Oh, him and you, you're both mad!" exclaimed Jenny. "But if ever I love +a man——"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Maurice eagerly.</p> + +<p>Two Frenchmen at the next table were shuffling the dominoes. For Maurice +the noise had a strange significance, while he waited for the +hypothesis.</p> + +<p>Jenny stared away up to the chandeliers.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said he. Somebody knocked over a glass. Jenny shivered.</p> + +<p>"It's getting late," she said.</p> + +<p>"What about driving home?" asked Maurice.</p> + +<p>Outside it was pouring. They squeezed into a hansom cab. Again his +politeness seemed bound to mar the evening.</p> + +<p>"Let's see. Irene lives at Camden Town. We'd better drive to Islington +first and leave Jenny, eh?"</p> + +<p>Then Jenny said quite unaccountably to herself and Irene:</p> + +<p>"No, thanks. We'll drive Irene home first."</p> + +<p>Maurice looked at her quickly, but she gave no sign of any plan, nor did +she betray a hint of the emotion he would have been glad to see.</p> + +<p>With the glass let down against the rain, they were forced very near to +one another as the horse trotted along Tottenham Court Road shining with +puddles in the lamplight.</p> + +<p>"This is jolly," said Maurice, bravely putting an arm round each waist +and holding Irene a little closer for fear she should feel that she was +the undesired third person. Having done this, he felt entitled to kiss +Jenny first and turned towards her lips. She drew back, whispering:</p> + +<p>"Ah, so near and yet for far."</p> + +<p>Then, since he had offered to kiss Jenny, he felt bound to kiss Irene. +The latter allowed the compliment as she would have let him pick up a +handkerchief. Arrangements were made to meet again on the morrow at the +same place, and at last the cab was pulled up some two hundred yards +from Irene's house. Maurice jumped out and shook hands very politely and +waved to her as she ran up a side-street. Then he sat back<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> beside Jenny +in the cab. The driver turned his horse and for a minute or two they +traveled silently through the rain and lamplight.</p> + +<p>"Jenny," he whispered, "Jenny, won't you kiss me now?"</p> + +<p>She yielded herself to his arms, and while the wind rattled the glass +shield, while the raindrops danced in the road before them, while lights +faltered and went out in passing window-panes, Jenny nestled closer, +ardent and soft and passionate.</p> + +<p>"Are you glad we're alone?" he whispered.</p> + +<p>"Rather."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you knew I've been burning all the time to sit with you like +this?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I have, Jenny. Jenny, I saw you when you first came on the stage, +and afterwards I never saw anyone else. I wish you lived a thousand +miles away."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because then we should travel together for a thousand hours."</p> + +<p>"You date."</p> + +<p>"You're so delightful."</p> + +<p>"Am I?"</p> + +<p>"I wish Irene weren't coming to-morrow. We shall have such a lot to talk +about," he vowed.</p> + +<p>"Shall we?"</p> + +<p>"What on earth made me ask her?"</p> + +<p>"It's done now."</p> + +<p>Maurice sighed. Then he caught her close again and breathless they sat +till Jenny suddenly cried:</p> + +<p>"Gee! Here's Hagworth Street. Goodnight!"</p> + +<p>At the end of the road, under the tall plane tree where once Jenny had +danced, they sat in the old hansom cab, while the steam rose in clouds +from the horse and the puddles sang with rain and the driver smoked +meditatively. The world was fading away in sounds of traffic very +remote. The wetness of the night severed them from humanity. They needed +no blue<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a> Pacific haven to enrich their love. They perceived no omen in +the desolation of the London night.</p> + +<p>"What times we shall have together," said Maurice.</p> + +<p>"Shall we?" the girl replied.</p> + +<p>"It's all happened so exactly right."</p> + +<p>"It does sometimes," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>The horse pawed the road, impatient of the loitering. The driver knocked +out the ashes of his pipe on the roof.</p> + +<p>"I <i>must</i> go now," she said.</p> + +<p>"Must you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"One more kiss."</p> + +<p>To Maurice each kiss of Jenny's seemed a first kiss.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it glorious?" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, everything—life and London and you and I."</p> + +<p>He stood in the road and lifted her on to the pavement.</p> + +<p>"Good night, my Jenny."</p> + +<p>"Good night."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"Rather."</p> + +<p>"Good night. Bless you."</p> + +<p>"Bless <i>you</i>," she murmured. Then, surprised by herself, she ran through +the rain as swift as the shadow of a cloud, while the horse trotted +southward with a dreaming passenger.<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>Chapter XIV: <i>Rain on the Roof</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">U</span>PSTAIRS in the room she shared with May, Jenny sat before the glass +combing her hair, while outside the rain poured down with volume +increasing every moment. The wash of water through the black, soundless +night, lent the little room, with its winking candle, a comfortable +security. The gentle breathing of May and the swish of the hairbrush +joined the stream of rain without in a monotone of whisperings that +sighed endless round Jenny's vivid thoughts. Suddenly she sprang from +her reverie, and, pulling up the blind with a rattle, flung open the +window to dip her hands into the wet darkness. May sat up, wild-eyed +from sleep. The candle gasped and fluttered.</p> + +<p>"Whatever is it?" cried May.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Maisie, Maisie," said her sister; "it's raining real kisses +to-night. It is, really."</p> + +<p>"Have you gone mad?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, let me get into bed quick and dream. Oh, May, I'd go mad to dream +to-night."</p> + +<p>And soon the rain washed down unheard, where Jenny, lying still as +coral, dreamed elusive ardors, ghostly ecstasies.<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>Chapter XV: <i>Cras Amet</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>HE next morning sunlight shone in upon Jenny's rose-dyed awakening. +Flushed with dreams, she blinked, murmuring in sleepy surprise:</p> + +<p>"Oo—er! if it isn't a fine day."</p> + +<p>"It's glorious," corroborated May emphatically.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's lovely; let's all wave flags."</p> + +<p>"You were a mad thing last night," said May.</p> + +<p>"Don't take any notice, dee-ar. I was feeling funnified."</p> + +<p>"Opening the window like that and shouting out in your sleep and +cuddling me all night long."</p> + +<p>"Did I?" inquired Jenny curiously.</p> + +<p>"Did you? I should think you did. Not half."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you're a little love and make me a cup of tea, I'll tell you +all about it."</p> + +<p>"About what?"</p> + +<p>"About him. Oh, May, he's lovely. Oh, he's It."</p> + +<p>"Who is?"</p> + +<p>"A fellow I met this week."</p> + +<p>"What, another?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, but this one's the One and Only."</p> + +<p>"Go on, I know your One and Onlies."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but May, he's a young dream, is My Friend the Prince. I'm going to +meet him this afternoon with young Irene."</p> + +<p>"And have a proper game with him, I suppose, and do the poor boy in and +say good-by."</p> + +<p>"I hope I sha'n't never say good-by to him. Never, I do."</p> + +<p>"You have got it bad."<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a></p> + +<p>"I know. Listen, May. He's rather tall and he's got a nice complexion, +only his mother says he's rather pale, and he's got very white teeth and +a mouth that's always moving, and simply glorious eyes."</p> + +<p>"What color?"</p> + +<p>"Blue. And he talks very nice, and his name's Maurice. But whatever you +do, don't say nothing to mother about it."</p> + +<p>"As if I should."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn came into the room at that moment.</p> + +<p>"Are you lazy girls going to get up?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, ma, <i>don't</i> be silly. Get up? Oh, what a liberty!"</p> + +<p>"Lying in bed on this lovely morning," protested Mrs. Raeburn.</p> + +<p>"That's it. Now you carry on about the lovely morning. Young May's +already woke me up once to look at the sun. All I know is it makes the +room look most shocking dusty."</p> + +<p>The day deepened from a morning of pale gold to an amber afternoon, +whose melting splendor suffused the thin blue autumn sky with a +glittering haze. Jenny stood pensive awhile upon the doorstep.</p> + +<p>"Hark, what a noise the birds are all making. Whatever's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"They're pleased it's fine," said May.</p> + +<p>"Oh, they're pleased, too, are they?" Jenny exclaimed, as, with a long +shadow leading her slim form, she went through a world of russet leaves +and cheeping sparrows to meet her lover.</p> + +<p>At the club there was a message from Irene to say she was ill and unable +to keep the appointment.</p> + +<p>"That's funny," Jenny thought. "Seems as if it's bound to be."</p> + +<p>Through Leicester Square she went with eyes that twisted a hundred necks +in retrospect. Down Charing Cross Road she hurried, past the old men +peering into the windows of bookshops, past the <i>delicatessen</i> shops +full of gold and silver paper, past a tall, gloomy church haunted by +beggars, hurrying faster<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> and faster until she swung into the sunlight +of Shaftesbury Avenue. There was Maurice studying very earnestly the +photographs outside the Palace Theater.</p> + +<p>"Here I am, Claude," she laughed over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am glad you've come," he said.</p> + +<p>"Irene couldn't come. She's ill. Shame, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Really," said Maurice, trying to seem concerned. "Let's go and have +tea."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you unnatural man. Aren't you sorry she's ill?"</p> + +<p>"I can't be sorry you're alone. Where shall we have tea?"</p> + +<p>"Where <i>you</i> like."</p> + +<p>"I know a funny little shop off Soho Square where there aren't many +people."</p> + +<p>"Don't you like people, then?"</p> + +<p>"Not always."</p> + +<p>Soho Square held the heart of autumn that afternoon. London had +surrendered this quiet corner to pastoral meditation. Here, among the +noise of many sparrows and sibilance of dead leaves on the unfrequented +pavement, one realized in the perishable hour's flight the immortality +of experience.</p> + +<p>"More birds," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Don't they make a row and don't the leaves look ripping in this light?"</p> + +<p>"There's another one getting excited over the day."</p> + +<p>"Well, it is superb," said Maurice. "Only I wish there weren't such a +smell of pickles. I say, would you mind going on ahead and then turning +back and meeting me?"</p> + +<p>"Oo-er, whatever for?"</p> + +<p>"I want to see how jolly you'd look coming round the corner under the +trees."</p> + +<p>"You are funny."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you think I'm absurd. But really, you know, you do look like +a Dresden shepherdess with your heart-shaped face and slanting eyes."</p> + +<p>"Thanks for those few nuts."</p> + +<p>"No, really, do go on, won't you?"<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a></p> + +<p>"I certainly sha'n't. People would think we was mad."</p> + +<p>"What do people matter?"</p> + +<p>"Hark at him. Now he's crushed the world."</p> + +<p>"One has to be fanciful on such an afternoon."</p> + +<p>"You're right."</p> + +<p>"I suppose I couldn't kiss you here?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course. Wouldn't you like to sit down on the curb and put your +arm round my waist?"</p> + +<p>"As a matter of fact, I should."</p> + +<p>"Well, I shouldn't. See? Where's this unnatural tea-shop?"</p> + +<p>"Just here."</p> + +<p>"It looks like the Exhibition."</p> + +<p>It was a dim coffee-shop hung with rugs and gongs. The smoke of many +cigarettes and joss-sticks had steeped the gloom with Arabian airs.</p> + +<p>"It is in a way a caravanserai," said Maurice.</p> + +<p>"A what?" said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"A caravanserai—a Turkish pub, if you like it better."</p> + +<p>"You and I <i>are</i> seeing life to-day."</p> + +<p>"I like my coffee freshly ground," Maurice explained.</p> + +<p>"Well, I like tea."</p> + +<p>"The tea's very good here. It's China."</p> + +<p>"But I think China tea's terrible. More like burnt water than tea."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you don't appreciate the East," he said.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't if it means China tea."</p> + +<p>"I wish I could take you away with me to Japan. We'd sit under a +magnolia and you should have a kiss for every petal that fell."</p> + +<p>"That sounds rather nice."</p> + +<p>"You know you yourself are a bit Japanesy."</p> + +<p>"Don't say that. I hate to be told that."</p> + +<p>"It's the slant in your eyes."</p> + +<p>"I don't like my eyes," said Jenny emphatically.</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>"One pleased, any old way."<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a></p> + +<p>"I love your eyes," said Maurice earnestly. "But I made a mistake when I +said you were Japanese. You're Slav—Russian, you know."</p> + +<p>"I must be a procession of all nations, according to you."</p> + +<p>"But you are frightfully subtle."</p> + +<p>"Anything else? You're sure I'm not a bighead?"</p> + +<p>"A what?" said Maurice.</p> + +<p>"A pantomime bighead."</p> + +<p>Maurice laughed.</p> + +<p>"Men always talk about my eyes," Jenny went on. "They often call me the +girl with the saucy eyes, or the squiny eyes, <i>which</i> I don't like. And +yet, for all my strange appearance, if I want a man to be struck on me, +he always is."</p> + +<p>"Did you want me to be struck on you?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I must have."</p> + +<p>"Is that why you made us see Irene home first—so that you could be +alone with me?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so. Any more questions? You're worse than my sister, and +she'd ask the tail off a cat."</p> + +<p>"Hum!"</p> + +<p>"Cheer up, Puzzled Willy."</p> + +<p>"Have you ever—er—well, insisted on having the person you wanted +before?"</p> + +<p>"No, I've not. Not like that. I can't make myself out sometimes. I don't +understand myself. I do a thing all of a sudden and the next minute I +couldn't tell anybody why I done it."</p> + +<p>"I might have thought you were running after me," said Maurice.</p> + +<p>"Who cares? If you did, it wouldn't matter to me. If I wanted you to +make a fool of yourself, you'd make a fool of yourself."</p> + +<p>"But supposing I made a fool of you?" asked Maurice, slightly nettled.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you could."</p> + +<p>"But I might. After all, I may be as attractive to women as you are to +men. Perhaps we've both met our match. I admit<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> you fascinate me. From +the first moment I saw you, I wanted you. I told you that. And you?"</p> + +<p>"I wanted you," said Jenny simply.</p> + +<p>"It is love at first sight. And yet, do you know, I had an instinct to +make you not like me."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't I?" said Maurice, breathless. The heavy air of the coffee-shop +vibrated with unheard passionate melodies.</p> + +<p>"No," said Jenny, gazing full at the young lover opposite, while Eros +shook his torch, and the gay deep eyes, catching the warm light, shone +as they had never shone for any man before. "But why did you try to make +me not like you?"</p> + +<p>"I felt afraid," said Maurice. "I'm not very old, but I've made two +girls unhappy, and I had a presentiment that you would be the revenge +for them."</p> + +<p>"I've made boys unhappy," said Jenny. "And I thought you were sent to +pay me out."</p> + +<p>"But I shall always love you," said Maurice, putting his hand across the +little table and clasping her fingers close.</p> + +<p>"So shall I you."</p> + +<p>"We're lucky, aren't we?"</p> + +<p>"Rather."</p> + +<p>"I feel sorry for people who aren't in love with you. But don't let's +talk here any more. Let's go back to my rooms," he suggested.</p> + +<p>"I've got to be in the theater by half-past seven."</p> + +<p>"I know, but we've plenty of time. It's only just half-past five."</p> + +<p>"Where do you live?"</p> + +<p>"Westminster. Looking over the river. I've got a largish studio. Quite a +jolly room. I share the floor below with a friend."</p> + +<p>"What's he like?"</p> + +<p>"Castleton? Funny chap. I don't expect you'd care for him much. Women +don't usually. But don't let's talk about Castleton. Let's talk about +Jenny and Maurice."<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a></p> + +<p>Outside the fumes of the coffee-shop were blown away by soft autumnal +breezes.</p> + +<p>"We'll dash it in a taxi. Look, there's a salmon-colored one. What luck! +We must have that. They're rather rare. Taxi! Taxi!"</p> + +<p>The driver of the favored hue pulled up beside the pavement.</p> + +<p>"Four-twenty-two Grosvenor Road, Westminster."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Maurice, glancing round at Jenny and taking her slim +gloved hand in his. "I wonder whether taxis will ever be as romantic as +hansoms. They aren't yet somehow. All the same, there's a tremendous +thrill in tearing through this glorious September weather. Oh, London," +he shouted, bouncing in excitement up and down on the springy cushions, +"London, you're wonderful."</p> + +<p>Jenny shook his hand as a nurse reproves a child.</p> + +<p>"Keep still," she commanded. "The man'll think you're potty."</p> + +<p>"But I am potty. You're potty. The world's potty, and we're in love. My +sweet and lovely Jenny, I'm in love with you.</p> + +<table summary="poetry" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> +<tbody><tr><td>"There was a young lady called Jenny,</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Whose eyes, some men said, were quite squiny."</span></td></tr> +</tbody></table> + +<p>"Oh, Maurice, you <i>are</i> awful," she protested.</p> + +<p>But, Apollo urging him, Maurice would finish:</p> + +<table summary="poetry" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> +<tbody><tr><td>"When they said: 'You're our fate,'</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">She replied, 'It's too late.'</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">So they went away sad and grew skinny."</span></td></tr> +</tbody></table> + +<p>"Lunatic!" she said. "And don't talk about getting thin. Look at me. +Nothing but skin and grief."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," said Maurice, and went on rhyming:</p> + +<table summary="poetry" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> +<tbody><tr><td>"There was a young lady said: 'What!</td></tr> +<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">My figure is going to pot.'"</span></td></tr> +</tbody></table> + +<p>And then two more lines that will have to be filled in like your figure, +and then:</p> + +<p> +"They all of them said: 'No it's not.'"<br /> +</p> + +<p>"Well, you're not much more than a rasher of wind yourself," commented +Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Ha! ha!" shouted Maurice. "That's good. Hullo, here's Trafalgar Square. +Aren't we going a pace down Whitehall? Jenny, there aren't any words for +what I feel."</p> + +<p>He hugged her close.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mind!" she protested, withdrawing from the embrace. "People can see +us."</p> + +<p>"My dear, they don't matter. They don't matter a damn. Not one of them +matters the tiniest dash."</p> + +<p>Nor did they indeed to lovers in the warm apricot of a fine September +sunset. What to them were dusty clerks with green shining elbows, and +government officials and policemen, and old women with baskets of tawny +chrysanthemums? Fairies only were fit to be their companions. The taxi +hummed on over the road shadowed by the stilted Gothic of the Houses of +Parliament, hummed out of the shadow and into Grosvenor Road, where the +sun was splashing the river with pools of coppery light. The stream was +losing its burnished ripples and a gray mist was veiling the +fire-crowned chimneys of Nine Elms when the taxi drew up by 422 +Grosvenor Road.</p> + +<p>"Right to the very top," called Maurice. "I do hope you don't mind."</p> + +<p>As he spoke he caught her round the waist and gathered her to his side +to climb the stairs.</p> + +<p>"It's an old house. I've got an attic for my studio. Castleton's out. An +old woman buried somewhere near the center of the earth cooks for me. +When you see her, you'll think she's arrived via Etna. Jenny, I'm +frightfully excited at showing you my studio."</p> + +<p>At last they reached the topmost landing, which was lit by a skylight +opaque with spiders' webs and dust. The landing<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a> itself was full of +rubbish, old clothes, and tattered volumes and, as if Maurice sought to +emulate Phaethon, a bicycle.</p> + +<p>"Not in these!" said Jenny. "You <i>don't</i> carry that up and down all +these stairs every day?"</p> + +<p>"Never," said Maurice gayly. "Not once since I carried it up for the +first time a year ago."</p> + +<p>"You silly old thing."</p> + +<p>"I am. I am. But isn't it splendid to be able to be silly?"</p> + +<p>He opened the door of the studio and Jenny walked into what seemed an +astonishingly large room. There were windows at either end and a long +skylight overhead. The ceiling was raftered and on the transverse beams +were heaped all sorts of things that young men bring to London but never +use, such as cricket-bats and tennis-racquets and skates.</p> + +<p>The windows on one side looked out over the river, over barges going up +on the full flood, and chimneys flying streamers of pearl-gray smoke. +The windows on the other side opened on to a sea of roofs that rolled +away down to a low line of purple cloud above whose bronzed and jagged +edge the Byzantine tower of Westminster Cathedral rose in silhouette +against a sky of primrose very lucent and serene.</p> + +<p>There was a wide fireplace with a scarred rug before it and on either +side a deal seat with high straight back. There were divans by the same +craftsman along the whitewashed walls, and shelves of tumbled books. +Here and there were broken statues and isolated lead-bound panes of +colored glass, with an easel and a model's throne and the trunk of a lay +figure. There was a large table littered with papers and tins of +pineapple and a broken bag of oranges very richly hued in the sunset. +The floor was covered with matting, over which were scattered Persian +rugs whose arabesques of mauve and puce were merged in a depth of warm +color by the fleeting daylight. On the walls were autotypes of Mona Lisa +and Botticelli's Venus, of the Prince of Orange and little Philip the +Fourth, on his great horse. There was also an alleged Rubens, the +purchase of Maurice's first year at Oxford, from the responsibility of +whose<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a> possession he had never recovered. There were drawings on the +wall itself of arms and legs and breasts and necks, and a row of casts +in plaster of Paris. Here and there on shelves were blue ginger-jars, +Burmese masks and rolls of Florentine end-papers. There was a +grandfather-clock, lacquered and silent, which leaned slightly forward +to ponder its appearance in a Venetian mirror whose frame was blown in a +design of pink and blue roses and shepherds. The window-curtains were +chintz in a pattern of faded crimson birds and brown vine-leaves stained +with mildew. In one corner was a pile of brocaded green satin that was +intended to cover the undulating horsehair sofa before the fire.</p> + +<p>Maurice's room was a new experience to Jenny.</p> + +<p>"What a shocking untidy place!" she exclaimed. "What! It's like Madge +Wilson's mother's second-hand shop in the New Kent Road. You don't +<i>live</i> here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do," said Maurice.</p> + +<p>"Sleep here?"</p> + +<p>"No; I sleep underneath. I've a bedroom with Castleton."</p> + +<p>"Untidy, like this is?"</p> + +<p>"No, rather tidy. Bath-tub, Sandow exerciser, and photographs of my +sisters by Ellis and Walery. Quite English and respectable."</p> + +<p>Jenny went on:</p> + +<p>"Doesn't all this mess ever get on your nerves? Don't you ever go mad to +clear it up?"</p> + +<p>"You shall be mistress here and clear up when you like."</p> + +<p>"All right, Artist Bill. I suppose you are an artist?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what I am. I'd like best to be a sculptor. You must sit +for me."</p> + +<p>"The only artist I ever sat for I took off my belt to in the finish."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"He annoyed me. Go on. What else are you?"</p> + +<p>"I'd like to be a musician."</p> + +<p>"You've got a jolly fine piano, any way," said Jenny, sitting<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> down to a +Bechstein grand to pick out some of Miss Victoria Monk's songs with the +right hand while she held a cigarette in the left.</p> + +<p>"Then I write a bit," said Maurice. "Criticisms, you know. I told you I +wrote a notice of your ballet. I'm twenty-four and I shall come into a +certain amount of money, and my people live in a large house in Surrey +and oh, I—well—I'm a <i>dilettante</i>. Now you know my history."</p> + +<p>"Whatever on earth's a dilly—you do use the most unnatural words. I +shall call you Dictionary Dick."</p> + +<p>"Look here, let's chuck explanations," said Maurice. "I simply must kiss +you. Let's go and look out at the river."</p> + +<p>He pulled her towards the window and flung it wide open. Together they +leaned out, smoking. The sparrows were silent now. They could hear the +splash and gurgle of the water against the piers, and the wind shaking +the plane tree bare along the embankment. They watched the lamp-lighter +go past on his twinkling pilgrimage. They listened to the thunder of +London streets a long way off. Their cigarettes were finished. Together +they dropped to extinction in a shower of orange sparks below.</p> + +<p>Maurice drew Jenny back into the darkening room.</p> + +<p>"Look! The windows are like big sapphires," he said, and caught her to +his arms. They stood enraptured in the dusk and shadows of the old +house. Round them Attic shapes glimmered: the gods of Greece regarded +them: Aphrodite laughed.</p> + +<p>"Don't all these statues frighten you?" said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"No, they're too beautiful."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" screamed Jenny. "Oh! She moved. She moved."</p> + +<p>"Don't be foolish, child. You're excited."</p> + +<p>"I must go to the theater. It's late. I do feel silly."</p> + +<p>"I'll drive you down."</p> + +<p>"But I'll come again," she said. "Only next time we'll light the gas +when it gets dark. I hate these statues. They're like skelingtons."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to make a statue of you. May I? Dancing?"<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a></p> + +<p>"If you like."</p> + +<p>"I adore you."</p> + +<p>"So do I you," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Not so much as I do."</p> + +<p>"Just as much, Mr. Knowall," she said, shaking her head.</p> + +<p>They kissed once more.</p> + +<p>"Jenny, Jenny!" It was almost a poignant cry. "Jenny, I wish this moment +were a thousand years. But never mind, we shall always be lovers."</p> + +<p>"I hope we shall."</p> + +<p>"Why only hope? We shall. We must."</p> + +<p>"You never know," she whispered. "Men are funny; you never know."</p> + +<p>"Don't you trust me?"</p> + +<p>"I trust nobody. Yes, I do. I trust you."</p> + +<p>"My darling, darling!"</p> + +<p>Then downstairs they went, closer locked on every step, close together +with hearts beating, the world before them, and the stars winking +overhead.<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>Chapter XVI: <i>Loves Halcyon</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>HE next fortnight passed quickly enough in the rapture of daily +meetings and kisses still fresh and surprising as those first primroses +of spring which few can keep from plucking. There was nobody to +interrupt the intimacy; for Irene remained ill, and the rest of the +world was as yet unconscious of the affair. Nevertheless, with all these +opportunities for a complete understanding, the relation of Maurice and +Jenny to one another was still essentially undefined. Their manner of +life in that first fortnight of mutual adoration had the exquisite and +ephemeral beauty of a daylong flower. It possessed the elusive joy that +mayflies have in dancing for a few sunny days above a glittering stream. +It had the character of a pleasant dream, where thought is instantly +translated into action. It was the opening of a poem by Herrick or +Horace before the prescience of transitoriness has marred the exultation +with melancholy.</p> + +<p>Everything favored a halcyon love. October had come in, windless and +very golden. Such universal serenity was bound to preserve for lovers +the illusion of permanence that exists so poignantly in fine autumn +weather, when the leaves, falling one by one at rare intervals, scarcely +express the year's decay. The sly hours stole onward in furtive +disguises. Milk-white dawns evaporated in skies of thinnest azure and +noons of beaten gold, until in pearl-gray dusks each day met its night +delicately. For Maurice and Jenny even the night conjured no<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a> wintry +thoughts, and when the moon came up round and tawny, floating +unsubstantially above the black house-tops, an aged moon lacquered with +rust, full of calamities, these lovers were not dismayed; although they +were not influenced to quick and fervid enterprises.</p> + +<p>No doubt, if they had wandered, treading violets under foot, beneath the +silver moons of Spring, there would have been a more rapid encounter of +emotions. But the tranquillity of nature affected Maurice particularly. +He was like a man who, having endured the grief of long separation, +meets his love in joyful security. It was as if with a sigh he folded +her to his arms, conscious only of acquiring her presence. He had from +the fret of London gained the quiet of high green cliffs and was no +longer ambitious of anything save meditation on the beauty spread before +his eyes. He had bought the much-desired book, and now was idly turning +its leaves, safe in the triumph of possession.</p> + +<p>Jenny, too, after her long experience of casual attraction, was glad to +surrender herself to the luxury of absent effort; but in her case the +feverishness of a child, who dreads any discussion that may rob the +perfect hour of a single honeyed moment, made her fling white arms +around his neck and hold him for her own against invisible thieves.</p> + +<p>There exist in the heart of a London dawn a few minutes when the street +lamps have just been extinguished, but before the sun has risen, when +the city cannot fail to be beautiful even in its meanest aspects. At +such an hour the Bayswater Road has the mystery of a dew-steeped glade; +the Strand wears the frail hues of a sea-shell; Regent Street is +crystalline. Even Piccadilly Circus stands on the very summit of the +world, wind-washed and noble.</p> + +<p>To Maurice and Jenny London was always a city seen at dawn; so many dull +streets had been enchanted by their meetings, so many corners had been +invested with the delight of the loved one's new appearance. But, though +they were still imparadised, a certain wistfulness in looks and +handclasps<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a> showed that they both instinctively felt they would never +again tread the pavement so lightly, never again make time a lyric, life +a measure.</p> + +<p>On the afternoon before Jenny's birthday, she and Maurice had gone to +Hampstead, there to discuss the details of a wonderful party that was to +celebrate in the studio the lucky occasion. They had wandered arm in arm +through the green alleys and orderly byways of the mellow suburb, +dreaming away all sense of time and space. It was the very culmination +of St. Luke's summer, and nowhere had the glories been more richly +displayed. Robins sang in Well Walk, and Michaelmas daisies splashed +every garden with constellations of vivid mauve. After tea they walked +up Heath Street and on a wooden seat stayed to watch the sunset. Below +them the Heath rolled away in grassland to houses whose smoke was heavy +on the dull crimson of a stormy dusk. The sun sank with an absence of +effect which chilled them both. Night, with a cold wind that heralded +rain, came hard on the heels of twilight. The mist rose thickly from the +lower parts of the Heath, and the night's jewelry was blurred.</p> + +<p>Maurice spoke suddenly as if to a signal.</p> + +<p>"Jenny, we seem to have spent a very long time together now in finding +out nothing."</p> + +<p>"What <i>do</i> you mean?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I mean—we've been together a frightful lot, but I don't know anything +about you and you don't know anything about me."</p> + +<p>"I know you're a darling."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know that, but——"</p> + +<p>"What!" she broke in, "well, if you don't properly go out with +yourself."</p> + +<p>"No, I mean—bother about me being a darling—what I mean is—what are +we going to do?"</p> + +<p>"What do you want us to do?"</p> + +<p>"You don't help me out," he complained. "Look here, are you really in +love with me?"<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a></p> + +<p>"Of course I am," she said softly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but really violently, madly in love to the exclusion of everything +else in the world?"</p> + +<p>"Kiss me," said Jenny, answering him from her heart.</p> + +<p>"Kissing's too easy," said Maurice. "Kissing proves nothing. You've +probably kissed dozens of men."</p> + +<p>"Well, why not?"</p> + +<p>"Why not? Good Heavens, if I give up my whole being to you, do you mean +to say you're not going to think anything of kissing dozens of men?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly. To begin with, they did all the kissing."</p> + +<p>"That makes no difference."</p> + +<p>"I think it makes all the difference."</p> + +<p>"I don't," he maintained.</p> + +<p>"I do."</p> + +<p>"Look here, don't let's quarrel," he said.</p> + +<p>"I'm not quarrelling. You began."</p> + +<p>"All right. I know I did. Only do think things out."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with your brain to-night?" Jenny asked.</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"You've taken a sudden craze for thinking."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do be serious," he said petulantly. "Here are we. We meet. We fall +in love at once. We roam about London in a sort of mist of love and we +haven't settled anything."</p> + +<p>"Why can't we go on roaming about, as you call it?"</p> + +<p>"We can—up to a point. Only——" he hesitated.</p> + +<p>"Only what?"</p> + +<p>"Look here. Are you sure I'm the right person, not a possible, but the +person you've dreamed of, thought of?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sure you're a darling."</p> + +<p>Jenny had no use for subtleties, no anxiety to establish the derivation +of an affection which existed as a simple fact. She was not a girl to +whose lips endearing epithets came easily. She had many words ready to +describe everything except her deepest emotions. In love she became shy +of herself. Maurice<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a> had a stock of sweet vocatives which she would have +been too proud to imitate. "Darling" said what she wished to say, and it +was difficult even to say that.</p> + +<p>"Well, do you want anybody else?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"You won't get tired of me in another month?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly."</p> + +<p>"You said the other day you didn't trust anybody. Do you mean to say +seriously that you don't trust me?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I do. You're different."</p> + +<p>"Only suppose?" asked Maurice.</p> + +<p>"Well, I do."</p> + +<p>"You're not certain. Great heavens, child, can't you see what a terrible +thing that is to say?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see that it's so very terrible."</p> + +<p>"But it kills me dead. I feel all the time you think I'm masquerading. I +feel like a figure with a mask in a carnival. I meet you in another +mask. I say, 'Take it off,' and you won't. You shrivel up."</p> + +<p>"I don't know who you're getting angry with," said Jenny. "I haven't +said nothing."</p> + +<p>"Nothing!" cried Maurice. "It's nothing to tell somebody who adores +you—good heavens, it's raining now! Of course it <i>would</i> rain in the +middle of grappling with a situation. What a damnable climate this is!"</p> + +<p>"I'm glad you're going to quarrel with the weather a bit for a change," +said Jenny. "I think you're in a very nasty mood."</p> + +<p>"You don't understand me," said Maurice.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to." She spoke coldly.</p> + +<p>"Jenny, I'm sorry I said that. Darling girl, do forgive me."</p> + +<p>The wind had risen to half a gale. Heath Street was full of people +hurrying to shelter, and the entrance to the Tube station was crowded.</p> + +<p>"Don't be angry with me," Maurice whispered as the lift stopped. "I was +tired and foolish. Jenny, I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>"If any other man had spoken like you spoke," said Jenny,<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> "I'd have got +up and gone away and never seen him again, not ever, not however much I +might want to, I wouldn't let myself. I couldn't."</p> + +<p>Further discussion was killed by the noise of the train, and Jenny and +Maurice could only sit speechless, gazing at a long line of damp people, +most of them carrying rain-dabbled bunches of Michaelmas daisies. By the +time Piccadilly was reached Maurice was himself again, full of plans for +to-morrow's birthday party.</p> + +<p>"Seeing those people in the Tube with those bluish flowers, what d'ye +call them, made me think of a party I had for my birthday when I lived +with an aunt in the country," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>As it was not yet time for her to go into the theater, they turned aside +into the Monico and drank Quinquina Dubonnet while the final +arrangements were being made for the party.</p> + +<p>"Now, who exactly is coming?" asked Maurice.</p> + +<p>"Irene, if she's well enough, and Elsie Crauford, who isn't bad, but +who's got to be told off sometimes, and Madge Wilson, who you haven't +met, but she's a pretty girl, and Maud Chapman and perhaps Gladys West. +Oh, and can't I bring Lilli Vergoe? She's a bit old—you know—but she's +a nice girl and I used to know her when I was little."</p> + +<p>"Right," said Maurice. "That makes seven. Then there'll be me and +Castleton and Cunningham and Ronnie Walker and probably one or two odd +ones'll drop in. You'll turn up about four—eh? It's lucky your birthday +comes on a Sunday. Must you go now? All right, my sweet. Till to-morrow. +By Jove, we'll have a great time, won't we?"</p> + +<p>"Rather," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>Then just as she prepared to cross to the other side of Piccadilly, from +the island on which they were standing, Maurice called her back.</p> + +<p>"Jenny, darling, I am forgiven, aren't I?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>She looked back before she turned the corner into Regent<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a> Street and +waved to him. He sighed and went off very happy to meet Castleton for +dinner.</p> + +<p>It was characteristic of Jenny that she issued her invitations very +coldly. Most girls grew enthusiastic over such events, but Jenny did not +believe in "showing herself up" by demonstrations of delight.</p> + +<p>"Coming to tea with that friend of mine to-morrow?" she asked Madge +Wilson.</p> + +<p>"Of course I am, duck, I'd love it," said Madge, a round-faced, +fluffy-haired girl, pretty, but always apt to be mistaken for somebody +else.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing to rave over," said Jenny. "It's in a studio something +like your mother's shop. But there's a jolly fine piano and I daresay it +won't be bad."</p> + +<p>"I shall love it," said Madge.</p> + +<p>"Well, don't wave too many flags."</p> + +<p>To the other girls Jenny offered the entertainment casually, like a +chocolate-cream.</p> + +<p>Then she went to look for Lilli Vergoe in the dressing-room of the +second line of girls. Lilli seemed much surprised by the invitation.</p> + +<p>"You don't want me," she said.</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly. Why ever not?"</p> + +<p>"Look at me."</p> + +<p>"I can't see nothing the matter."</p> + +<p>"I ask you, do I look like a birthday party? Never mind, kiddie, I'll +come."</p> + +<p>"Don't make a favor of it old girl. Only I thought you'd like it."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you ever come up to Cranbourne Street and see me?" asked +Lilli.</p> + +<p>"You're always miserable. It gets on my nerves."</p> + +<p>"I wish you would come sometimes. You've never been since that day you +told me you'd joined the ballet."</p> + +<p>"Well, you was Melancholy Sarah that day, wasn't you, Lilli?"<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a></p> + +<p>The call-boy's summons closed the conversation, and Jenny ran off to her +own dressing-room for the last touch of powder.</p> + +<p>When she came out of the theater that night, it was blowing a full +October gale. There was nobody by the stage door in whom she felt the +slightest interest, so without loitering and with pleasant anticipation +of to-morrow's fun, she went straight home.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn was sitting by the kitchen fire when Jenny got back.</p> + +<p>"You're early," she said.</p> + +<p>"I know. There wasn't anything to stay out for. It's a terrible night, +pelting in rain. Shame after the glorious weather we've been having. +It's my birthday to-morrow, too."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Raeburn. "And I'd forgotten all about +it."</p> + +<p>"You always do," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"I ought to have remembered this time. It was weather just like we've +been having before you were born, and it come on to blow and rain just +like this the very night. Twenty years! Tut-tut!"</p> + +<p>"I don't feel a day older than fourteen," asserted Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, do you enjoy being alive?" asked Mrs. Raeburn.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what a question! Of course I do."</p> + +<p>"You don't ever feel it was a pity you ever come into the world?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I don't. Why should I? I think I'm a very lucky girl."</p> + +<p>"You don't ever tell me anything about yourself," said Mrs. Raeburn. "So +I don't know."</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to tell."</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd get married."</p> + +<p>"Whatever for?"</p> + +<p>"Aren't you a bit gay?"</p> + +<p>"Gay! Of course not."</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd settle down," urged the mother. "There's a lot of nice +young chaps as would be glad to marry you."<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a></p> + +<p>"But I don't want to be married. I sha'n't ever get married. Ugh! +Besides, what's going on as I am done? I'm enjoying myself."</p> + +<p>"Too much, I'm afraid," said her mother.</p> + +<p>"I don't want to get married," Jenny repeated. "I don't see that you did +much good to yourself by getting married. I think you threw yourself +away. Everybody must have liked you when you was a girl, and you go and +marry Dad. I think you were potty. And yet you want me to do the same. I +can't understand people."</p> + +<p>"Why couldn't you have been nicer to that young baker chap?"</p> + +<p>"Young baker chap? Yes, then I woke up. Him! Why, he used to hang his +shoulders up when he took off his coat. Besides, he's common."</p> + +<p>"You're getting very dainty."</p> + +<p>"Well, look at the men you want me to marry. Why—they're awful—like +navvies half of them. Oh, don't carry on, mother. I know what I want."</p> + +<p>"Jenny," said her mother sharply, "you haven't done anything wrong, have +you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not."</p> + +<p>"Don't do anything wrong, there's a good girl. I was very upset about +Edie, but nothing to what I should be about you."</p> + +<p>"This little girl's all right. What's the matter with going to bed?"</p> + +<p>"You go on up. I'll wait for your father."</p> + +<p>"You're in a funny mood to-night, Mrs. Raeburn," said her daughter. +"Good night."</p> + +<p>When she reached the bedroom Jenny woke up her sister.</p> + +<p>"Look here, young May, you haven't said nothing to mother, have you, +about My Friend the Prince?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not, you great stupid."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't you, that's all, because I'll go straight off and live with +one of the girls if you ever dared say a word about him. Mother wouldn't +understand there's nothing in it."<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a></p> + +<p>"You know your own business best," said May sleepily.</p> + +<p>"That's quite right," Jenny agreed, and began to undress herself to a +sentimental tune and the faint tinkle of hairpins falling on the +toilet-table.</p> + +<p>In bed, she thought affectionately of Maurice, of his gayety and +pleasant manner of speech, of his being a gentleman. He must be a +gentleman because he never said so. Other girls had love affairs with +gentlemen, but, with one or two exceptions, she believed they were all +swankers. At any rate Maurice and Colonel Walpole were different from +Irene's Danby (long idiot) and Madge Wilson's Berthold (dirty little +"five to two!") and Elsie Crauford's Willie (him!), all examples of +swank. Still in some ways it was a pity that Maurice was a gentleman. It +would never mean a wedding. Those photographs of his mother and sisters +had crushed that idea. Even if he asked her to marry him, she wouldn't. +Other girls might brag about their education, their schools in Paris, +their better days and dead gentlemen fathers, but they were all ballet +girls, not one of the Mrs. Bigmouths could get away from that fact. +Ballet girls! They got a laugh in comic songs. Ballet girls and +mothers-in-law! They might gabble in a corner to each other and simper +and giggle and pretend, but they were ballet-hoppers. And what of it? +Why not? Wasn't a ballet girl as good as anybody else? Surely as good as +a stuck-up chorus girl, who couldn't dance and couldn't act and couldn't +even sing sometimes. They might be fine women with massive figures or +they might have sweetly pretty Chevy Chases and not mind what they did +after supper, but they weren't any better than ballet girls.</p> + +<p>After all, Maurice did not look down on her. He did not patronize her. +He loved her. She loved him. With that thought flooding her imagination, +Jenny fell asleep and lay buried in her deep white pillow like a rosebud +in a snowdrift.<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>Chapter XVII: <i>Columbine Asleep</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">C</span>OLUMBINE lay sleeping on her heart. The long white hands were clasped +beneath those cheeks round which tumbled the golden curls. The coverlet, +thrown back in a restless dream, revealed her bent arms bare to the +elbow. The nightgown allowed a dim outline of her shoulder to appear +faintly, and where a pale blue bow had come untied, the dimple in her +throat was visible. The gay, deep eyes were closed beneath azure lids, +but the pencilled eyebrows still slanted mockingly, and round her red +lips was the curve of laughter. Awake, her complexion had the fragility +of rosy porcelain: in sleep the color fled, leaving it dead white as new +ivory.</p> + +<p>Columbine lay sleeping, a miniature stolen from the world's collection. +The night wore on. The wind shook the old house. Dawn broke +tempestuously.</p> + +<p>Now should Harlequin have hurried down the unreal street and, creeping +in magically, have kissed her a welcome to the sweet and careless +"twenties" that would contain the best of his Columbine's life.<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>Chapter XVIII: <i>Sweet and Twenty</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>HE studio, looking very cheerful for Jenny's birthday, had achieved a +Sabbath tidiness. It was, to be sure, a tidiness more apparent than +real, inasmuch as it consisted of pushing every disorderly object into a +corner and covering the accumulation with an old Spanish cope. Beneath +this semicircle of faded velvet lay onions and sealing-wax, palette, +brushes, bits of cardboard, a mixture of knives and forks, a tin of +pineapple still undefeated, many unanswered letters, a tweed overcoat, +and other things that gave more to utility than beauty.</p> + +<p>The fire blazed in the big fireplace and rippled in reflection about the +sloping ceiling. Chairs were set in a comfortable crescent round the +tea-table, and looked as invitingly empty as the Venetian mirror. The +teacups, where each one held the fire's image, showed an opal in the +smooth porcelain. Anticipation brooded upon the apartment, accentuated +by the bell of a neighboring church that rang in a quick monotone. In +the high deal ingle sat three young men smoking long clay pipes; and by +the window facing the river Maurice stood breathing upon the glass in +order to record his love's name in evanescent charactery upon the misted +surface.</p> + +<p>At last the monotonous bell ceased its jangling. Big Ben thundered the +hour of four, and the host, throwing up the window, leaned out to a +gray, foggy afternoon.</p> + +<p>"Here's Jenny," he cried, drawing back so quickly into the studio that +he banged his head against the frame of the window. The three young men +in the ingle rose and, knocking out<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a> their pipes, stood with their backs +to the fire in an attitude of easy expectation. Maurice by this time was +dashing out into the street to welcome Jenny, who was accompanied by +Irene.</p> + +<p>"Hurrah!" he said. "I was afraid you might get lost. How are you now?" +he went on, turning to Irene.</p> + +<p>"I'm quite all right now," replied the latter.</p> + +<p>"She's in the best of pink," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Pink enough to climb all these stairs?" asked Maurice, laughing.</p> + +<p>"I expect so," said Irene.</p> + +<p>"Any of the others come yet?" Jenny inquired on the way up.</p> + +<p>"Only Castleton and Cunningham and Ronnie Walker."</p> + +<p>"I mean any of the girls?"</p> + +<p>"No, you're the first—and fairest."</p> + +<p>Irene, for all her optimism, was beginning to feel exhausted.</p> + +<p>"I say, young Jenny, does your friend here—Maurice—I suppose I can +call him Maurice?"</p> + +<p>"Idiot! Of course."</p> + +<p>"Does Maurice live much higher?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you may well ask," said Jenny. "What! He's Sky-scraping Bill, if +you only knew."</p> + +<p>"We're nearly there," said Maurice apologetically. Outside the door of +the studio they paused.</p> + +<p>"What are their unnatural names?" asked Jenny, digging Maurice as she +spoke.</p> + +<p>"Cunningham, Castleton and Walker."</p> + +<p>"They sound like the American Comedy Trio that got the bird. You +remember, Ireen. Who cares? I shall call them Swan and Edgar for short."</p> + +<p>"That's only two."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, I can remember Walker."</p> + +<p>Maurice opened the door, and Cunningham, Castleton and Walker advanced +to make their bows.</p> + +<p>"This is Miss Pearl, and this is Miss Dale."<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a></p> + +<p>"Pleased to meet you," said Irene.</p> + +<p>Jenny said nothing, but shook hands silently, taking the measure of the +trio with shrewd and vivid glances.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, won't you?" said Cunningham.</p> + +<p>"Have a chair?" Walker suggested.</p> + +<p>Castleton looked at Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Isn't he tall?" she commented. "Doesn't he remind you of somebody?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Irene vaguely.</p> + +<p>"He does me. That Russian juggler—you know—who was struck on Queenie +Danvers. <i>You</i> know—the one we used to call Fuzzy Bill."</p> + +<p>"Oh, him?" said Irene.</p> + +<p>"Call me Fuzzy Bill, won't you?" put in Castleton. "It's a pleasantly +descriptive name. I shall answer to that." Indeed, he did, for from that +moment he became "Fuz" and never heeded a summons expressed differently.</p> + +<p>Just then there was a ring at the front door, and downstairs Maurice +rushed to admit the visitors. Presently he came up again.</p> + +<p>"Damned kids," he grumbled.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say they fetched you all that way for nothing?" +exclaimed Jenny.</p> + +<p>"It's good for him," Ronnie Walker asserted.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but what a dreadful thing," said Jenny. "Fancy tearing all that +way for nothing. I should go mad."</p> + +<p>Another ring punctuated Jenny's indignation. Everybody to be forewarned +ran to the window.</p> + +<p>"It is them this time. Gladys! Elsie!" she called. Then in critical +commentary: "What a dreadful hat Elsie's got on."</p> + +<p>"She bought it yesterday.</p> + +<p>"I don't think," said Jenny. "Or if she did, it must have lain in the +window and got forgotten since the year before last. Besides, what a +shocking color. It's like anchovy paste."</p> + +<p>Madge Wilson and Maudie Chapman now appeared from round a corner, and, +since Maurice was already on his<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a> way downstairs, Jenny ran after him to +prevent a double journey.</p> + +<p>"Wait, wait," she called after him. "Madge and Maudie are coming, too."</p> + +<p>He stopped and waved to her.</p> + +<p>"Jenny—quick, one kiss—over the banisters. Do."</p> + +<p>"Do, do, do, I want you to," she mocked in quotation. But all the same +she kissed him.</p> + +<p>"I absolutely adore you," he whispered. "Do you love me as much to-day +as you did yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I couldn't answer all that in my head. I should have to put it down +on paper."</p> + +<p>"No, don't tease. Do you? Do you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, baby," she assured him.</p> + +<p>"Angel!" he shouted, and rushed downstairs two steps at a time to admit +the bunch of guests on his doorstep.</p> + +<p>In a minute or two the studio was full of introductions, in the middle +of which Maudie Chapman, a jolly girl with a big nose and a loud voice, +explained the adventures of Madge and herself in arriving at 422 +Grosvenor Road.</p> + +<p>"Where we got to, my dear, well, that wants knowing. I was saying, when +we got off the tram at Vauxhall Bridge, 'Wherever is this man's house?' +and Madge she was giggling and then I asked the time, and it was only +half-past three, and I said, 'Whatever shall we do, we're most shocking +early.' So we got inside a big building near here—full of pictures and +a pond with gold-fish. I thought at first it was an aquarium, and then +we saw some statues and I thought it was a Catholic church."</p> + +<p>"Isn't she a lad?" said Jenny, admiring the spirited piece of narrative.</p> + +<p>"Well, we had a good look at the pictures, <i>which</i> we didn't think much +of, and I slipped on the floor and burnt my hand on a sort of grating, +and then we couldn't find the way out. We <i>couldn't</i> find the way out. +We got upstairs somewhere, and I called out, 'Management,' and a fellow +with his hair<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a> nailed down and spectacles, said: 'Are you looking for +the Watts?' and I said, 'No, we're looking for the What Ho's!' and he +said, 'You've made a mistake, miss; they're in the National Gallery,' +and Madge, you know what a shocking giggler she is, she burst out +laughing and I didn't know where to look. So I said, 'Can you tell me +where Grosvenor Road is?' and he looked very annoyed and walked off."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but it really was difficult to find the way out," Madge +corroborated.</p> + +<p>"And what did you think of the pictures?" asked Ronnie Walker, who was a +painter himself and still young enough to be interested in a question's +answer.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't ask <i>me</i>," said Maudie.</p> + +<p>"Nor me," said Madge.</p> + +<p>"They never looked at no pictures," said Jenny. "I bet you they was all +the time trying to get off with the keeper. I know Madge and Maudie."</p> + +<p>Castleton suddenly laughed very loudly.</p> + +<p>"What's Fuz laughing at?" asked Jenny.</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of Madge and Maudie getting off with the Curator of the +Tate Gallery. It struck me as funny. I apologize."</p> + +<p>Jenny looked at him suspiciously. Castleton, however, large, wide-faced +and honest, could not be malicious.</p> + +<p>"Well, they do. They did at the Zoo once. Only he got annoyed when they +asked him if he slept in a cage."</p> + +<p>At this point the bell interrupted reminiscence.</p> + +<p>"That must be Lilli Vergoe," said Jenny. "I'll go down and let her in. +She'll feel uncomfortable walking into a crowd by herself."</p> + +<p>"I'll come as well," Maurice volunteered.</p> + +<p>The two of them took almost longer to descend than to come up, so much +discussion was there of the immortality of affection, so much weighing +up of comparative emotion. When they reached the studio with Lilli, the +party had settled down into various groups of conversation.<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a></p> + +<p>"What about tea?" said the host. "Jenny shall pour out."</p> + +<p>"But what a terrible teapot," cried the latter when she had accepted the +task. "It's like my sister's watering-can. What's the matter with it?"</p> + +<p>"Age," said Castleton solemnly. "It's old Lowestoft. If you look inside, +you'll see 'A Present from Lowestoft.'"</p> + +<p>"Shut up," said Maurice, "and pass the Chelsea buns."</p> + +<p>"A bit of old Chelsea," murmured Castleton.</p> + +<p>"Shut up making rotten jokes," said Cunningham.</p> + +<p>"You must excuse him," said Maurice. "He isn't funny, but he's very +nice. Good Lord!" he went on. "I've never wished Jenny 'many happy +returns of the day.'"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's a pity you waited till after she's seen those buns," said +Castleton. "However!"</p> + +<p>"And the cake," said Maurice, diving into the cupboard.</p> + +<p>"Don't look so sad," Castleton whispered to the guest of honor. "It +isn't really a tombstone."</p> + +<p>"Isn't he awful?" said Jenny, laughing.</p> + +<p>"I say," cried Maurice. "Look here!"</p> + +<p>Across the white cake was written in pink icing: "Sacred to the Memory +of a Good Appetite."</p> + +<p>"Rotten!" said Cunningham. "Castleton, of course."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Maurice. "And now we haven't got any candles."</p> + +<p>"Let's light the gas instead," Castleton suggested.</p> + +<p>"You are mad," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>Tea went on with wild laughter, with clinking of saucers and spoons, +with desperate carving of the birthday cake, with solemn jokes from +Castleton, with lightning caricatures from Ronnie Walker.</p> + +<p>Once Jenny whispered to Maurice:</p> + +<p>"Why did you say I shouldn't like Fuz? I think he's nice. You know, +funny; but very nice."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad," Maurice whispered back. "I like you to like my friends."<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a></p> + +<p>After tea they all wandered round the studio in commentary of its +contents.</p> + +<p>"Maurice!" said Castleton, stopping before the wax model of Aphrodite. +"You don't feed your pets regularly enough. This lady's outrageously +thin."</p> + +<p>"Isn't he shocking?" said Maudie. "What would you do with him?"</p> + +<p>"He's a nut," said Madge.</p> + +<p>"Isn't he?" said Elsie and Gladys in chorus. These two very seldom +penetrated beyond the exclamatory interrogative.</p> + +<p>"A nut, you think?" said Castleton. "A Brasilero of the old breed with +waxed pistachios and cocoanut-matted locks?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, dry up," said Maurice. "I want the girls to look at this dancing +girl."</p> + +<p>"No one couldn't stand in that p<span title="[)o]">ŏ</span><span title="[=i]">sī</span>sh," said Jenny. "Could they, +Lilli?"</p> + +<p>"Not very easily," the latter agreed.</p> + +<p>"Really?" asked Maurice, somewhat piqued.</p> + +<p>"Of course they could," Maudie contradicted.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," said Irene, highly contemptuous.</p> + +<p>"I say they couldn't then," Jenny persisted.</p> + +<p>"She'd be a rotten dancer if she couldn't."</p> + +<p>"I don't think so," Jenny said frigidly.</p> + +<p>The girls unanimously attempted to get into the position conceived by +Maurice; but in the end they all had to agree that Jenny and Lilli were +right. The pose was impossible.</p> + +<p>"Is that your mother?" asked Madge, pointing to Mona Lisa.</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly, Madge Wilson," Jenny corrected. "It's a picture, and I +<i>don't</i> think much of her," she continued. "What a terrible mouth! Her +hands is nice, though—very nice. And what's all those rocks at the +back—low tide at Clacton, I should think."</p> + +<p>"But don't you like her marvelous smile?" asked Maurice.</p> + +<p>"I don't call that a smile."</p> + +<p>"I knew those flute-players annoyed her," said Castleton.<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a> "Down with +creative criticism. She's nothing but a lady with a bad temper."</p> + +<p>"Of course she is," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Would you smile, Jenny, if Ronnie here painted you with a gramophone +behind a curtain?"</p> + +<p>"No, I shouldn't."</p> + +<p>"Catch the fleeting petulance, and you become as famous as Leonardo, my +Ronnie."</p> + +<p>Philip IV was voted a little love with rather too big a head, and the +Prince of Orange was a dear. Botticelli's Venus was not alluded to. The +acquaintanceship was not considered ripe enough to justify any comment +in that direction; although later on Jenny, her eyes pectinated with +mirth and flashing wickedly, sang, pointing to the embarrassed goddess: +"She sells seashells on the seashore." Primavera concluded the tour of +inspection, and by some Primavera herself was thought to be not unlike +Jenny.</p> + +<p>"She's more like one of those angels with candles at Berlin," said +Ronnie Walker.</p> + +<p>"Anyway," said Maurice, with a note of satisfaction, "she's a +Botticelli."</p> + +<p>"Well, now you've all settled my position in life," said Jenny, "what's +Irene?"</p> + +<p>But somehow it was not so interesting to discover Irene's prototype, and +her similarity to the ideal of any single old master was left undecided.</p> + +<p>Now came the singing of coon songs with ridiculous words and haunting +refrains, while dusk descended upon London. Maudie was at the piano, +where a candle flickered on each side of the music and lit up the size +of her nose. When all the favorites of the moment had been sung, older +and now almost forgotten successes were rescued from the dust of +obscurity.</p> + +<p>"We <i>are</i> among the 'has beens,'" said Jenny. "Why, I remember that at +the Islington panto when I went to see you, Lilli, and that's donkey's +years ago. We've properly gone back to the year dot."<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a></p> + +<p>Gradually, however, the jolly dead tunes produced a sentimental effect +upon the party, commemorating as they did many bygone enjoyments. The +sense of fleeting time, evoked by the revival of discarded melodies, +began to temper their spirits. They sang the choruses more softly, as if +the undated tunes had become fragile with age and demanded a gentler +treatment. Perhaps in the gathering gloom each girl saw herself once +more in short frocks. Perhaps Lilli Vergoe distinguished the smiling +ghost of old ambition. Certainly Jenny thought of Mr. Vergoe and Madame +Aldavini and the Four Jumping Beans.</p> + +<p>Maudie Chapman suddenly jumped up:</p> + +<p>"Somebody else's turn."</p> + +<p>Maurice looked at Cunningham.</p> + +<p>"Won't you play some Chopin, old chap?"</p> + +<p>"All right," said Cunningham, a dark, very thin young man with a high, +narrow face, seating himself at the piano. The girls composed themselves +to listen idly. Maurice drew Jenny over to an arm-chair by the window. +The studio grew darker. The notes of the piano with the rapid execution +of the player seemed phosphorescent in the candle-light. The fire glowed +crimson and dull. The atmosphere was wreathed with the smoke of many +cigarettes. The emotions of the audience were swayed by dreams that, +sustained by music, floated about the heavy air in a pervading +melancholy, inexpressibly sensuous. It was such an hour as only music +can attempt to portray. Here was youth in meditation untrammeled by the +energy of action. Age, wrought upon by music, may know regret, but only +youth can see aspiration almost incarnate. Jenny, buried in the +arm-chair, with Maurice's caressing hand upon her cheeks, thought it was +all glorious, thought that Cunningham played gloriously, that the river +with a blurred light was glorious, that love was glorious. She had a +novel wish to bring May to such a party, and wondered if May would enjoy +the experience. Time as an abstraction did not mean much to Jenny; but +as the plangent harmonies wrung the heart of the<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a> very night with +unattainable desires, she felt again the vague fear of age that used to +distress her before she met her lover. She caught his hand, clasping it +tightly, twisting his fingers in a passionate clutch as if he were +fading from her life into the shadows all around. She began to feel, so +sharply the music rent her imagination, a pleasure in the idea of +instant death, not because she disliked the living world, but because +she feared something that might spoil the perfection of love: they were +too happy. She knew the primitive emotion of joy in absolute quiescence, +the relief of Daphne avoiding responsibility. Why could not she and +Maurice stop still in an ecstasy and live like the statues opposite +glimmering faintly? Then, with a sudden ardor, life overpowered the +enchantment of repose; and she, leaping to meet the impulse of action, +conscious only of darkness and melody, spurred, perhaps, by one loud and +solitary chord, pulled Maurice down to her arms and kissed him wildly, +almost despairingly. The music went on from ballad to waltz, from waltz +to polonaise. Sometimes matches were lit for cigarettes, matches that +were typical of all the life in that room, a little flame in the sound +of music.</p> + +<p>At last, on the delicate tinkle of a dying mazurka, Cunningham stopped +quite suddenly, and silence succeeded for a while. Outside in the street +was the sound of people walking with Sabbath footsteps. Out over the +river there was a hail from some distant loud-voiced waterman. The +church bell resumed its hurried monotone. Castleton got up and lit the +gas. The windows now looked gray and very dreary; it was pleasant to +veil them with crimson birds and vine-leaves. The fire was roused to a +roaring blaze; the girls began to arrange their hair; it was time to +think of supper. Such was Jenny's birthday—intolerably fugitive.<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>Chapter XIX: <i>The Gift of Opals</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">J</span>ENNY did not see Maurice after the party until the following night, +when he waited in the court to take her out.</p> + +<p>"Come quick," he said. "Quick. I've got something to show you."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't run," she commanded, moderating the pace by tugging at his +coat. "You're like a young race-horse."</p> + +<p>"First of all," asked Maurice eagerly, "do you like opals?"</p> + +<p>"They're all right."</p> + +<p>"Only all right?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I think they're a bit like soapsuds."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," said Maurice, "I've bought you opals for a birthday +present."</p> + +<p>"I do like them," she explained, "only they're unlucky."</p> + +<p>"Not if you're an October girl. They're very lucky then."</p> + +<p>They were walking through jostling crowds down Coventry Street towards +the Café de l'Afrique where Castleton would meet them to discuss a +project of gayety. Jenny's soft hand on his arm was not successful in +banishing the aggrieved notes from Maurice's petulant defense of opals.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you miserable old thing!" she said. "Don't look so cross."</p> + +<p>"It's a little disappointing to choose a present and then be told by the +person it's intended for that she dislikes it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't be silly. I never said I didn't like it. How could I? I +haven't seen it yet."</p> + +<p>"It's hardly worth while showing it to you. You won't<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a> like it. I'd +throw it in the gutter, if it wasn't for this beastly crowd of fools +that will bump into us all the time."</p> + +<p>"You are stupid. Give it to me. Please, Maurice."</p> + +<p>"No, I'll get you something else," he retorted, determined to be +injured. "I'm sorry I can't afford diamonds. I took a good deal of +trouble to find you something old and charming. I ransacked every +curiosity shop in London. That's why I couldn't meet you till to-night. +Damned lot of use it's been. I'd much better have bought you a turquoise +beetle with pink topaz eyes or a lizard in garnets or a dragon-fly that +gave you quite a turn, it was so like a real one, or a——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, shut up," said Jenny, withdrawing her arm.</p> + +<p>"It's so frightfully disheartening."</p> + +<p>"But what are you making yourself miserable over? I haven't said I don't +like your present. I haven't seen it."</p> + +<p>"No, and you never will. Rotten thing!"</p> + +<p>"You are unkind."</p> + +<p>"So are you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, good job."</p> + +<p>"You're absolutely heartless. I don't believe you care a bit about me. I +wish to God I'd never met you. I can't think about anything but you. I +can't work. What's the good of being in love? It's a fool's game. It's +unsettling. It's hopeless. I think I won't see you any more after +to-night. I can't stand it."</p> + +<p>Jenny had listened to his tirade without interruption; but now as they +were passing the Empire, she stopped suddenly, and said in a voice cold +and remote:</p> + +<p>"Good night. I'm off."</p> + +<p>"But we're going to meet Castleton."</p> + +<p>"You may be. I'm not."</p> + +<p>"What excuse shall I make to him?"</p> + +<p>"I don't care what you tell him. He's nothing to me. Nor you either."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean that?" he gasped.</p> + +<p>"Don't I?"<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a></p> + +<p>"But Jenny! Oh, I say, do come into the Afrique. We can't argue here. +People will begin to stare."</p> + +<p>"People! I thought you didn't mind about people?"</p> + +<p>"Look here, I'm sorry. I am really. Do stay."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't want to."</p> + +<p>Jenny's lips were set; her eyes dull with anger.</p> + +<p>"I know I'm a bad-tempered ass," Maurice admitted. "But do stay. I meant +it to be such a jolly evening. Only I was hurt about the opals. Do stay, +Jenny. I really am frightfully sorry. Won't you have the brooch? I'm +absolutely to blame. I deserve anything you say or do. Only won't you +stay? Just this once. Do."</p> + +<p>Jenny was not proof against such pleading. There was in Maurice's effect +upon her character something so indescribably disarming that, although +in this case she felt in the right, she, it seemed, must always give +way; and for her to give way, right or wrong, was out of order.</p> + +<p>"Soppy me again," was all she said.</p> + +<p>"No, darling you," Maurice whispered. "Such a darling, too. I hope +Castleton hasn't arrived yet. I want to tell you all over again how +frightfully sorry I am."</p> + +<p>But when they had walked past the Buddha-like manager who, massive and +enigmatical, broods over the entrance to the cafe, they could see +Castleton in the corner. It was a pity; for the constraint of a lovers' +quarrel, not absolutely adjusted, hung over them still in the presence +of a third person before whom they had to simulate ease. Maurice, +indeed, was so boisterously cordial that Jenny resented his dramatic +ability, and, being incapable of simulation herself, showed plainly all +was not perfectly smooth.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter with our Jenny to-night?" Castleton inquired.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," she answered moodily.</p> + +<p>"She feels rather seedy," Maurice explained.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't."</p> + +<p>"Do you like the opal brooch?" Castleton asked.<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a></p> + +<p>"I haven't seen it," Jenny replied.</p> + +<p>"I was waiting to give it to her in here," Maurice suggested.</p> + +<p>Jenny, who was examining herself in a pocket mirror, looked over at him +from narrowing eyes. He turned to her, defending himself against the +imputation of a lie.</p> + +<p>"Castleton helped me to choose it. Look," he said, "it's an old brooch."</p> + +<p>He produced from his pocket a worn leather case on the faded mauve +velvet of whose lining lay the brooch. It was an opal of some size set +unusually in silver filigree with seed pearls and brilliants.</p> + +<p>"It's rather pretty," Jenny commented without enthusiasm. In her heart +she loved the old-fashioned trinket, and wanted to show her delight to +Maurice; but the presence of Castleton was a barrier, and she was +strangely afraid of tears that seemed not far away. Maurice, who was by +now thoroughly miserable, offered to pin the brooch where it would look +most charming; but Jenny said she would put it in her bag, and he sat +back in the chair biting his lips and hating Castleton for not +immediately getting up and going home. The latter, realizing something +was the matter, tried to change the subject.</p> + +<p>"What about this Second Empire masquerade at Covent Garden?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think we shall be able to bring it off. Ronnie Walker would be +ridiculous as Balzac."</p> + +<p>"There are others."</p> + +<p>"Besides, I don't think I want to be Théophile Gautier."</p> + +<p>"Don't be, then," advised Castleton.</p> + +<p>"Anyway, it's a rotten idea," declared Maurice.</p> + +<p>"What extraordinary tacks your opinions do take!" retorted his friend. +"Only this afternoon you were full of the most glittering plans and had +found a prototype in 1850 for half your friends."</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking it over," said Maurice. "And I'm sure we can't work +it."<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a></p> + +<p>"Good-by, Gustave Flaubert," said Castleton. "I confess I regret +Flaubert; especially if I could have persuaded Mrs. Wadman to be George +Sand and smoke a cigar. However, perhaps it's just as well."</p> + +<p>"Who's Mrs. Wadman?" asked Jenny.</p> + +<p>"The aged female iniquity who 'does' for Maurice and me at Grosvenor +Road. I'm sure on second thoughts it would be unwise to let her acquire +the cigar habit. I might be rich next year, and I should hate to see her +dusting with a Corona stuck jauntily between toothless gums."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't be funny," said Maurice. "You've no idea how annoying you are +sometimes. Confound you, waiter," he cried, turning to vent his temper +in another direction. "I ordered Munich and you've brought Pilsener."</p> + +<p>"Very sorry, sir," apologized the waiter.</p> + +<p>"It was I who demanded the blond beer," Castleton explained. Then, as +the waiter retired, he said:</p> + +<p>"Why not get him to come as Balzac?"</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"The waiter."</p> + +<p>"Don't be funny any more," Maurice begged wearily.</p> + +<p>"Poor Fuz," said Jenny. "You're crushed."</p> + +<p>"I now know the meaning of Blake's worm that flies in the heart of the +storm."</p> + +<p>Even Castleton was ultimately affected by the general depression; and +Jenny at last broke the silence by saying she must go home.</p> + +<p>"I'll drive you back," said Maurice.</p> + +<p>"Hearse or hansom, sir?" Castleton asked.</p> + +<p>"Good night, Fuz," said Jenny on the pavement. "I'll bring Madge and +Maudie to see you some time soon."</p> + +<p>"Do," he answered. "They would invigorate even a sleepy pear. Good +night, dear Jenny, and pray send Maurice back in a pleasanter mood."</p> + +<p>For a few minutes the lovers drove along in silence.</p> + +<p>It was Maurice who spoke first:<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a></p> + +<p>"Jenny, I've been an idiot, and spoilt the evening. Do forgive me, +Jenny," he cried, burying his face in her shoulder. "My vile temper +wouldn't have lasted a moment if I could just have been kissed once; but +Castleton got on my nerves and the waiter would hover about all the time +and everybody enraged me. Forgive me, sweet thing, will you?"</p> + +<p>Jenny abandoning at once every tradition of obstinacy, caught him to +her.</p> + +<p>"You silly old thing."</p> + +<p>"I know I am, and you're a little darling."</p> + +<p>"And he wasn't ever going to see me again. What a liberty! Not ever."</p> + +<p>"I am an insufferable ass."</p> + +<p>"And he wished he'd never met me. Oh, Maurice, you do say unkind +things."</p> + +<p>"Were you nearly crying once?" he asked. "When I gave you the brooch?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps."</p> + +<p>"Jenny, precious one, are you nearly crying now?" he whispered.</p> + +<p>"No, of course not."</p> + +<p>Yet when he kissed her eyelids they were wet.</p> + +<p>"Shall I pin the brooch now?"</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>"Jenny, you don't know how I hate myself for being unkind to you. I hate +myself. I shall fret about this all night."</p> + +<p>"Not still a miserable old thing?" she asked, fingering the smooth face +of the opal that had caused such a waste of emotion.</p> + +<p>"Happy now. So happy." He sighed on her breast.</p> + +<p>"So am I."</p> + +<p>"You're more to me every moment."</p> + +<p>"Am I?"</p> + +<p>"You're so sweet and patient. Such a pearl, such a treasure."</p> + +<p>"You think so."</p> + +<p>"My little Queen of Hearts, you've a genius for love."<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a></p> + +<p>"What's that?"</p> + +<p>"I mean, you're just right. You never make a mistake. You're patient +with my wretched artistic temperament. Like a perfect work of art, +you're a perfect work of love."</p> + +<p>"Maurice, you <i>are</i> a darling," she sighed on the authentic note of +passionate youth in love.</p> + +<p>"When you whisper like that, it takes my breath away.... Jenny are you +ever going to be more to me even than you are now?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean, more?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, everything that a woman can be to a man. You see I'm an artist, +and an artist longs for the completion of a great work. My love for you +is the biggest thing in my life so far, and I long to complete it. Don't +you understand what I mean?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I do," she said very quietly.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to let me?"</p> + +<p>"Some day I suppose I shall."</p> + +<p>"Not at once?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Why not? Don't you trust me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Kiss me," she said. "I can't explain. Don't let's talk about it any +more."</p> + +<p>"I can't understand women," Maurice declared.</p> + +<p>"Ah!"</p> + +<p>She smiled; but in the smile there was more of sadness than mirth.</p> + +<p>"Why waste time?" he demanded passionately. "God knows we have little +enough time. Jenny, I warn you, I beg you not to waste time. You're +making a mistake. Like all girls, you're keeping one foot in a sort of +washy respectability."</p> + +<p>"Don't go on," Jenny said. "I've told you I will one day."</p> + +<p>"Why not come abroad with me if you're afraid of what your people will +say?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't. Not while my mother was alive."<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a></p> + +<p>"Well, don't do that; but still it's easy enough not—to waste time. +Your mother need never find out. I'm not a fool."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but I should feel a sneak."</p> + +<p>Maurice sighed at such scruples.</p> + +<p>"Besides," she added, "I don't want to—not yet. Can't we be happy like +we have been? I will one day."</p> + +<p>"You can't play with love," Maurice warned her.</p> + +<p>"I'm not. I'm more in earnest than what you are."</p> + +<p>"I don't think you are."</p> + +<p>"But I am. Supposing if you got tired of me?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but that's where men are funny. All of a sudden you might take a +sudden fancy to another girl. And then what about me? What should I do?"</p> + +<p>"It comes to this," he argued. "You don't trust me yet. You don't +believe in me. Good heavens, what can I do to show you I'm sincere?"</p> + +<p>"Can't you wait a little while?" she gently asked.</p> + +<p>"I must."</p> + +<p>"And you won't ask me again?"</p> + +<p>"I won't promise that."</p> + +<p>"Well, not for a long time?" Jenny pleaded.</p> + +<p>"I won't even promise that. You see I honestly think you're making a +mistake—a mistake for which you'll be very sorry one day. I wish you +understood my character better."</p> + +<p>"All men are the same." She sighed out the generalization.</p> + +<p>"That's absurd, my dear girl. I might as well say all women are the +same."</p> + +<p>"Well, they are. They're all soppy."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it rather soppy to go as far as you have with me, and not go +farther?" Maurice spoke tentatively.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>I've</i> properly joined the soppy brigade. I did think I was +different, but I'm not. I'm well in the first line."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think," Maurice suggested—"of course, I'm not saying you +haven't had plenty of experience—but don't you<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a> think there's a +difference between a gentleman and a man who isn't a gentleman?"</p> + +<p>"I think gentlemen are the biggest rotters of all."</p> + +<p>"I don't agree with you."</p> + +<p>"I do. Listen. You asked me just now to come away with you. You didn't +ask me to marry you."</p> + +<p>Maurice bubbled over with undelivered explanations.</p> + +<p>"Wait. I wouldn't marry you not if you asked me. I don't want you to ask +me. Only—"</p> + +<p>"Only what?" Maurice inquired gloomily.</p> + +<p>"Only if I did all you wanted, I'd be giving everything—more than you'd +give, even if you married a ballet girl."</p> + +<p>"Do let me explain," Maurice begged. "You absolutely misunderstand +me.... Oh, Lord, we're nearly at Hagworth Street.... I've only time to +say quite baldly what I mean. Look here, if you married me you wouldn't +like it. You wouldn't like meeting all my people and having to be +conventional and pay calls and adapt yourself to a life that you hadn't +been brought up to. I'd marry you like a shot. I don't believe in class +distinctions or any of that humbug. But you'd be happier not married. +Can't you see that? You'd be happier the other way.... There's your +turning. There's no time for more.... Only do think over what I've said +and don't misjudge me ... darling girl, good night."</p> + +<p>"Good night."</p> + +<p>"A long kiss."</p> + +<p>Reasons, policies, plans and all the paraphernalia of expediency +vanished when she from the steps of her home listened to the bells of +the hansom dying away in the distance, and when he, huddled in a corner +of the cab, was conscious but of the perfume of one who was lately +beside him.</p> + +<p>In her bedroom Jenny examined the brooch. Perhaps what showed more +clearly than anything the reality of her love was the affection she felt +for Maurice when he was away from her. She was never inclined to +criticise the faults so easily forgotten in the charms which she +remembered more vividly. Now,<a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a> with the brooch before her, as she sat +dangling her legs from the end of the bed, she recalled lovingly his +eagerness to display the unfortunate opal. She remembered the brightness +of his blue eyes and the vibrant attraction of his voice. He was a +darling, and she had been unkind about opals. He was always a darling to +her. He never jarred her nerves or probed roughly a tender mood.</p> + +<p>Jenny scarcely sifted so finely her attitude towards Maurice. She summed +him up to herself in a generalization. In her mind's eye he appeared in +contrast to everybody else. All that the rest of mankind lacked he +possessed. Whatever mild approval she had vouchsafed to any other man +his existence obliterated. She had never created for herself an ideal +whose tenuity would one day envelop a human being. Therefore, since +there had never floated through her day-dreams a nebula with perfect +profile, immense wealth and euphonious titles, Maurice had not to be +fitted in with a preconception. Nor would it be reasonable to identify +her with one of the world's Psyches in love with the abstraction of a +state of mind and destined to rue its incarnation. She had, it may be +granted, been inclined to fall in love in response to the demand of her +being; but it would be wrong to suppose her desire was gratified by the +first person who came along. On the contrary, Maurice had risen suddenly +to overthrow all that had gone before, and, as it seemed now, was likely +to overthrow anything that might come after.</p> + +<p>Sitting on the edge of the bed, she was hypnotized into a meditative +coma by the steady twin flames of the candle and its reflection in the +toilet-glass. She was invested with the accessories favorable to +crystal-gazing, and the brooch served to concentrate faculties that +would under ordinary circumstances have lacked an object. Contrast as an +absolute idea is often visualized during slightly abnormal mental +phases. Fever often fatigues the brain with a reiteration of images in +tremendous contrast, generally of mere size, when the mind is forced to +contemplate again and again with increasing resentment<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a> the horrible +disparity between a pin's point and a pyramid. In Jenny's mind Maurice +was contrasted with the rest of the universe. He was so overpowering and +tremendous that everything else became a mere speck. In fact, during +this semi-trance, Jenny lost all sense of proportion, and Maurice became +an obsession.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly the flame of the candle began to jig and flicker; the +spell was broken, and Jenny realized it would be advisable to undress.</p> + +<p>Action set her brain working normally, and the vast, absorbing +generalization faded. She began to think again in detail. How she longed +for to-morrow, when she would be much nicer to Maurice than she had ever +been before. She thought with a glow of the delightful time in front of +them. She pictured wet afternoons spent cosily in the studio. She +imagined herself, tired and bored, coming down the court from the stage +door, with Maurice suddenly appearing round the corner to drive +weariness out of London. It was glorious to think of someone who could +make the worst headache insignificant and turn the most unsatisfactory +morning to a perfect afternoon. Quickened by such thoughts, she got into +bed without waking May, so that in a flutter of soft kisses she could +sink deliciously to sleep, enclosed in the arms of her lover as an +orchard by sunlight.</p> + +<p>About two o'clock Jenny woke up to another psychic experience not +unusual with hypersensitive temperaments. The ardor of the farewell +embrace had consumed all the difficulties of the situation discussed on +the journey home. This ardor of merely sensuous love had lasted long +enough to carry her off to sleep drowsed by a passionate content. +Meanwhile her brain, working on what was originally the more vital +emotion, brought her back to consciousness in the middle of the +problem's statement. Lying there in the darkness, Jenny blushed hotly, +so instant was the mental attitude produced by Maurice's demand. In +previous encounters over this subject, her protagonists had all been so +manifestly contemptible, their expectations so evident<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a> from the +beginning, that their impudence had been extinguished by the fire of +merely social indignation. Jenny had defeated them as the representative +of her sex rather than herself. She had never comprehended the +application of their desires to herself as a feasible proposition. They +were a fact merely objectively unpleasant like monkeys in a cage, +physically dangerous, however, with certain opportunities Jenny's +worldly wisdom would never afford. In the case of Maurice the encounter +was actual, involving a clash of personalities: the course of her +behavior would have to be settled. No longer fortified by the hostility +of massed opinion, she would be compelled to entrust her decision to +personal resolution and individual judgment. For the first time she was +confronted with the great paradox that simultaneously restricts and +extends a woman's life. She remembered the effect of Edie's announcement +of surrender. It had sickened her with virginal wrath and impressed her +with a sense of man's malignity, and now here was she at the cross-roads +of experience with sign-posts unmistakable to dominate her mental +vision.</p> + +<p>It was not astonishing that Jenny should blush with the consciousness of +herself as a vital entity; for the situation was merely an elaboration +of the commonplace self-consciousness incident to so small an action as +entering alone a crowded room. Years ago, as a little girl, she had once +woken up with an idea she no longer existed, an idea dispelled by the +sight of her clothes lying as usual across the chair. Now she was +frightened by the overwhelming realization of herself: she existed too +actually. This analysis of her mental attitude shows that Jenny did not +possess the comfortable mind which owes volition to external forces. Her +brain registered sensations too finely; her sense of contact was too +fastidious. Acquiescence was never possible without the agony of +experience. Her ambition to dance was in childhood a force which was +killed by unimaginative treatment. Once killed, nothing could revive it. +So it would be with her love. In the first place, she was aware of the +importance of surrender to a man. She did not regard<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a> the step as an +incident of opportunity. All her impulses urged her to give way. Every +passionate fire and fever of love was burning her soul with reckless +intentions. On the other hand, she felt that if she yielded herself and +tasted the bitterness of disillusionment, she would be forevermore +liable to acquiesce. She would demand of her lover attributes which he +might not possess, and out of his failure by the completeness of her +personality she would create for herself a tragedy.</p> + +<p>Finally a third aspect presented itself in the finality of the proposed +surrender. She was now for the first time enjoying life with a fullness +of appreciation which formerly she had never imagined. She was happy in +a sense of joy. When Cunningham was playing in the studio, she had felt +how insecure such happiness was, how impatient of any design to imprison +it in the walls of time. Indeed, perhaps she had seen it escaping on the +echoes of a melody. Then suddenly over all this confusion of prudence, +debate, hesitation, breathless abandonment and scorching blushes, sleep +resumed its sway, subduing the unnatural activity of a normally indolent +mind.</p> + +<p>She lay there asleep in the darkness without a star to aid or cross her +destiny. She and her brooch of opals were swept out into the surge of +evolution; and she must be dependent on a fallible man to achieve her +place in the infallible scheme of the universe.<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>Chapter XX: <i>Fête Galante</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">F</span>OR some weeks after the incident of the opal, there was no development +of the problem of behavior. Maurice did not refer to the subject, and +Jenny was very glad to put it out of her mind. As if by tacit agreement, +they both took refuge from any solution in a gayety that might have been +assumed, so sedulously was it cultivated. Everything else was set aside +for a good time, and though there were interludes when in the seclusion +of an afternoon spent together they would recapture the spirit of that +golden and benign October, these lovers generally seemed anxious to +share with their friends the responsibilities of enjoyment.</p> + +<p>Thus it came about that a polity of pleasure was established whose +citizens were linked together by ties of laughter. This city state of +Bohemia, fortified against intrusion by experiences which the casual +visitor was not privileged to share, stood for Jenny as the solidest +influence upon her life so far. It gave her a background for Maurice, +which made him somehow more real. Without this little society, +acknowledging herself and him as supreme and accepting their love as the +pivot on which its own existence revolved, she would have seen her lover +as an actuality only when they were making love. Out of her sight, he +would have faded into the uncertain mists of another social grade, +floated incorporeal among photographs of Ellis and Walery in a legend of +wealth and dignity beyond her conception. To Fuz and Ronnie and +Cunningham she could talk of Maurice, thereby gleaning external +impressions which confirmed her own attitude. In this atmosphere her +love assumed a sanity<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a> and normality that might otherwise easily have +been lost.</p> + +<p>It must not be supposed that this little republic was content with the +territory of 422 Grosvenor Road. On the contrary, throughout October, +November and December, there were frequent sallies against convention +and raids upon Philistia. There were noisy tea-parties in hostile +strongholds like the Corner House, where ladies were not permitted to +smoke and customers were kindly requested to pay at the desk. Perhaps +their most successful foray was upon a fashionable tea-shop in St. +James's Street, where a florin was the minimum charge for tea to include +everything; on this occasion, prepared for by rigorous fasting, it +included a very great deal. There were attempts by Ronnie Walker to make +the girls enjoy picture-galleries, by Cunningham to convert them to +Symphony Concerts. And once they all went to see a play by Mr. Bernard +Shaw. But painting, music and the drama could not compete with skating +rinks, where elegant and accomplished instructors complained of their +rowdiness. But, as Jenny said, "What of it? <i>We're</i> enjoying ourselves, +any old way."</p> + +<p>The pinnacle of their gay ambition was a Covent Garden Ball. This +entertainment had continually to be postponed for lack of funds; for, +though a Covent Garden Ball has usually a sober, even a chilling effect +upon the company, it has dare-devil pretensions which Maurice and his +retinue would not exploit unless they were assured of a conspicuous +success.</p> + +<p>So the Second Empire Masquerade was planned and debated a long time +before it actually happened. That it happened at all was due to the +death of Maurice's great-aunt, who left him one hundred pounds. This +legacy being unexpected, was obviously bound to be spent at once. As the +legatee pointed out to Jenny one dripping afternoon in early January, as +they sat together in the studio:</p> + +<p>"It's practically like finding money in the road. I know that one day my +stockbroker uncle will leave me two thousand pounds. He's told me so +often to raise my spirits on wet week-ends at his house. I've planned +what to do with that. Every<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a> farthing is booked. But this hundred I +never thought of. I was beginning to despair of ever raising the cash +for Covent Garden, and here it is all of a sudden."</p> + +<p>"You're not going to spend a hundred pounds in one evening?" Jenny +exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Not all of it, because you've got to buy yourself some furs and three +hats and those silk stockings with peach-colored clocks—oh, yes, and +I've got to buy you that necklace of fire opals which we saw in Wardour +Street and also that marquise ring, and I've got to buy myself a safety +razor and a box of pastels, and I simply must get Thackeray's <i>Lectures +on the English Humorists</i> for Fuz."</p> + +<p>"There won't be much left of your hundred pounds," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Well, let's draw up an estimate. I'll write down the possibles and then +we'll delete nearly all of them."</p> + +<p>Maurice got up from his chair and wandered round the room in search of +note-paper. Not being able to find any, he pinned a large sheet of +drawing-paper to a board and produced a pencil.</p> + +<p>"Look at him," laughed Jenny. "Look at the Great Millionaire. Just +because he's come into money, he can't write on anything smaller than a +blanket."</p> + +<p>"It's not ostentation," Maurice declared. "It's laziness—a privilege of +the very poor, as you ought to know by this time. I can't find any +note-paper."</p> + +<p>"I should think you couldn't. I wonder you can find yourself in this +room."</p> + +<p>"Come along," urged the owner of it. "We must begin. Maurice and Jenny. +Then Fuz and Maudie, Ronnie and Irene, Cunningham and Madge. Any more +you can think of?"</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say you've taken that unnatural piece of paper just +to write those few names which we could have thought of in our heads. +What would you do with him?"</p> + +<p>"We want another eight," Maurice declared.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, eight's plenty."<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a></p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is," he agreed. "Well, now, Maurice will be Théophile +Gautier—no, he won't—the red waistcoat knocks him out—Edmond de +Goncourt? No, he had a mustache. Chopin? Long hair. Look here, I don't +think we'll be anybody in particular. We'll just be ladies and gentlemen +of the period. You know you girls have got to wear crinolines and fichus +and corkscrew curls."</p> + +<p>"Like we used to wear in Bohême in the Opera?"</p> + +<p>"That's it. You must see about your dresses at once. Good ones will cost +about ten pounds to hire, and that ought to include some decent paste."</p> + +<p>"We sha'n't have to pay for <i>our</i> tickets."</p> + +<p>"Good. Four guineas saved. Dresses? Say twenty pounds for the eight of +us. Supper with fizz another ten quid. Four salmon-colored taxis with +tips, ten pounds."</p> + +<p>"How much?" Jenny exclaimed. "Ten pounds just to take us to Covent +Garden Ball and back?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, but I've a plan. These salmon-colored taxis are going to be the +<i>chef d'œuvre</i> as well as the <i>hors d'œuvre</i> of the entertainment. +Hush, it's a secret. Let me see, our tickets—four guineas—forty-four +pounds four shillings. Well, say fifty quid to include all tips and +breakfast."</p> + +<p>"Well, I think it's too much," Jenny declared.</p> + +<p>"Not too much for an evening that shall be famous over all evenings—an +evening that you, my Jenny, will remember when you're an ancient old +woman—an evening that we'll talk over for the rest of our lives."</p> + +<p>While Maurice was speaking, the shadow of a gigantic doubt passed over +Jenny's mind. She endured one of those moments when only the profound +uselessness of everything has any power to impress the reason. She +suffered a complete loss of faith and hope. The moment was one of those +black abysses before which the mind is aghast at effort and conceives +annihilation. In the Middle Ages such an experience would have been +ascribed to the direct and personal influence of Satan.<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a></p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" Maurice asked. "You look as if you didn't believe +me."</p> + +<p>But, while the question was still on his lips, the shadow passed, and +Jenny laughed.</p> + +<p>The famous evening was finally assigned to the twenty-seventh of +January. The four girls took their places in the ballet as usual and, +meeting from time to time in evolutions, would murmur as they danced by, +"To-night, what, what?" or "Don't you wish it was eleven?" They would +look at each other, too, from opposite sides of the stage, smiling in +the sympathy of anticipated pleasure. When the curtains fell they +hurried to their dressing-rooms to exchange tights and spangles for +mid-Victorian frocks, whose dainty lace made all the other girls very +envious indeed. Some were so envious as to suggest to Jenny that another +color would have suited her better than pink or that her hair would be +more becoming <i>en chignon</i> than curled. But Jenny was not deceived by +such professions of amiable advice.</p> + +<p>"Yes, some of you would like to see me with my hair done different. Some +of you wouldn't be half pleased if I went out looking a sight. Oh, no, +it's only a rumor. Thanks, I'm not taking any. I know what suits me +better than <i>any</i>one, <i>which</i> pink does."</p> + +<p>"Don't take any notice of them," Maudie whispered to her friend.</p> + +<p>"Take notice of them. What! Why, I should be all the time looking. My +eyes would get as big as moons. They've been opened wide enough since I +came to the Orient, as it is."</p> + +<p>At last, having survived every criticism, the four girls were ready. The +hall-porter's boy carried their luggage out to the salmon-colored taxis, +whose drivers looked embarrassed by the salmon-colored carnations which +Maurice insisted they should wear. The latter, with Fuz, Ronnie and +Cunningham, stood in the entrance of the court, wrapped in full cloaks +and wearing tall hats of a bygone fashion. They were leaning gracefully +on their tasseled canes as the girls came along the court towards<a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a> them. +It was romantic to think that other girls in similar frocks had trod the +same path and met men dressed like them fifty years ago. This sweet +fancy was very vividly brought home to them when an old cleaner, grimed +with half a century of Orient dust, passed by the laughing, chattering +group, and, as she shuffled off towards Seven Dials, looked back over +her shoulder with an expression of fear.</p> + +<p>"Marie thinks we're ghosts," laughed Madge.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it dreadful to think she was once in the ballet?" said Jenny. +"Poor old crow, I do think it's dreadful."</p> + +<p>The eight of them shivered at the thought.</p> + +<p>"Really?" said Maurice. "How horrible."</p> + +<p>The episode was a gaunt intrusion upon gayety; but it was soon forgotten +in the noise and sheen of Piccadilly.</p> + +<p>The taxis with much hooting hummed through the dazzling thoroughfares +into the gloom and comparative stillness of Long Acre. As usual they +tried to cut through Floral Street, only to be turned back by a +policeman; but without much delay they swept at last under the great +portico of the Opera House. Here many girls, blown into Covent Garden by +the raw January winds, gave the effect of thistledown, so filmy were +their dresses; and the rigid young men, stopping behind to pay their +fares, looked stiff and awkward as groups of Pre-Raphaelite courtiers. +Commissionaires decorated the steps without utility. In the vestibule +merry people were greeting each other and nodding as they passed up and +down the wide staircase. Here and there an isolated individual, +buttoning and unbuttoning his gloves with unconscionable industry, gazed +anxiously at every swing of the door. Presently Jenny and Madge and +Maudie and Irene were ready and, as on the arms of their escort they +took the floor of the ballroom, might have stepped from a notebook of +Gavarni.</p> + +<p>Covent Garden balls are distinguished by the atmosphere of a spectacle +which pervades them. The floor itself has the character of an arena +encircled by tiers of red boxes, many of which display marionettes, an +unobtrusive audience, given over<a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a> to fans and the tinkle of distant +laughter; while the curtained glooms of others are haunted by invisible +eyes. Here are no chaperons struggling with palms and hair-nets through +a wearisome evening, creaking in wicker chairs and discussing draughts +with neighbors. The old men, searching for bridge-players, are absent. +There is neither host nor hostess; and not one anæmic young débutante is +distressed by the bleakness of her unembarrassed programme.</p> + +<p>Maurice announced that he had taken a box for the evening, so that his +guests would be able, when tired of dancing, to cheat fatigue. Then he +caught Jenny round the waist, and, regardless of their companions, the +two of them were lost in the tide of dancers. They were only vaguely +conscious of the swirl of petticoats and lisp of feet around their +course. In the irresistible sweep of melodious violins all that really +existed for Maurice and Jenny was nearness to each other, and eyes +ablaze with rapture; and for him there was the silken coolness of her +curls, for her the fever of his hand upon her waist.</p> + +<p>During the interval between the sixth and seventh waltzes, Maurice, +breathless at the memory of their perfect accord, said:</p> + +<p>"I wonder if Paolo and Francesca enjoy swooning together on the winds of +hell. Great Scott! as if one wouldn't prefer the seventh circle to +bathing in pools of light with a blessed damosel. I'm surprised at +Rosetti."</p> + +<p>"Who's she?"</p> + +<p>"The blessed damosel?"</p> + +<p>"No—Rose Etty."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jenny, don't make me laugh."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know what you're talking about."</p> + +<p>"I was speculating. Hark! They're playing the Eton Boating Song. Come +along. We mustn't miss a bar of it."</p> + +<p>In the scent of frangipani and jicky and phulnana the familiar tune +became queerly exotic. The melody, charged with regret for summer elms +and the sounds of playing-fields, full of the vanished laughter of +boyhood, held now the heart<a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a> of romantic passion. It spoke of regret for +the present rather than the past and, as it reveled in the lapse of +moments, gave expression to the dazzling swiftness of such a night in a +complaint for flying glances, sighs and happy words lost in their very +utterance.</p> + +<p>"Heart of hearts," whispered Maurice in the swirl of the dance.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Maurice, I do love you," she sighed.</p> + +<p>Now the moments fled faster as the beat quickened for the climax of the +dance. Maurice held Jenny closer than before, sweeping her on through a +mist of blurred lights in which her eyes stood out clear as jewels from +the pallor of her face. Round the room they went, round and round, +faster and faster. Jenny was now dead white. Her lips were parted +slightly, her fingers strained at Maurice's sleeve. He, with flushed +cheeks, wore elation all about him. No dream could have held the +multitude of imaginations that thronged their minds; and when it seemed +that life must end in the sharpness of an ecstasy that could never be +recorded in mortality, the music stopped. There was a sound of many +footsteps leaving the ballroom. Jenny leaned on Maurice's arm.</p> + +<p>"You're tired," he said. "Jolly good dance that?"</p> + +<p>"Wasn't it glorious? Oh, Maurice, it was lovely."</p> + +<p>"Come and sit in the box when you've had some champagne, and I'll dance +with the girls while you're resting. Shall I?"</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>Presently Maurice was tearing round the room with Maudie, both of them +laughing very loudly, while Jenny sat back in a faded arm-chair thinking +of the old Covent Garden days and nights, and wondering how she could +ever have fancied she was happy before she met Maurice. In a few minutes +Fuz came into the box to ask if she wanted to dance.</p> + +<p>"No, I'm tired," she told him.</p> + +<p>"It's just as well, perhaps," he said gravely. "For I am what you would +describe as a very unnatural dancer."</p> + +<p><a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a>"Oh, Fuz," she laughed; "are you? Oh, you must dance once round the +room with me before it's over. Oh, you must. It tickles my fancy, the +idea of Fuz dancing."</p> + +<p>"At last I've earned a genuine laugh."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Fuz, doesn't anyone else ever laugh at you, only me?"</p> + +<p>"Very rarely."</p> + +<p>"Shame!"</p> + +<p>"So it is."</p> + +<p>"Aren't Maurice and Maudie making a terrible noise?"</p> + +<p>"They're certainly laughing loud enough," Fuz agreed. "But Maurice is +always in spirits. I don't think he knows the meaning of depression."</p> + +<p>"Doesn't he then!" Jenny exclaimed. "I think he gets <i>very</i> depressed +sometimes!"</p> + +<p>"Not deeply. It's never more than a passing mood."</p> + +<p>"That's quite right. It is a mood. But he works himself up into a state +over his moods."</p> + +<p>"Tell me, dear Jane," said Castleton suddenly. "No, on second thoughts, +I won't ask."</p> + +<p>"Oh, do tell me."</p> + +<p>"No, it's not my business. Besides, you'd be annoyed, and I've no wish +to make our Jenny angry."</p> + +<p>"I won't be angry. Do tell me, Fuz, what you was going to ask."</p> + +<p>"Well, I will," he said, after a pause. "Jenny, are you very fond of +Maurice?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I love him."</p> + +<p>"Really love him?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"But you'd soon get over it if——"</p> + +<p>"If what?"</p> + +<p>"If Maurice was—was a disappointment—for instance, if he married +somebody else quite suddenly? Don't look so frightened; he's not going +to, as far as I know; or likely to, but if ... would it upset your +life?"</p> + +<p>Jenny burst into tears.</p> + +<p>"My dearest Jane," Castleton cried, "I was only chaffing.<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a> Please don't +cry. Jenny, Jenny, I'm only an inquisitive, speculative jackanapes. +Maurice isn't going to do anything of the kind. Really. Besides, I +thought—oh, Jane—I'm terribly ashamed of myself."</p> + +<p>"Maurice said I shouldn't like you," Jenny sobbed. "And I don't. I hate +you. Don't stay with me. Go out of the box. I'm going home. Where's +Maurice? I want Maurice to come to me."</p> + +<p>"He's dancing," said Castleton helplessly. "Jane, I'm an absolute beast. +Jane, will you marry me and show your forgiving nature?"</p> + +<p>"Don't go on teasing me," sobbed Jenny, louder than ever. "You're +hateful. I hate you."</p> + +<p>"No, but I mean it. Will you, Jenny? Really, I'm not joking. I'd marry +you to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Jenny's tears gradually turned to laughter, and at last she had to say:</p> + +<p>"Oh, Fuz, you're hateful, but you are funny."</p> + +<p>"It's a most extraordinary thing," he replied, "that the only person I +don't want to laugh at me must do it. Jane!" He held out his hand. +"Jane, are we pals again?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose we've got to be," Jenny pouted.</p> + +<p>"Good pals and jolly companions?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, whoever was it said that to me once?" cried Jenny. "Years and years +ago. Oh, whoever was it?"</p> + +<p>"Years and years?" echoed Castleton, quizzing. "Who are you, ancient +woman?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Don't</i> be silly. It was. Someone said it when I was a little girl. Oh, +Fuz, I'd go raving mad to remember who it was."</p> + +<p>"Well, anyway, I've said it now. And is it a bargain?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"You and I being pals?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"Which means that when I'm in trouble, I go to Jane for<a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a> advice, and +when Jane's in trouble, she comes to Fuz. Shake hands on that."</p> + +<p>Jenny, feeling very shy of him for the first time during their +acquaintanceship, let him take her hand.</p> + +<p>"And the tears are a secret?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Not if Maurice asks me. I'd have to tell him."</p> + +<p>"Would you? All right, if he asks, tell him."</p> + +<p>Maurice, however, did not ask, being full of arrangements for supper and +in a quandary of taste between Pol Roger and Perrier Jouet.</p> + +<p>"What about Perrier without Jouet?" Castleton suggested. "It would save +money."</p> + +<p>Supper (and in the end Maurice chose Pommery) was very jolly; but +nothing for the lovers during the rest of the evening reached the height +of those first waltzes together. After supper Fuz and Jenny danced a +cake-walk, and Ronnie tried to hum a favorite tune to Cunningham in +order that he could explain to the conductor what Ronnie wanted. Nothing +came of it, however, as the latter never succeeded in disentangling it +from two other tunes. So, with laughter and dancing, they kept the night +merry to the last echo of music, and when at about half-past six they +all stood in the vestibule waiting for the salmon-colored taxis to drive +them home, all agreed that Maurice had done well.</p> + +<p>"And I've not done yet," he said. "I suppose you all think you're going +home to tumble sleepily into bed. Oh, no, we're going to have breakfast +first at the old Sloop, Greenwich."</p> + +<p>"Greenwich?" they repeated in chorus.</p> + +<p>"I've ordered a thumping breakfast. The drive will do us good. We can +see the dawn break over the river."</p> + +<p>"And put our watches right," added Castleton.</p> + +<p>"Then you girls can be driven home (your bags are all inside the taxis) +and sleep all the rest of the morning and afternoon."</p> + +<p>Maurice was so eager to carry this addendum that none of them had the +heart to vote firmly for bed.</p> + +<p>"I don't mind where we go," said Ronnie. "But why<a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a> Greenwich in +particular? We can see the dawn break over the river just as well at +Westminster."</p> + +<p>"Greenwich is in the manner," Maurice answered.</p> + +<p>"What manner?"</p> + +<p>"The crinoline manner. The Sloop is absolutely typically mid-Victorian +and already twice as romantic as your crumbling Gothic or overworked +Georgian."</p> + +<p>So the taxis hummed off to Greenwich through the murk of a wet and windy +January morning. Wagons were being unloaded in Covent Garden as they +started; and along the Strand workers were already hurrying through the +rain. It was still too dark to see the river as they spun over Waterloo +Bridge, but the air blew in through the open windows very freshly. In +the New Kent Road factory girls, shuffling to work, turned to shout +after the four taxis; and Madge Wilson leaned out to wave to her +mother's shop as they passed.</p> + +<p>All the way Jenny slept in Maurice's arms, and he from time to time +would bend over and kiss very lightly the sculptured mouth. In Deptford +High Street the gray dawn was beginning to define the houses, and in a +rift of the heavy clouds stars were paling.</p> + +<p>Jenny woke up with a start.</p> + +<p>"Where am I? Where am I?" Then, aware of Maurice, she nestled closer.</p> + +<p>"You've been asleep, dearest. We're almost at Greenwich. It's +practically morning now."</p> + +<p>"I'm cold."</p> + +<p>"Are you, my sweet? I thought this fur coat would keep you warm. It's +yours, you know. I bought it for you to-day—yesterday, I mean."</p> + +<p>"It's lovely and warm," she said, "but I'm so sleepy."</p> + +<p>"You are so perfect when you're lying asleep," he said; "I must make a +statue of you. I shall call it The Tired Dancer. I'll begin as soon as +possible and finish it this spring."</p> + +<p>"I wish spring would come quick," she murmured. "I'm sick of winter."<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a></p> + +<p>"So am I," he agreed. "And we shall have the most exquisite adventures +in the spring. We'll go out often into the country. Long country walks +will do you good."</p> + +<p>"Rather."</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" cried Maurice. "Here we are at the Sloop. I hope breakfast is +ready."</p> + +<p>There was, however, no sign of life in the hotel by the water's side. It +stared at them without any welcome.</p> + +<p>"What an extraordinary thing," said Maurice. "I'll ring the bell. Great +Scott! I never posted the letter telling them about breakfast."</p> + +<p>"What would you do with him?" said Madge.</p> + +<p>"Never mind. It's absurd to keep us waiting like this. We can surely get +breakfast." He pealed the bell loudly as he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Can't you get in, sir?" asked one of the drivers.</p> + +<p>"And it's coming on to rain," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>Maurice pealed the bell louder than ever; and finally a sad-eyed porter +in shirt-sleeves opened the door and surveyed the party over a broom.</p> + +<p>"We want breakfast," said Maurice; "breakfast for eight."</p> + +<p>"Breakfast always is at eight," the man informed them.</p> + +<p>"Breakfast for eight people and as quickly as possible."</p> + +<p>The man looked doubtful.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens!" Maurice cried irritably. "Surely in any decent hotel you +can get breakfast for eight."</p> + +<p>"What are you?" the man asked. "Theatricals?"</p> + +<p>"No, no, no, we've been to a fancy dress ball—and we want breakfast."</p> + +<p>In the end they were admitted, and, a chamber-maid having been +discovered on a remote landing, the girls were shown into a bedroom.</p> + +<p>"I thought this hotel professed to cater for excursions of pleasure," +said Maurice frigidly.</p> + +<p>"We don't get many of 'em here in winter."<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a></p> + +<p>"I'm not surprised. Good Lord, isn't the fire lighted in the +coffee-room?"</p> + +<p>"We don't use the coffee-room much—except for political meetings. +Greenwich has gone out from what it used to be."</p> + +<p>The girls came in, pale and tired, and the party foregathered round the +coffee-room grate, from which a wisp of smoke ascended in steady +promise.</p> + +<p>"Well, Maurice," said Castleton, "I think very little of this ravished +conservatory into which your historic sense has led us. How do you like +Greenwich, girls?"</p> + +<p>The girls all sighed.</p> + +<p>"They don't."</p> + +<p>"Hullo, here's a waiter," said Cunningham, turning round. "Good morning, +waiter."</p> + +<p>"Good morning, sir."</p> + +<p>"Is breakfast going to be long?"</p> + +<p>"It's on order sir. Eggs and bacon, I think you said."</p> + +<p>"I should think somebody probably did. In fact, I'd almost bet on it," +said Castleton. "What's the time, waiter?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, sir, but I'll find out for you."</p> + +<p>"I always thought Greenwich was famous for its time."</p> + +<p>"Whitebait, sir, more than anything."</p> + +<p>Castleton sighed; and Maurice, who had gone downstairs to reassure the +household, came back trying to look as if waiting for breakfast on a +January morning after dancing all night was one of the jolliest +experiences attainable by humanity.</p> + +<p>"Maurice," said Ronnie Walker, "we think your night was splendid. But we +think your morning is rotten."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Maurice, why didn't you let us go to bed?" Jenny grumbled.</p> + +<p>"You can't really blame the hotel people," Maurice began.</p> + +<p>"We don't," interrupted Cunningham severely. "We blame you."</p> + +<p>"I also blame myself," said Ronnie, "for giving way to your mad +schemes."</p> + +<p>"You're right," Jenny put in. "I think we was all mad.<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a> What must they +have thought of us—a party of loonies, I should say."</p> + +<p>"I meant it to be very charming," Maurice urged in apology.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, it'll all come out in the wash, but I wish they'd bring in +this unnatural breakfast."</p> + +<p>The company sighed in unison, and, as if encouraged by such an utterance +of breath, the wisp of smoke broke into a thin blue flame.</p> + +<p>"Come, that's better," said Maurice, unduly encouraged. "The fire's +burning up quite cheerfully."</p> + +<p>This and the entrance of breakfast revived everybody, and when a genuine +blaze crackled in the grate they thought Greenwich was not so bad after +all; though Maurice could not persuade anybody to stand by the bleak +windows flecked with raindrops and watch the big ships going out on the +ebb.</p> + +<p>"But what shall we do?" Jenny demanded. "I can't go home after the milk. +I shall get into a most shocking row."</p> + +<p>"You can explain matters," Cunningham suggested.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I should say. Who'd believe we should be so mad as to rush off to +Greenwich on a pouring morning for breakfast? No, I must say I slept +with Ireen."</p> + +<p>"Well, why don't you come back and go to bed at my place?" Irene +suggested. "You can go home tea-time."</p> + +<p>"All right. I will."</p> + +<p>Maudie and Madge decided to copy the example of the other two, by going +back together to Mrs. Wilson's house near the Elephant and Castle.</p> + +<p>"Only we ought to change our clothes first," Jenny said. "What of it +though? We've got cloaks."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't mind changing," said Castleton. "These claret-colored +overalls of mine will inevitably attract the public vision."</p> + +<p>"Rot!" said Maurice. "We can all drive down to the Elephant—although, +by the way, we ought to stop at the Marquis of Granby and look at the +Museum."<a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a></p> + +<p>"To the deuce with all museums," cried Ronnie. "I want my bed."</p> + +<p>"You are an unsporting lot," Maurice protested. "Then we'll stop at the +'Elephant,' and the girls can go home in two taxis and we'll go back in +the others."</p> + +<p>So it was arranged; and, having paid the bill and politely assented to +the waiter's suggestion that they should come over in the summer-time to +a whitebait dinner, they left behind them the Sloop Hotel, Greenwich.</p> + +<p>On the way back to London, Maurice attempted to point out to Jenny the +foolishness of her present style of living.</p> + +<p>"All this fuss about whether you go home before or after the milk. I +can't understand why you let yourself be a slave to a family. I really +can't."</p> + +<p>"But I'm not," said Jenny indignantly. "Only that doesn't say I'm going +to live with you, if that's what you mean."</p> + +<p>Somehow the wet and dreary morning gave a certain crudity of outline to +the situation, destroying romantic enchantments and accentuating the +plain and ugly facts.</p> + +<p>"You'd be ever so much happier if you did."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, who cares?"</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't say that."</p> + +<p>"Well, what an unnatural time to talk about where I'm going to live and +what I'm going to do."</p> + +<p>"It's extraordinary," said Maurice, "how much you're influenced by the +unimportant little things of life. I'm as much in love with you now as I +was last night when we were waltzing. You're not."</p> + +<p>"I don't love anything now except bed."</p> + +<p>"Yet I'm just as tired as you are."</p> + +<p>"Who cares?"</p> + +<p>"Damn it. Don't go on saying that. I can't think where you got hold of +that infernal expression."</p> + +<p>"You are in a nasty mood," said Jenny sullenly.</p> + +<p>"So are you."<a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a></p> + +<p>"Well, why did you drag me out all this way in the early morning?"</p> + +<p>"I wanted you to enjoy yourself. I wanted to round off a glorious +evening."</p> + +<p>"I think a jolly good sleep rounds off a glorious evening, or anything +else, best of all."</p> + +<p>"I think you sleep too much," argued Maurice, who was so tired himself +that he felt bound to contest futilely every point of the discussion.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't. That's where you and me don't agree."</p> + +<p>"You're always sleeping."</p> + +<p>"Well, if I like it, it needn't trouble you."</p> + +<p>"Nothing troubles me," Maurice answered with much austerity. "Only I +wish to goodness you'd behave reasonably. Look here, you're an artistic +person. You earn your living by dancing. You don't want to take up with +a lot of old women's notions of morality. If you reject an experience, +you'll suffer for it. Chance only offers you Life—I mean Life only +offers you Chance——" But it did not matter much what he meant, for by +now Jenny was fast asleep.<a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>Chapter XXI: <i>Epilogue</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">J</span>ENNY went to bed at Irene's house in Camden Town and slept soundly till +four o'clock in the afternoon. Then she got up, dressed herself, and +prepared to face the storms of 17 Hagworth Street.</p> + +<p>When she walked into the kitchen, the family was assembled in conclave +round the tea-table. The addition of her brother to the usual party of +three made her exclaim in surprise from the doorway:</p> + +<p>"Oo—er, there's Alfie."</p> + +<p>"So you've come back?" said Mrs. Raeburn.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I went to Covent Garden Ball."</p> + +<p>"I wonder you dare show your face."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" asked Jenny, advancing towards the table.</p> + +<p>"Oh, leave her alone, mother," said May. "She's tired."</p> + +<p>"You dare tell me what I'm to do," Mrs. Raeburn threatened, turning +sharply to her youngest daughter.</p> + +<p>Jenny began to unbutton her gloves, loftily unconscious of her mother's +gaze, which was now again directed upon her.</p> + +<p>"How's yourself, young Alf?" she lightly inquired.</p> + +<p>"Better than you, I hope," came the morose reply muffled by a teacup.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you'd like us to help you off with your things?" Mrs. Raeburn +suggested sarcastically.</p> + +<p>"Eh?" Jenny retorted, pointing a cold insolence of manner with arched +contemptuous eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"Don't you try and defy me, miss," Mrs. Raeburn warned her. "Because you +know I won't have it."<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a></p> + +<p>"Who cares? I haven't done nothing."</p> + +<p>Alfie guffawed ironically.</p> + +<p>"I wonder you aren't afraid to make a noise like that with such long +ears as you've got," said Jenny. "I should be."</p> + +<p>Alfie muttered something about sauce under his breath, but ventured no +audible retort.</p> + +<p>"Well, what's the matter?" Jenny asked. "Get it over and done with."</p> + +<p>"Where were you last night?"</p> + +<p>"I told you. At Covent Garden Ball."</p> + +<p>"And afterwards?"</p> + +<p>"I went home with Ireen."</p> + +<p>"And that's a —— lie," shouted Alfie. "Because I saw you go off with a +fellah."</p> + +<p>"What of it, Mr. Nosy Parker? And don't use your navvy's language to me, +because I don't like it."</p> + +<p>"That's quite right," May agreed. "He ought to be ashamed of himself."</p> + +<p>"You shut up, you silly kid," Alfie commanded.</p> + +<p>Here Charlie entered the dispute.</p> + +<p>"There's no call to swear, Alf. I can argue without swearing and so can +you."</p> + +<p>"It was you that learned him to swear. He's heard you often enough," +Mrs. Raeburn pointed out. "But that's no reason why Alfie should."</p> + +<p>Jenny, more insolently contemptuous than ever, interrupted the +side-issue.</p> + +<p>"When you've finished arguing which is the biggest lady and gentleman in +this room, perhaps you'll let me finish what I was going to say."</p> + +<p>"I'd hold my tongue if I was you," her brother advised. "You're as bad +as Edie."</p> + +<p>"Don't you talk to me. You!" said Jenny, stamping with rage. Then, with +head thrown back and defiant underlip, she continued:<a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a></p> + +<p>"That's quite right about my driving off with a gentleman." In the tail +of the "g" was whipcord for Alfie's self-esteem.</p> + +<p>"Gentleman," he sneered.</p> + +<p>"<i>Which</i> is more than <i>you</i> could ever be, any old way."</p> + +<p>"Or want to," Alfie growled. "Thanks, I'm quite content with what I am."</p> + +<p>"You can't have many looking-glasses down at your workshop then. Look at +Mr. Quite Content. How much do they pay you a week to be all the time +spying after your sister?"</p> + +<p>"Well, anyway, I caught you out, my girl."</p> + +<p>"No, you didn't. I say I <i>did</i> drive off with a gentleman, but there was +a crowd of us. We went to have breakfast at Greenwich."</p> + +<p>"Now that's a place I've often meant to go to and never did," said +Charlie. "What's it like?"</p> + +<p>"You keep quiet, you silly old man," his wife commanded. "As if she went +near Greenwich. What a tale!"</p> + +<p>"It isn't a tale," Jenny declared. "I did. Ask Maudie Chapman and Madge +Wilson and Ireen. They was all there."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't doubt they're just as quick with their tongues as what you +are," said Mrs. Raeburn. "A nice lot you meet at that theater."</p> + +<p>"Jest leave the theater alone," her daughter answered. "It's better than +this dog's island where no one can't let you alone for a minute because +they're so ignorant that they don't know nothing. I say I did go to +Greenwich."</p> + +<p>"I don't see why the girl shouldn't have gone to Greenwich," Charlie +interposed. "I keep telling you I've often thought of going there +myself."</p> + +<p>"Jenny never speaks only what's the truth," May asserted.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and a lot of good it does me," said Jenny indignantly. "I'd better +by half tell a pack of lies, the same as other girls do."</p> + +<p>"What she wants," said Alfie sententiously, "is a jolly good hiding. +Look at her. There's a fine sister for a chap to have—nothing but paint +and powder and hair-dye."<a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a></p> + +<p>Jenny stood silent under this; but the upper lip was no longer visible. +Her cheeks were pale, her eyes mere points of light. May was the first +to speak in defense of the silent one.</p> + +<p>"Brothers!" she scoffed. "Some girls would be a sight better without +brothers. Hateful things!"</p> + +<p>Jenny's feelings had been so overwrought by the fatigue of the dance +followed by this domestic scene that May's gallant sally should have +turned contempt to tears. But Alfie had enraged her too profoundly for +weeping, and though tear-drops stood in her eyes, they were hard as +diamonds.</p> + +<p>"You oughtn't to talk to her like that, my boy," Charlie protested. +"You're talking like a clergyman I once did some work for. He said, 'I'm +not satisfied with this here box, Mr. Raeburn'—well, he said more than +that—and I said, 'I'm not satisfied with your tone of voice,' and——"</p> + +<p>"For goodness' sake, Charlie, keep your tongue quiet," his wife begged. +"Look here, Jenny," she went on, "I won't have these hours kept, and +that's all about it. Wherever you were last night, you weren't at home +where you ought to be, and where you shall be as long as you live with +me. Now that's all about it, and don't give me any back answers, because +I know what's right and I'm your mother."</p> + +<p>"I think you're a bit hard on the girl, Florrie, I do really," said the +father. "She takes after her dad. I was always one for seeing a bit of +life. What I says is, 'Let the young enjoy themselves.'"</p> + +<p>"What you say is neither here nor there," replied Mrs. Raeburn. "You +never did have any sense, you haven't got any sense now, and you never +will have any sense."</p> + +<p>"When you've done nagging at one another, all of <i>you</i>, I'm off," said +Jenny deliberately.</p> + +<p>"Off?" Mrs. Raeburn echoed.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to live at Ireen Dale's for the future. This!" She looked +round the kitchen. "Pooh!"</p> + +<p>"You're not going to leave home?" Mrs. Raeburn asked.</p> + +<p>"Aren't I? Who says so? I'm going now. You!" she<a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a> said bitterly to her +brother. "You've done a lot, Mr. Interfering Idiot. It's time you looked +about for some girl to marry you, so as you can poke your nose into her +business. Good-bye, all. I'll come over to tea soon, that is if you +aren't all ashamed to have tea with me."</p> + +<p>As she turned abruptly to go, Alfie asked his mother why she didn't lock +her in a bedroom.</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't be any good," said the latter.</p> + +<p>"No, it wouldn't," Jenny vowed. "I'd kill myself sooner than sleep here +another night."</p> + +<p>"You're a dreadful worry to me," said Mrs. Raeburn slowly and earnestly.</p> + +<p>"Send on my things to 43 Stacpole Terrace, Camden Town," replied the +daughter. "You needn't think you'll get me back by keeping them, because +you won't."</p> + +<p>"You'll come and see us?" asked Mrs. Raeburn, who seemed now to accept +defeat meekly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, as long as you keep Mr. Nosy Parker Puppy dog outside. Brother! +Why if you only knew, he wears that jam-pot round his neck to hide where +his head's come off."</p> + +<p>Presently the front door slammed.<a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>Chapter XXII: <i>The Unfinished Statue</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">M</span>AURICE, on being informed of the decisive step which Jenny had taken, +asked her why she had not taken the more decisive step of avowing his +protection.</p> + +<p>"Because I don't want to. Not yet. I can't explain why. But I don't. Oh, +Maurice, don't go on asking me any more."</p> + +<p>"It's nothing to do with your people. Because you evidently don't mind +hurting their feelings in another way."</p> + +<p>"Going to live at Ireen's isn't the same as living with you."</p> + +<p>"You needn't live with me openly. Nobody wants you to do that. Only——"</p> + +<p>"It's not a bit of good your going on," she interrupted. "I've told you +I will one day."</p> + +<p>"One day," he sighed.</p> + +<p>It was a fine February that year, coming in with a stir of spring. +Maurice felt in accord with the season's impulse, and became possessed +with the ambition to create a work of art. He suggested that Jenny +should come daily to the studio and sit for his statue of The Tired +Dancer.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure my real vocation is plastic," he declared. "I can write and I +can play, but neither better than a lot of other people. With sculpture +it's different. To begin with, there isn't such competition. It's the +least general of the arts, although in another sense it's the most +universal. Again, it's an art that we seem to have lost. Yet by every +rule of social history, it is the art with which the present stage of +evolution should be most occupied. In this era of noise and tear the<a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a> +splendid quiescence of great sculpture should provoke every creative +mind. I have the plastic impulse, but so far I've been content to +fritter it away in bits and pieces of heads and arms and hands. I must +finish something; make something."</p> + +<p>Jenny was content to sit watching him through blue wreaths of cigarette +smoke. She found a sensuous delight in seeing him happy and hearing the +flow of his excited talk.</p> + +<p>"Now I must mold you, Jenny," he went on, pacing up and down in the +midst of the retinue of resolutions and intentions. "By gad! I'm +thrilled by the thought of it. To possess you in virgin wax, to mold +your delicious shape with my own hands, to see you taking form at my +compelling touch. By gad! I'm thrilled by it. What's a lyric after that? +I could pour my heart out in every meter imaginable, but I should never +give anything more than myself to the world. But if I make a glorious +statue of you, I give you—you forever and ever for men to gaze at and +love and desire. By gad! I'm thrilled by the thought of it. There's +objective art. Ha! Poor old poets with their words. Where are they? You +can't dig your nails into a word. By Jove, the Nereids in the British +Museum. You remember those Nereids, darling?"</p> + +<p>Jenny looked blank.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you do. You said how much you liked them. You must remember them, +so light and airy that they seem more like clouds or blowballs than +solid marble."</p> + +<p>"I think <i>all</i> the statues we saw was very light and airy, if it comes +to that," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>Maurice gave up pacing round the room and flung himself into a chair to +discuss details of the conception.</p> + +<p>"Of course, I'd like you to be dressed as a Columbine: and yet, I don't +know, it's rather obvious."</p> + +<p>"I could wear my practice dress."</p> + +<p>"What's that like?"</p> + +<p>"I've got two or three. Only the nicest is my gray tarlington."</p> + +<p>"Eh?"<a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a></p> + +<p>"You know, very frilly musling. Just like a ballet skirt, only you +needn't wear tights."</p> + +<p>"I didn't hear what you said. I know, tarlatan. Nice frizzy stuff. That +sounds good. And it won't matter crumpling it?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not."</p> + +<p>"Because you see I want you to be lying on a pile of rugs and cushions +just as if you'd been dancing hard and had fallen asleep where you sank +down."</p> + +<p>So, in the time of celandines and snowdrops, Jenny would come to the +studio every day; and when they had lunched together intimately and +delightfully, she would go downstairs to change her frock, while Maurice +arranged her resting-place.</p> + +<p>The dove-gray tarlatan skirt, resilient like the hair-spring of a watch, +suited the poise of Jenny's figure. She wore gray silk stockings clocked +with vivid pink, a <i>crêpe de Chine</i> blouse the color of mist, and round +her head a fillet of rosy velvet. Altogether, she looked an Ariel woven +magically from the smoke of London. Once or twice she actually fell fast +asleep among the rugs; but generally she lay in a dream, just conscious +of the flow of Maurice's comments and rhapsodies.</p> + +<p>"It's an extraordinary thing," he began on one occasion. "But as I sit +here fashioning your body out of wax, you yourself become every moment +more and more of a spirit. I've a queer fancy working in my brain all +the time that this is really you, here under my hands. I suppose it's +the perpetual concentration on one object that puts everything else out +of proportion. One thing, however, I do realize: you're making yourself +every day more necessary to my life. Honestly, when you're not here, +this studio is infernal. You seem to endow it with your presence, to +infuse it with your personality. It's so romantic, you and I all alone +on the tops of the houses, more alone than if we were on a beach in +winter. I wish I could tell you the glorious satisfaction I feel all the +time."</p> + +<p>"Darling," she murmured drowsily.</p> + +<p>"Sleepy girl, are you?"</p> + +<p>"A bit."<a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a></p> + +<p>Just then came a knock at the door, and Ronnie Walker looked in.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Ronnie," said Maurice, with a hint of ungraciousness in his +tone.</p> + +<p>"I say, old chap, would you think me an intrusive scoundrel if I made +some drawings of Jenny?"</p> + +<p>Maurice's annoyance at interruption was mollified by the pride of +ownership.</p> + +<p>"Rather not. Any time. Why not now?"</p> + +<p>So Ronnie sat there, making little <i>croquis</i> of Jenny with soft outlines +elusive as herself. After a while, with his sketch-book under his arm, +he stole quietly from the room. The next day he came back with two +water-colors, of which the first showed a room shadowy with dawn and +Jenny fast asleep before a silver mirror, wrapped in a cloak of clouded +blue satin. The second represented a bedroom darkened by jalousies +faintly luminous with the morning light, when through one chink, +glittering with motes, a narrow sunbeam made vivid her crimson lips.</p> + +<p>The painter showed his pictures to Maurice.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ronnie," said the latter. "You put me out of temper with my own +work."</p> + +<p>"My dear chap, I'm awfully sorry," apologized Ronnie, and, without +waiting, hurried from the studio.</p> + +<p>"Whatever's the matter?" asked Jenny, awakened by this brief interview.</p> + +<p>"I wish people wouldn't come in and interrupt me when I'm at work," +Maurice grumbled. "It's frightfully inconsiderate. You don't want to +look at damned paintings when you're working in another medium."</p> + +<p>"Who were they of?"</p> + +<p>"You, of course."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't he show them to me?"</p> + +<p>"Because I jumped down his throat, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Whatever for?"</p> + +<p>"Can't you understand how annoying it must be to have to look at another +person's treatment of your subject?"<a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a></p> + +<p>"I think it was very nasty of you not to let him show me the pictures."</p> + +<p>"You seem more interested in Ronnie's work than in mine."</p> + +<p>"Well, you never let me look at what you've done."</p> + +<p>"It isn't finished yet."</p> + +<p>"You can be horrid."</p> + +<p>"Look here, Jenny, for goodness' sake don't start criticising me. I +can't stand it. I never could. I've noticed lately you've taken to it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I've not."</p> + +<p>"Well, you give me that impression."</p> + +<p>Jenny rose from the cushions and, running her hands down the tarlatan +till it regained its buoyancy, she moved slowly across to Maurice's +side.</p> + +<p>"Kiss me, you silly old thing, and don't say any more unkind things, +because they make me unhappy."</p> + +<p>Maurice could not be disdainful of her as, leaning over him, she clasped +cool hands beneath his chin and with tender kisses uprooted from his +forehead a maze of petulant lines.</p> + +<p>"You little enchanting thing," he murmured. "You disarm me with your +witcheries."</p> + +<p>"And he's not going to be cross any more?"</p> + +<p>"He can't be. Alas, my sweet one is too sweet."</p> + +<p>"If you only knew what it meant for Jenny Pearl to be the soppy one."</p> + +<p>"That's love," Maurice explained.</p> + +<p>"Is it? I suppose it is."</p> + +<p>The sunshine of February was extinguished by a drench of rain. March +came in with storms of sleet followed by a long stretch of dry easterly +gales, when the studio, full of firelight and daffodils, was a pleasant +refuge from the gray winds. After Ronnie's visit the statue had been put +aside for a while; the lovers spent most of their time in hearth-rug +conversations, when Jenny would prattle inconsequently of youthful days +and Maurice would build up a wonderful future. Vexatious riddles of +conduct were ignored like the acrostics of old<a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a> newspapers, and Jenny +was happier than she had ever been. Her nature had always demanded a +great deal from the present. Occurrences the most trivial impressed +themselves deeply upon her mind, and it was this zest for the ephemeral +which made her recollections of the past so lively. As a natural +corollary to this habit of mind, she was profoundly deficient in +speculation or foresight. The future exhausted her imagination at once: +her intellect gasped long before she reached the prospect of eternity. A +month made her brain reel.</p> + +<p>Having succeeded in postponing all discussion of their natural attitude, +Jenny set out to enjoy the present which endowed her with Maurice's +company, with fragrant intimacies, and long, contented hours. He himself +was most charming when responsibilities, whether of art or life, were +laid aside. Jenny, a butterfly herself, wanted nothing better than to +play in the air with another butterfly.</p> + +<p>Then Maurice suddenly woke up to the fact that, summer being imminent, +no more time must be wasted. Work on the statue was resumed in a fever +of industry. April came in more like a beldame than a maid. In the +studio, now full of rose-pink tulips, the statue rapidly progressed. One +morning April threw off her disguises and danced like a fairy.</p> + +<p>"I shall finish the model to-day," Maurice announced.</p> + +<p>The sun went in and out all the afternoon. Now the windows were a-wash +with showers; in a moment they were sparkling in a radiancy.</p> + +<p>"Finished," the artist cried, and dragged Jenny to look and admire.</p> + +<p>"Jolly fine," she declared. "Only it isn't very like me. Never mind, +position in life's everything," she added, as she contemplated her +sleeping form.</p> + +<p>"Not like you," said Maurice slowly. "You're right. It's not. Not a bit! +Damn art!" he cried, and, picking up the wax model, flung it with a +crash into the fire-place.</p> + +<p>Jenny looked at Maurice, perplexity and compassion striving in her +countenance with disapproval; then she knelt to rescue a<a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a> curved arm, +letting it fall back listlessly among other fragments.</p> + +<p>"You <i>are</i> mad. Whatever did you want to do that for?"</p> + +<p>"You're right. It's not you. Oh, why did I ever try? Ronnie could do it +with a box of damned paints. Why couldn't I? I know you better than +Ronnie does. I love you. I adore every muscle and vein in your body. I +dream day and night of the line of your nose. Why couldn't I have given +that in stone, when Ronnie could show the world your mouth with two dabs +of carmine? What a box of trickery life is. Here am I burning with +ambition to create a masterpiece. I fall in love with a masterpiece. I +have every opportunity, a flaming inspiration, and nothing comes of it. +Nothing. Absolutely nothing. But, by Jove, something must. Do you hear, +Jenny? I won't be put off any longer. If I can't possess your +counterpart, I must possess you."</p> + +<p>During this speech a storm of hail was drumming on the windows; but +while Maurice strained her to his heart in a long silence, the storm +passed, and the sun streamed into the warm, quiet room. On the +window-sill a solitary sparrow cheeped at regular intervals, and down in +the street children were bowling iron hoops that fell very often.</p> + +<p>"Jenny, Jenny," pleaded Maurice, relaxing the closeness of his embrace. +"Don't play at love any more. Think what a mistake, what a wicked +mistake it is to let so much of our time go by. Don't drive me mad with +impatience. You foolish little girl, can't you understand what a muddle +you're making of life?"</p> + +<p>"I want to wait till I'm twenty-one," she said.</p> + +<p>It meant nothing to her, this date; but Maurice, accepting it as an +actual pledge of surrender, could only rail against her +unreasonableness.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens! What for? You are without exception the most amazing +creature. Twenty-one! Why twenty-one? Why not fifty-one? Most of all, +why not now?"</p> + +<p>"I can't. Not now. Not when I've just left home. I should feel a sneak. +Don't ask me to, Maurice. If you love<a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a> me, as you say you do, you'll +wait a little while quite happy."</p> + +<p>"But don't you want to give yourself to me?"</p> + +<p>"I do, and then again I don't. Sometimes I think I will, and then +sometimes I think I don't want to give myself to any man."</p> + +<p>"You don't love me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do. I do. Only I hate men. I always have. I can't explain more +than what I've told you. If you can't understand, you can't. It's +because you don't know girls."</p> + +<p>"Don't know girls," he repeated, staggered by the assertion. "Of course +I understand your point of view, but I think it's stupid and irrational +and dangerous—yes—dangerous.... Don't know girls? I wish I didn't."</p> + +<p>"You don't," Jenny persisted.</p> + +<p>"My dear child, I know girls too well. I know their wretched stammering +temperaments, their inability to face facts, their lust for sentiment, +their fondness for going half-way and turning back."</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't keep on walking up and down. It makes me want to +giggle. And when I laugh, you get angry."</p> + +<p>"Laugh! It is a laughing matter to you. To me it's something so serious, +so sacred, that laughter no longer exists."</p> + +<p>Jenny thought for a moment.</p> + +<p>"I believe," she began, "I should laugh whatever happened. I don't +believe anything would stop my laughing."</p> + +<p>Just then, away downstairs, the double knock of a telegraph boy was +heard, too far away to shake the nerves of Jenny and Maurice, but still +sufficiently a reminder of another life outside their own to interrupt +the argument.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if that's for me," said Maurice.</p> + +<p>"You'd better go down and see, if you think it is."</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute. Old Mother Wadman may answer the door."</p> + +<p>Again, far below, they heard the summons of humanity.</p> + +<p>"Damn Mrs. Wadman! I wish she wouldn't go fooling out in the +afternoon."<a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a></p> + +<p>"Why don't you go down, Maurice? He'll go away in a minute."</p> + +<p>Once more, very sharply, the herald demanded an entrance for events and +emotions independent of their love, and Maurice unwillingly departed to +admit them.</p> + +<p>Left alone in a tumult of desires and repressions, Jenny felt she would +like to fling herself down upon the rugs and cry. Sentiment, for an +instant, helped the cause of tears, when she thought of the many hours +spent on that pile, drowsily happy. Then backwards and forwards went the +image of her lover in ludicrous movement, and the whole situation seemed +such a fuss about nothing. There was a merciless clarity about Jenny's +comprehension when, urged by scenes of passion, she called upon her mind +for a judgment. Perhaps it was the fatalism of an untrained reason which +taught her to grasp the futility of emotional strife. Or it may have +been what is called a sense of humor, which always from one point of +view must imply a lack of imagination.</p> + +<p>Maurice came back and handed her the telegram.</p> + +<div class="blockd"><p>Uncle Stephen died suddenly in Seville come home at once please +dear you must go out and look after aunt Ella</p> + +<p class="r">Mother</p></div> + +<p>"She's fond of you, isn't she?"</p> + +<p>Maurice looked puzzled.</p> + +<p>"Your mother, I mean."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I think she's written very nice, that's all. I wish you +hadn't got to go away though."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and to Spain of all places. This is the uncle I was telling you +about. I come into two thousand pounds. I must go."</p> + +<p>"I wish you hadn't got to go away," she repeated sorrowfully. "Just when +the weather's getting fine, too. But you must go, of course," she +added.<a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a></p> + +<p>Jenny wrung this bidding out of herself very hardly, but Maurice +accepted it casually enough. Suddenly he was seized with an idea:</p> + +<p>"Jenny, this two thousand pounds is the key to the situation."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I can," he assured the air. "I can settle this on you. I can +provide for you, whatever happens to me. Now there's absolutely no +reason why you shouldn't give way."</p> + +<p>"I don't see that two thousand pounds makes <i>any</i> difference. What do +you think I am?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not buying you, my dear girl. I'm not such a fool as to suppose I +could do that."</p> + +<p>"No, you couldn't. No man could buy me."</p> + +<p>"I'm very glad of it," he said. "What I mean is that now I've no +scruples of my own to get over. This is certain. I know that if anything +happens to me, you would be all right. Jenny, you must say 'yes.'"</p> + +<p>"I've told you I will one day. Don't keep on asking. Besides, you're +going away. You'll have other things to think about besides your little +Jenny. Only come back soon, Maurice, because I do love you so."</p> + +<p>"Love me!" he scoffed. "Love me! Rot! A woman without the pluck to trust +herself to the lover talks of love. It means nothing, this love of +yours. It's just a silly fancy. Love hasn't widened your horizon. Love +hasn't given your life any great impetus. Look at me—absolutely +possessed by my love for you. That's passion."</p> + +<p>"I don't think it's much else, I don't," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"How like a girl! How exactly like every other girl! Good Lord, and I +thought you were different. I thought you wouldn't be so blind as to +separate love from passion."</p> + +<p>"I don't. I do love you. I do want you," she whispered. "Just as much as +you want me, but not now. Oh, Maurice, I wish you could understand."<a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a></p> + +<p>"Well, I can't," he said coldly. "Look here, you've quarreled with your +mother. That's one obstacle out of the way."</p> + +<p>"But it isn't. She's still alive."</p> + +<p>"You've known me long enough to be sure I'm not likely to turn out a +rotter. You needn't worry about money, and—you love me or pretend to. +Now why in the name of fortune can't you be sensible?"</p> + +<p>"But there'll come a moment, Maurice darling, and I think it will come +soon, when I shall say 'yes' of my own accord. And whatever you said or +done before that moment couldn't make me say 'yes' now."</p> + +<p>"And meanwhile I'm to go on wearing myself out with asking?"</p> + +<p>"No," she murmured, afire with blushes at such revelation of himself. +"No, I'll say 'Maurice' and then you'll know."</p> + +<p>"And I'm to go off to Spain with nothing to hope for but 'one day, one +day'?"</p> + +<p>"You'll have other things to think about there."</p> + +<p>"You're rather amusing with your proposed diversions for my imagination. +But, seriously, will it be 'yes' when I come back, say, in a fortnight?"</p> + +<p>"No, not yet. Not for a little while. Oh, don't ask me any more; you are +unkind."</p> + +<p>Maurice seemed to give up the pursuit suddenly.</p> + +<p>"I sha'n't see you for some time," he said.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," Jenny consoled him. "Think how lovely it will be when we +do see each other."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," said Maurice bluntly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what an unnatural way to say good-bye."</p> + +<p>"Well, I've got to pack up and catch the 6.30 down to Claybridge. I'll +write to you."</p> + +<p>"You needn't trouble," she told him, chilled by his manner.</p> + +<p>"Don't be foolish, I must write. Good-bye, Jenny."</p> + +<p>He seemed to offer his embrace more from habit than desire.</p> + +<p>"I've got to change first," she said, making no movement<a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a> towards the +enclosure of his arms. It struck them both that they had passed through +a thousand emotions, he in the sculptor's blouse of his affectation, she +in her tarlatan skirt.</p> + +<p>"It's like a short story by de Maupassant," said Maurice.</p> + +<p>"Is it? You and your likes! I'm like a soppy girl."</p> + +<p>"You are," said Maurice with intention. To Jenny, for the first time, he +seemed to be criticising her.</p> + +<p>"Thanks," she said, as, with a shrug of the shoulder and curl of the +lip, she walked out of the studio, coldly hostile.</p> + +<p>The rage was too deep to prevent her from arranging her hair with +deliberation. Nor did she fumble over a single hook in securing the +skirt of ordinary life. Soon Maurice was tapping at the door, but she +could not answer him.</p> + +<p>"Jenny," he called, "I've come to say I'm a pig."</p> + +<p>Still she did not answer; but, when she was perfectly ready, flung open +the door and said tonelessly:</p> + +<p>"Please let me pass."</p> + +<p>Her eyes, resentful, their luster fled, were dull as lapis lazuli. Her +lips were no longer visible.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't go away like this. Jenny, we sha'n't see one another for a +fortnight or more. Don't let's part bad friends."</p> + +<p>"Please let me pass."</p> + +<p>He stood aside, outfaced by such determination, and Jenny, with downcast +eyes intent upon the buttoning of her glove, passed him carelessly.</p> + +<p>"Jenny!" he called desperately over the banisters. "Jenny! Don't go like +that. Darling, don't; I can't bear it." Then he ran to catch her by the +arm.</p> + +<p>"Kiss me good-bye and be friends. Do, Jenny. Jenny. Do! Please! I can't +bear to see your practice dress lying there on the floor."</p> + +<p>Sentiment had its way this time, and Jenny began to cry.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Maurice," she wept, "why are you so unkind to me?<a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a> I hate myself +for spoiling you so, but I must. I don't care about anything excepting +you. I do love you, Maurice."</p> + +<p>In the dusty passage they were friends again.</p> + +<p>"And now my eyes is all red," she lamented.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, darling girl. Come back while I get some things together, +and see me off at Waterloo, will you?"</p> + +<p>She assented, as enlaced they went up again to the studio.</p> + +<p>"It's all the fault of that rotten statue," he explained. "I was furious +with myself and vented it on you. Never mind. I'll begin again when I +come back. Look, we'll put the tarlatan away in the drawer I take my +things out of. Shall we?"</p> + +<p>Soon they were driving in a hansom cab towards the railway station.</p> + +<p>"We always seem to wind up our quarrels in cabs," Maurice observed.</p> + +<p>"I don't know why we quarrel. I hate quarreling."</p> + +<p>"We won't any more."</p> + +<p>As the horse strained up through the echoing cavern of Waterloo, they +kissed each other good-bye, a long, long kiss.</p> + +<p>There were still ten minutes before the train left, and among the sweep +of hurrying passengers and noise of shouting porters to an accompaniment +of whistling, rumbling trains, Maurice tried to voice the immortality of +his love.</p> + +<p>"Great Scott, I've only a minute," he said suddenly. "Look, meet me on +Monday week, the twenty-third, here, at three-thirty. Three-thirty from +Claybridge. Don't forget."</p> + +<p>"Take your seats, please," a ticket inspector shouted in their ears. +Maurice jumped into his compartment and wrote quickly on an envelope: +"3.30. Waterloo. Ap. 23. Claybridge."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, darling, darling girl. I'll bring you back some castanets and +a Spanish frock."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye. See you soon."</p> + +<p>"Very, very soon. Think of me."</p> + +<p>"Rather."</p> + +<p>The train went curling out of the station.</p> + +<p>"I shall be early in the theater to-night," Jenny thought.<a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>Chapter XXIII: <i>Two Letters</i></h3> + +<p class="r"><span class="smcap">Hôtel de Paris, Sevilla, Spain.</span><br /> +April 17.</p> + +<p class="nind">My dear and lovely one,<br /> +</p> + +<p>I've not had time to write before. I meant to send you a letter +from the train, but I left all my notepaper and pencils in the +station restaurant at a place called Miranda, and went to sleep +instead.</p> + +<p>I find that my uncle has left me more than I expected—five +thousand pounds, in fact. So I want to buy you a delightful little +house somewhere quite close to London. You could have a maid and +you could go on dancing if you liked. Only I do want you to say +"yes" at once. I want you to write by return and tell me you're +going to give up all doubts and worries and scruples. Will you, my +precious?</p> + +<p>I've got another splendid plan. I want you to come and join me in +Spain in about a week. I shall be able to meet you in Paris, +because I am going to escort my aunt so far on the way home. Fuz +will look out your trains. You must come. He can arrange to give +you any money you want. We need not stay away very long—about a +month. Sevilla is perfect. The weather is divine. Get yourself some +cool frocks. We'll sit in the Alcazar garden all day. It's full of +lemon trees and fountains. In the evening we'll sit on a balcony +and smoke and listen to guitars.</p> + +<p>My darling, I do so adore you. Please, please, come out to Spain +and give up not knowing your own mind. I miss you tremendously. I +feel this beautiful city is wasted without you. I'm sure if you +determined not to bother about anything but love, you'd never +regret it. You wouldn't really. Dearest,<a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a> sweetest Jenny, do come. +I'm longing for my treasure. It's wonderfully romantic sitting here +in the patio of the hotel—a sort of indoor garden—and thinking so +hard of my gay and sweet one away in London. Darling, I'm sending +you kisses thick as stars, all the way from Spain. All my heart,</p> + +<p class="r"><span style="margin-right: 2em;">Your lover,</span><br /> +Maurice.</p> + +<p>Jenny was lying in bed when she received this letter. The unfamiliar +stamp and crackling paper suited somehow the bedroom at Stacpole Terrace +to which she was not yet accustomed. Such a letter containing such a +request would have seemed very much out of place in the little room she +shared at home with May. But here, so dismal was the prospect of life, +she felt inclined to abandon everything and join her lover.</p> + +<p>The Dales were a slovenly family. Mr. Dale himself was a nebulous +creature whom rumor had endowed with a pension. It never specified for +what services nor even stated the amount in plain figures; and a more +widely extended belief that the household was maintained by the Orient +management through Winnie and Irene Dale's dancing, supplanted the more +dignified tradition. Mr. Dale was generally comatose on a flock-exuding +chair-bed in what was known as "dad's room." There in the dust, +surrounded by a fortification of dented hatboxes, he perused old Sunday +newspapers whose mildewed leaves were destroyed biennially like +Canterbury Bells. Mrs. Dale was a beady-eyed, round woman with a passion +for bonnets, capes, soliloquies and gin. Her appearance and her manners +were equally unpleasant. She possessed a batch of grievances of which +the one most often aired was her missing of the <i>Clacton Belle</i> one +Sunday morning four years ago. Jenny disliked her more completely than +anybody in the world, regarding her merely as something too large and +too approximately human to extirpate. Winnie Dale, the smoothed-out +replica of her mother, was equally obnoxious. She had long lost all the +comeliness which still distinguished Irene, and possessed an irritating +habit of apostrophizing her affection for a fishmonger<a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a>—some prosperous +libertine who occasionally cast an eye, glazed like one of his own cods, +at Jenny herself. Ethel, the third sister, was still in short frocks +because her intelligence had not kept pace with her age.</p> + +<p>"The poor little thing talks like a child," Mrs. Dale would explain. "So +I dresses her like a child. It's less noticeable."</p> + +<p>"<i>Which</i> is silly," Jenny used to comment. "Because she's as tall as a +house and <i>everybody</i> turns round to look after her."</p> + +<p>Jenny would scarcely have tolerated this family for a week, if she had +been brought at all closely or frequently in contact with them; but so +much of the day was spent with Maurice and all the evening at the +theater that Stacpole Terrace implied little beyond breakfast in bed and +bed itself. Sometimes, indeed, when she went home to tea at Hagworth +Street and saw the brightness of the glass and shimmer of clean +crockery, she was on the verge of sinking her pride in a practical +reconciliation. Nine weeks passed, however, making it more difficult +every day to admit herself in the wrong; although, during the absence of +Maurice, it became a great temptation. Therefore, when this letter +arrived from Spain, inviting her to widen the breach with her family, +she was half inclined to play with the idea of absolute severance. +Flight, swift and sudden, appealed to her until the difficulty of making +arrangements began to obscure other considerations. The thought of +packing, of catching trains and steamers, of not knowing exactly what +frocks to buy, oppressed her; then a fear took hold of her fancy lest, +something happening to Maurice, she might find herself alone in a +foreign city; and at the end of it all there was her childhood in a +vista of time, her childhood with the presence of her mother brooding +over it, her mother dearly loved whatever old-fashioned notions she +preserved of obedience and strictness of behavior. It would be mean to +outrage, as she knew she would, her mother's pride, and to hand her over +to the criticisms of a mob of relatives. It would be mean to desert May, +who even now might be crying on a solitary<a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a> pillow. But when she went +downstairs dressed and saw the Dale family in morning deshabille, +uncorseted, flabby and heavy-eyed, crouching over the parlor fire, and +when she thought of Maurice and the empty studio, Jenny's resolution was +shaken and she was inclined to renounce every duty, face every +difficulty and leave her world behind.</p> + +<p>"You do look a sulky thing," said Irene. "Coming to sit round the fire?"</p> + +<p>"No, thanks," said Jenny. "I haven't got the time."</p> + +<p>"Your young chap's away, isn't he?" asked Winnie.</p> + +<p>"What's it got to do with you where he is?"</p> + +<p>Jenny was in a turmoil of nervous indecision, and felt that whatever +else she did, she must be quit of Stacpole Terrace for that day at +least. She debated the notion of going home, of telling her mother +everything; but the imagination of such an exposure of her most intimate +thoughts dried her up. It would be like taking off her clothes in front +of a crowd of people. Then she thought of going home without reference +to the past; but she was prevented by the expectation of her mother's +readiness to believe the worst, and the inevitably stricter supervision +to which her submission would render her liable. In the end, she +compromised with her inclination by deciding to visit Edie and find out +what sort of sturdy rogue her nephew was by now.</p> + +<p>Edie lived at Camberwell in a small house covered with Virginia creeper +not yet in leaf, still a brownish red mat which depressed Jenny as she +rattled the flap of the letterbox and called her sister's name through +the aperture. Presently Edie opened the door.</p> + +<p>"Why, if it isn't Jenny. Well I never, you are a stranger."</p> + +<p>Edie was shorter than Jenny and more round. Yet for all her plumpness +she looked worn, and her slanting eyes, never so bright as Jenny's, were +ringed with purple cavities.</p> + +<p>"How are you, Edie, all this long time?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm grand; how's yourself?"</p> + +<p>"I'm all right."<a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a></p> + +<p>The two sisters were sitting in the parlor, which smelt unused, although +it was covered with lengths of material and brown-paper patterns. By the +window was a dressmaker's bust, mournfully buxom. Jenny compared it with +the lay figure in the studio and smiled, thinking how funny they would +look together.</p> + +<p>"I wish Bert was in," said Edie. "But he's away on business."</p> + +<p>Just then a sound of tears was audible, and the mother had to run out of +the room.</p> + +<p>"The children gets a nuisance," she said, as she came back comforting +Eunice, a little girl of two.</p> + +<p>"Isn't she growing up a little love?" said Jenny. "Oh, I do think she's +pretty. What glorious eyes she's got."</p> + +<p>"They're like her father's, people say; but young Norman, he's the +walking life-like of you, Jenny."</p> + +<p>"Where is the rogue?" his aunt inquired.</p> + +<p>"Where's Norman, Eunice?"</p> + +<p>"Out in the garding, digging gwaves," said Eunice in a fat voice.</p> + +<p>Jenny had a sudden longing to have a child of her own and live in a +little house quite close to London.</p> + +<p>"Why, I don't believe you've ever seen Baby," said Edie.</p> + +<p>"Of course I have, but not for some months."</p> + +<p>They went upstairs to look at Baby, who was lying asleep in his cot. +Jenny felt oppressed by the smallness of the bedroom and the many +enlargements of Bert's likeness in youth which dwarfed every other +ornament. They recurred everywhere in extravagantly gilt frames; and the +original photograph was on the chest of drawers opposite one of Edie +wearing a fringe and balloon sleeves.</p> + +<p>"There's another coming in five months," said Edie.</p> + +<p>"Go on. How many more?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know—plenty yet, I expect."</p> + +<p>The magic of home that for a few moments had enchanted the little house +was dispelled. Moreover, at tea Norman<a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a> smeared his face with jam, and +snatched, and kicked his mother because she slapped his wrist.</p> + +<p>"Why do you let him behave so bad?" asked Jenny, unconscious that she +was already emulating her own hated Aunt Mabel.</p> + +<p>"I don't, only he's such a handful; and his dad spoils him. Besides, +anything for a bit of peace and quiet. Bert never thinks what a worry +children is, and as if I hadn't got enough to look after, he brought +back a dog last week."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you tell him off?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's easier to humor him. You'll find that out quick enough when +you're married yourself."</p> + +<p>"Me married? I don't think."</p> + +<p>On the way to the theater that evening Jenny almost made up her mind to +join Maurice, and would probably have been constant to her resolve, had +it not been for one of those trivial incidents which more often than +great events change the whole course of a life.</p> + +<p>Because she did not like the idea of sitting in meditation opposite a +row of inquisitive faces, she took a seat outside the tramcar that came +swaying and clanging down the Camberwell New Road. It was twilight by +now, and, as the tramcar swung round into Kennington Gate, there was a +wide view of the sky full of purple cloudbanks, islands in a pale blue +luminous sea where the lights of ships could easily be conjured from the +uncertain stars contending with the afterglow of an April sunset. Jenny +sat on the back seat and watched along the Kennington Road the +incandescent gas suffuse room after room with a sickly phosphorescence +in which the inhabitants seemed to swim like fish in an aquarium. All +the rooms thus illuminated looked alike. All the windows had a fretwork +of lace curtains; all the tables were covered with black and red +checkered cloths on which was superimposed half a white cloth covered +with the remains of tea; all the flower vases wore crimped paper +petticoats; all the people inside the cheerless rooms looked tired.<a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a></p> + +<p>Jenny pulled out the foreign letter and read of sunlight and love. She +began to dream of kisses amid surroundings something like the principal +scene of an Orient ballet, and, as London became more and more +intolerably dreary, over her senses stole the odor of a cigar that +carried her mind racing back to the past. Somewhere long ago her mother, +wanting to go away with someone, had stayed behind; and for the first +time Jenny comprehended mistily that now forgotten renunciation. She +fell to thinking of her mother tenderly, began to be oblivious of +interference, to remember only her merry tales and laughter and +kindness. The strength which long ago enabled Mrs. Raeburn to refuse the +nice little house and the Ralli car seemed to find a renewed power of +expression in her daughter. At present, Jenny thought, kisses in Spain +must still be dreams. That night, in the cheerless parlor of the Dales, +she wrote in watery ink to Maurice that she could not meet him in Paris.</p> + +<div class="blockd"><p class="r"><span class="smcap">43 Stacpole Terrace, Camden Town.</span><br /> +Friday.</p> + +<p class="nind">My darling Maurice,</p> + +<p>I can't come to Spain—I can't leave my mother like that—I should +feel a sneak—hurry up and come home because I miss you very much +all the time—It's no use to wish I could come—But I will tell you +about it when you come home—I wish you was here now. With heaps of +love from your darling Jenny.</p> + +<p>Irene sends her love and hopes you're having a good time.</p></div> + +<p><a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>Chapter XXIV: <i>Journey's End</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">J</span>ENNY received a post card from Maurice in answer to her letter. She was +glad he made no attempt to argue a point of view which his absence had +already modified more persuasively than any pleading. During the summer, +perhaps on one of those expeditions long talked of, she would make him +her own with one word; having sacrificed much on account of her mother, +she was not prepared to sacrifice all; and when Maurice came back, when +she saw his blue eyes quick with love's fires, and knew again the +sorcery of hands and breathless enfolding of arms, it would be easy upon +his heart to swoon out of everything except compliance. Aglow with +tenderness, she wrote a second letter hinting that no chain was wanting +but the sight of him to bind her finally and completely. Yet, with +whatever periphrasis she wrapped it round, the resolve was not to be +expressed with a pen. Recorded so, it seemed to lose something vital to +its beauty of purpose. However thoughtfully she wrote and obliterated +and wrote again, at the end it always gave the impression of a bargain. +She tore the letter up. No sentence she knew how to write would be heavy +with the velvet glooms of summer nights, prophetic of that supreme +moment now at hand when girlhood should go in a rapture.</p> + +<p>A week went by, and Jenny received another post card, postponing the +date of his return to May 1. She was much disappointed, but took the +envelope he had given her at Waterloo, and altered, half in fun, half +seriously, April 23 to May 1.</p> + +<p>The night before she was to meet Maurice, there was a<a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a> heavy fall of +rain reminding her of the night they first drove home together. She lay +awake listening to the pervading sound of the water and thinking how +happy she was. There was no little sister to cuddle now; but with the +thought of Maurice on his way home to her kisses, her imagination was +full of company. It was a morning of gold and silver when she was first +conscious of the spent night. The room was steeped in rich +illuminations. Sparrows twittered very noisily, and their shadows would +sometimes slip across the dingy walls and ceiling. "To-day," thought +Jenny, as, turning over in a radiancy of dreams and blushes and +murmurous awakenings, she fell asleep for two more slow hours of a +lover's absence. The later morning was passed in unpicking and +re-shaping the lucky green hat which had lain hidden since the autumn. +There was no time, however, to perfect its restoration; and Jenny had to +be content with a new saxe-blue dress in which she looked very trim and +eager under a black mushroom hat a-blow with rosebuds.</p> + +<p>It was about two o'clock when she went down the steps of 43 Stacpole +Terrace in weather fit for a lovers' meeting. Great swan-white clouds +breasted the deepening azure of May skies. The streets were dazzlingly +wet with the night's rain, and every puddle was as blue as a river. In +front gardens tulips burned with their fiery jets of color and the lime +tree buds were breaking into vivid green fans through every paling, +while in the baskets of flower-women cowslips fresh from chalky pastures +lay close as woven wool. Every blade of grass in the dingy squares of +Camden Town was of emerald, and gardeners were strewing the paths with +bright orange gravel. Children were running against the wind, pink +balloons floating in their wake. Children solemnly holding paper +windmills to catch the breeze were wheeled along in mail-carts and +perambulators. Surely of all the lovers that went to keep a May-day +tryst, none ever went more sweet and gay than Jenny.</p> + +<p>She left the Tube at Charing Cross and, being early,<a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a> walked along the +Embankment to Westminster Bridge. As she crossed the river, she looked +over the splash and glitter of the stream towards Grosvenor Road and up +at Big Ben, thinking, with a sigh of content, how she and Maurice would +be sitting in the studio by four o'clock. At Waterloo there was half an +hour to wait for the train; but it was not worth while to buy a stupid +paper when she could actually count the minutes that were ticking on +with Maurice behind them. It was 3.25. Her heart began to beat as the +enormous clock hand jerked its way to the time of reunion. Not because +she wanted to know, but because she felt she must do something during +that last five minutes, Jenny asked a porter whether this were the right +platform for the 3.30 from Claybridge.</p> + +<p>"Just signaled, miss," he said.</p> + +<p>Would Maurice be looking out of the window? Would he be brown with three +weeks of Spanish weather? Would he be waving, or would he be....</p> + +<p>The train was curling into the station. How much happier it looked than +the one which curled out of it three weeks ago. Almost before she was +aware of its noise, it had pulled up, blackening the platforms with +passengers that tumbled like chessmen from a box. Maurice was not +immediately apparent, and Jenny in search of him worked her way against +the stream of people to the farther end of the train. She felt an +increasing chill upon her as the contrary movement grew weaker and the +knots of people became more sparse; so that when beyond the farthest +coach she stood desolate under the station roof and looked back upon the +now almost empty line of platform, she was frozen by disappointment.</p> + +<p>"Luggage, miss?" a porter asked.</p> + +<p>Jenny shook her head and retraced her steps regretfully, watching the +satisfied hansoms drive off one by one. It was impossible that Maurice +could have failed her: she must have made a mistake over the time. She +took the envelope from her bag and read the directions again. Could he +have come<a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a> on the 23rd after all? No, the post card was plain enough. +The platform was absolutely empty now, and already the train was backing +out of the station.</p> + +<p>With an effort she turned from the prospect and walked slowly towards +the exit. Then she had an idea. Maurice must have missed the 3.30 and +was coming by the next. There was another in half an hour, she found out +from a porter, but it came in to a platform on the opposite side of the +station. So she walked across and sat down to wait, less happily than +before, but, as the great hand climbed up towards the hour, with +increasing hopefulness.</p> + +<p>Again the platform was blackened by emerging crowds. This time she took +up a position by the engine. A cold wave of unfamiliar faces swept past +her. Maurice had not arrived. It was useless to wait any longer. +Reluctantly she began to walk away, stopping sometimes to look back. +Maurice had not arrived. With throbbing nerves and sick heart Jenny +reached York Road and stood in a gray dream by the edge of the pavement. +A taxi drew up alongside, and she got in, telling the man to drive to +422 Grosvenor Road.</p> + +<p>The river still sparkled, but Big Ben had struck four o'clock without +them sitting together in the studio. The taxi had a narrow escape from a +bad accident. Ordinarily Jenny would have been terrified; but now, +bitterly and profoundly careless, she accepted the jar of the brakes, +the volley of recriminations and the gaping of foot passengers with +remote equanimity. Notwithstanding her presentiment of the worst, as the +taxi reached the familiar line of houses by which she had so often +driven passionate, sleepy, mirthful, sometimes one of a jolly party, +sometimes alone with Maurice in ecstasies unparagoned, Jenny began to +tell herself that nothing was the matter, that when she arrived at the +studio he would be there. Perhaps, after all, he thought he had +mentioned another train: his post card in alteration of the date had not +confirmed the time. Already she was beginning to rail at herself for +being upset so easily, when the taxi stopped and Jenny alighted. She<a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a> +let the man drive off before she rang. When he was out of sight she +pressed the studio bell three times so that Maurice should not think it +was "kids"; and ran down the steps and across the road looking up to the +top floor for the heartening wave. The windows were closed: they seemed +steely and ominous. She rang again, knowing it was useless; yet the bell +was often out of order. She peered over at the basement for a glimpse of +Mrs. Wadman. Hysterical by now, she rang the bells of other floors. +Nobody answered; not even Fuz was in. Wings of fire, alternating with +icy fans, beat against her brain. The damnable stolidity of the door +enraged her, and, when she knocked its impassiveness made her numb and +sick. Her heart was wilting in a frost, and, as the last cold ache died +away in oblivion, arrows of flame would horribly restore it to life and +agony. She rang the bells again, one after another; she rang them slowly +in studied permutations; quickly and savagely she pressed them all +together with the length of her forearm. The cherubs on the carved porch +turned to demons, and from demons vanished into nothing. The palings on +either side of the steps became invalid, unsubstantial, deliquescent +like material objects in a nightmare. A catastrophe of all emotion +collapsed about her mind, and when gladly she seemed to be fainting, +Jenny heard the voice of Castleton a long way off.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Fuz, where is he? Where's Maurice?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I thought you were meeting him. I've been out all day."</p> + +<p>Then Jenny realized the door was still shut.</p> + +<p>"He wasn't there. Not at Waterloo."</p> + +<p>She was walking slowly upstairs now beside Castleton. The fever of +disappointment had left her, and outwardly tranquil, she was able to +explain her reeling agitation. The studio looked cavernously empty; +already on the well-remembered objects lay a web of dust. The jars still +held faded pink tulips. The fragments of The Tired Dancer still littered +the grate.<a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a></p> + +<p>"Wait a minute," Castleton said; "I'll see if there's a letter for me +downstairs."</p> + +<p>Presently he came back with a sheet of crackling paper.</p> + +<p>"Shall I read you what he says?"</p> + +<p>Jenny nodded, and, while he read, wrote with her finger, "3.30 +Claybridge," many times in the dust that lay thick on the closed lid of +the piano.</p> + +<p>This was the letter:</p> + +<div class="blockd"><p class="nind">Dear Castleton,</p> + +<p>I've settled not to come back to England for a while. One makes +plans and the plans don't come off. I can't work in England and am +better out of it. Let me hear that Jenny is all right. I think she +will be. I didn't write to her. I just sent a post card saying I +should not be at Waterloo on the first of May. I expect you'll +think I'm heartless, but something has gone snap inside me and I +don't honestly care what you think. I'm going to Morocco in two or +three days. I want adventures. I'll send you a check for my share +of the rent in June. If you write, write to me at the English Post +Office, Tangiers.</p> + +<p class="r"><span style="margin-right: 5em;">Yours,</span><br /> +Maurice Avery.</p> +</div> + +<p>"Is that what he says?" Jenny asked.</p> + +<p>"That's all."</p> + +<p>"And he wants to hear I'm all right?"</p> + +<p>"He says so."</p> + +<p>"Tell him from me this little girl's all right," said Jenny. "There's +plenty more mothers got sons. Plenty. Tell him that when you write."</p> + +<p>Her sentences rattled like musketry.</p> + +<p>Castleton stared vaguely in the direction of the river as if a +friendship were going out on the tide.</p> + +<p>"But I don't want to write," he said. "I couldn't. Still, there's one +thing. I don't believe it's another woman."</p> + +<p>"Who cares if it is?" There was a wistfulness about her brave +indifference. "Men are funny. It might be."<a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a></p> + +<p>"I don't somehow think it is. I'd rather not. I was very fond of him."</p> + +<p>"So was I," said Jenny simply. "Only he's a rotter like all men."</p> + +<p>It was strange how neither of them seemed able to mention his name. +Already he had lost his individuality and was merged in a type.</p> + +<p>"What will you do?" Castleton asked.</p> + +<p>"There's a question. How should I know?"</p> + +<p>Before her mind life like a prairie rolled away into distance infinitely +dull.</p> + +<p>"It was a foolish question. I'm sorry. I wish you'd marry me."</p> + +<p>Jenny looked at him with sad eyes screwed up in perplexity.</p> + +<p>"I believe you would, Fuz."</p> + +<p>"I would. I would."</p> + +<p>"But I couldn't. I don't want to see any of you ever again."</p> + +<p>Castleton seemed to shrink.</p> + +<p>"I'm not being rude, Fuz, really. Only I don't want to."</p> + +<p>"I perfectly understand."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't be cross with me."</p> + +<p>"Cross! Oh, Jane, do I sound cross?"</p> + +<p>"Because," Jenny went on, "if I saw you or any of his friends, I should +only hate you. Good-bye, I must run."</p> + +<p>"You're all right for money?" Castleton stammered awkwardly. "I +mean—there's—oh, damn it, Jenny!"</p> + +<p>He pounded over to the window, huge and disconsolate.</p> + +<p>"Why ever on earth should I want money? What's the matter with next +Friday's Treasury?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, Jenny, you would come out with me once, if I waited for you +one night?"</p> + +<p>"Please don't. I should only stare you out. I <i>wouldn't</i> know you. I +don't ever ever want to see any of you again."</p> + +<p>She ran from the studio, vanishing like a flame into smoke.<a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a></p> + +<p>That night when Jenny went back alone to Stacpole Terrace, she saw on +the table in the cheerless parlor the post card from Maurice, and close +beside it the green hat bought in September still waiting to be +re-shaped for the spring. She threw it into a corner of the room.<a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>Chapter XXV: <i>Monotone</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">J</span>ENNY's first thought was an impulse of revenge upon the opposite sex +comparable with, but more drastic than, the resolution she had made on +hearing of Edie's disaster. She would devote her youth to "doing men +down." It was as if from the desert of the soul seared by Maurice, the +powers of the body were to sweep like a wild tribe maiming the creators +of her solitude. Maurice had stood for her as the epitome of man, and it +was to be expected that when he fell, he would involve all men in the +ruin. This hostility extended so widely that even her father was +included, and Jenny found herself brooding upon the humiliation of his +share in her origin.</p> + +<p>This violent enmity finding its expression in physical repulsion +defeated itself, and Jenny could no longer attract victims. Moreover, +the primal instincts of sex perished in the drought of emotion; and soon +she wished for oblivion, dreading any activity of disturbance. The +desert was made, and was vast enough to circumscribe the range of her +vision with its expanse of monotony. Educated in Catholic ideals, she +would have fled to a nunnery, there coldly to languish until the fires +of divine adorations should burst from the ashes of earthly love. +Nunneries, however, were outside Jenny's set of conceptions. Death alone +would endow her with painless indifference in a perpetual serenity; but +the fear of death in one who lacked ability to regard herself from +outside was not mitigated by pictorial consolations. She could never +separate<a name="page_250" id="page_250"></a> herself into audience and actor. Extinction appalled one +profoundly conscious of herself as an entity. By such a stroke she would +obliterate not merely herself, but her world as well. Suicides generally +possess the power of mental dichotomy. They kill themselves, +paradoxically, to see the effect. They are sorry for themselves, or +angry, or contemptuous: madness disintegrates their sense of personality +so that the various components run together. In a madman's huggermugger +of motives, impulses and reasons, one predominant butchers the rest for +its own gratification. Whatever abnormal conditions the shock of sorrow +had produced in Jenny's mental life, through them all she remained fully +conscious of her completeness and preserved unbroken the importance of +her personality. She could not kill herself.</p> + +<p>The days were very long now, nor would she try to quicken them by +returning to the old life before she met Maurice. She would not with two +or three girls pass in review of the shops of Oxford Street or gossip by +the open windows of her club. In the dressing-room she would sit silent, +impatient of intrusion upon the waste with which she had surrounded +herself. The ballets used to drag intolerably. She found no refuge from +her heart in dancing, no consolation in the music and color. She danced +listlessly, glad when the task was over, glad when she came out of the +theater, and equally glad to leave Stacpole Terrace on the next day. In +bed she would lie awake meditating upon nothing; and when she slept, her +sleep was parched.</p> + +<p>"Buck up, old girl, whatever's the matter?" Irene would ask, and Jenny, +resentful, would scowl at the <i>gaucherie</i>. She longed to be with her +mother again, and would visit Hagworth Street more often, hoping some +word would be uttered that would make it easy for her to subdue that +pride which, however deeply wounded by Maurice, still battled +invincibly, frightening every other instinct and emotion. But when the +words of welcome came, Jenny, shy of softness, would carry off existence +with an air, tears and reconciliation set aside. It<a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a> was not long before +the rumor of her love's disaster was carried in whispers round the many +dressing-rooms of the Orient. Soon enough Jenny found the girls staring +at her when they thought her attention was occupied. She had always +seemed to them so invulnerable that her jilting excited a more than +usually diffused curiosity; but for a long time, though many rejoiced, +no girl was brave enough to ask malicious questions, intruding upon her +solitude.</p> + +<p>June came in with the best that June can give of cloudless weather, +weather that is born in skies of peach-blossom, whose richness is never +lost in wine-dark nights pressed from the day's sweetness. What weather +it would have been for the country! Jenny used to sit for hours together +in St. James's Park, scratching aimlessly upon the gravel with the +ferule of her parasol. Men would stop and sit beside her, looking round +the corners of their eyes like actors taking a call. But she was +scarcely aware of their presence, and, when they spoke, would look up +vaguely perplexed so that they muttered apologies and moved along. Her +thoughts were always traveling through the desert of her soul. Unblessed +by mirage, they traveled steadily through a monotone towards an horizon +of brass. Her heart beat dryly and regularly like the tick of a clock, +and her memory merely recorded time. No relic of the past could bring a +tear; even the opal brooch was worn every day because it happened to be +useful. Once a letter from Maurice fell from her bag into the lake, and +she cared no more for it than the swan's feather beside which it +floated.</p> + +<p>July came in hot and metallic. Every sunset was a foundry, and the +nights were like smoke. One day towards the end of the month Jenny, +walking down Cranbourn Street, thought she would pay a visit to Lilli +Vergoe. The room had not changed much since the day Jenny joined the +ballet. Lilli, in a soiled muslin dress, was smoking the same brand of +cigarettes in the same wicker-chair. The same photographs clung to the +mirror, or were stacked on the mantelshelf in palisades. The walls were +covered with Mr. Vergoe's relics.<a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a></p> + +<p>"Hullo, Jenny! So you've found your way here at last. What's been wrong +with you lately? You're looking thin."</p> + +<p>"It's this shocking hot weather."</p> + +<p>"Why, when you came here before and I said it was hot, you said it was +lovely."</p> + +<p>"Did I?" asked Jenny indifferently.</p> + +<p>"How's your mother? And dad? And young May?"</p> + +<p>"All right. I'm living along with Ireen Dale now."</p> + +<p>"I know. Whatever made you do that?"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't I?"</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't call them your style," said Lilli positively.</p> + +<p>"Ireen's nice."</p> + +<p>"Yes, she's all right. But Winnie Dale's dreadful. And look at her +mother. She's like an old charwoman. And that youngest sister."</p> + +<p>"Oh, them, I never see <i>them</i>."</p> + +<p>"You've heard about me, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"No, what?" asked Jenny, politely inquisitive.</p> + +<p>"I've turned suffragette."</p> + +<p>"You never haven't? Oh, Lil, what a dreadful thing!"</p> + +<p>"It's not. It's great. I used to think so myself, but I've changed my +mind."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lilli, I think it's terrible. A suffragette? But what an unnatural +lot of women you must go around with."</p> + +<p>"They're not," said Lilli, loud in defense of her associates.</p> + +<p>"A lot of Plain Janes and No Nonsense with their hair all screwed back. +I know. And all walking on one another's petticoats. Suffragette +Sallies! What are they for? Tell me that."</p> + +<p>"Hasn't it never struck you there's a whole heap of girls in this world +that's got nothing to do?"</p> + +<p>Lilli spoke sadly. There was a life's disillusionment in the question.</p> + +<p>"Yes; but that doesn't say they should go making sights of themselves, +shouting and hollering. Get out! Besides, what's the Salvation Army +done?"</p> + +<p>"You don't understand."<a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a></p> + +<p>"No, and I don't want to understand."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you come round to our club? I'll introduce you to Miss +Bailey."</p> + +<p>"Who's she?"</p> + +<p>"She's the president."</p> + +<p>Jenny considered the offer a moment. Soon she decided that, dreary as +the world was, it would not be brightened by an introduction to Miss +Bailey. In the dressing-room that night, during the wait between the two +ballets, Elsie Crauford, who had long been waiting for an opportunity to +avenge Jenny's slighting references to Willie's evening dress, thought +she would risk an encounter.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know your Maurice had gone quite sudden," she said. "Aren't +you going to do anything about it?"</p> + +<p>"You've blacked your nose, Elsie Crauford."</p> + +<p>"Have I? Where?" Elsie had seized a hand-glass.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you have, poking it into other people's business. You curious +thing! What am I going to do about it? Punch into you, if you're not +sharp."</p> + +<p>"He seemed so fond of you, too."</p> + +<p>"You never saw him but once, when you blew in with the draught in that +flash hat of yours."</p> + +<p>"No, but Madge Wilson told me you was absolutely mad about one another. +It seems so funny he should leave you. But Madge said it wouldn't last. +She said you weren't getting a jolly fine time for nothing. Funny thing, +you always knew such a lot before you got struck on a fellow yourself. +What you weren't going to do! You aren't so much cleverer than us after +all."</p> + +<p>"<i>Who</i> told you?" demanded Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Madge Wilson did."</p> + +<p>"Don't take any notice of <i>her,"</i> Maudie Chapman advised at this point. +"You jest shut up, Elsie Crauford. Always making mischief."</p> + +<p>"I'm tired of Jenny Pearl's always knowing better than anyone without +being told off."<a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a></p> + +<p>"Told off! Who by? <i>You</i>?" gasped Jenny.</p> + +<p>Then Madge Wilson herself came into the dressing-room.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, duck," she said, surprised by Jenny's apparent reëntry into +society.</p> + +<p>"Are you speaking to me, Madge Wilson? Because I don't want to talk to +you. A nice friend. Hark at your fine friends, girls. They're the +rotters that take you off behind your back."</p> + +<p>"Whatever's the matter?" Madge asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you don't know, do you? But I wouldn't be a sneak like you! I'd +say out what I thought and not care for anyone. I wasn't getting a jolly +fine time for nothing? And what about you, Mrs. Straightcut? But that's +the way. Girls you think are your friends, girls <i>you</i> take out and give +a good time, they're the first to turn round on you. I wonder you +haven't all gone hoarse with the way you've talked me to pieces these +last weeks. I can hear you mumbling and whispering in corners. 'Have you +heard about Jenny Pearl? Isn't it shocking? Oh, I do think it's a +dreadful thing. What a terrible girl.' God, and look at <i>you</i>. Married +women! Yes, and what have you married? Why, there isn't a girl in this +dressing-room whose husband can afford to keep her. Husbands! Why, +they're no better than—"</p> + +<p>"She's been going out with Lilli Vergoe," interrupted Elsie sneeringly. +"Jenny Pearl's turned into a suffragette."</p> + +<p>"What of it? You and your six pairs of gloves that your Willie bought +you. Well, if he did, <i>which</i> I don't think, he must have broke open the +till to do it."</p> + +<p>Madge Wilson's disloyalty effected for Jenny what nothing else had done. +It made the blood course fast, the heart beat: it kindled her eyes +again. That night in bed, she thought of falseness and treachery and +cried herself to sleep.<a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>Chapter XXVI: <i>In Scyros</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>HE outburst against feminine treachery had an effect upon Jenny's state +of mind beyond the mere evoking of tears. These were followed by a +general agitation of her point of view necessitating an outlet for her +revived susceptibleness to emotion. A less sincere heart would have been +caught on the rebound; but she and men were still mutually unattractive. +The consequence of this renewed activity of spirit, in the aspect of its +immediate cause, was paradoxical enough; for when Jenny thought she +would try the pretensions of suffragism, no clear process of reasoning +helped her to such a resolve, no formulated hostility to man. Whatever +logic existed in the decision was fortuitous; nor did she at all +perceive any absence of logic in throwing in her lot with treacherous +woman.</p> + +<p>Lilli Vergoe was proud of such a catechumen, and made haste to introduce +her to the tall house in Mecklenburg Square, whose elm-shadowed rooms +displayed the sober glories of the Women's Political, Social and +Economic League. Something about the house reminded Jenny of her first +visit to Madame Aldavini's School; but she found Miss Bailey less +alarming than the dancing mistress as, rising from masses of letters and +scarlet gladioli, she welcomed the candidate. Miss Bailey, the president +of the League, was a tall, handsome woman, very unlike Jenny's +conception of a suffragette. She had a regular profile, a thin, +high-bridged nose, and clearly cut, determined lips. Her complexion was +pale, her hair very brown and rich. Best of all Jenny liked her slim +hands and the voice which,<a name="page_256" id="page_256"></a> though marred by a slight huskiness due to +public speaking, was full of quality and resonance. She was one of those +women who, carrying in their presence a fine tranquillity at once kindly +and ascetic, imbue the onlooker with their long and perceptive +experience of humanity. She was in no sense homely or motherly; indeed, +she wore about her the remoteness of the great. Yet whatever in her +general appearance seemed of marble was vivified by clear hazel eyes +into the reality of womanhood.</p> + +<p>"And so you're going to join our club?" inquired Miss Bailey.</p> + +<p>Jenny, although she had intended this first visit to be merely +empirical, felt bound to commit herself to the affirmative.</p> + +<p>"You'll soon know all about our objects."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I've told her a lot already, Miss Bailey," declared Lilli with the +eagerness of the trusted school-girl.</p> + +<p>"That's right," said Miss Bailey, smiling. "Come along then, and I will +enroll you, Miss——"</p> + +<p>"Pearl," murmured Jenny, feeling as if her name had somehow slipped down +and escaped sideways through her neck. Then with an effort clearing her +throat, she added, "Jenny Pearl," blushing furiously at the confession +of identity.</p> + +<p>"Your address?"</p> + +<p>"Better say 17 Hagworth Street, Islington. Only I'm not living there +just now. Now I'm living 43 Stacpole Terrace, Camden Town."</p> + +<p>"Have you a profession?"</p> + +<p>"I'm on the stage."</p> + +<p>"What a splendid profession, too—for a woman. Don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>Jenny stared at this commendation of a state of life she had always +imagined was distasteful to people like Miss Bailey.</p> + +<p>"I don't know much about splendid, but I suppose it's all right," she +agreed at last.</p> + +<p>"Indeed it is. Are you at the Orient also?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you know, in the ballet," said Jenny very quickly, so<a name="page_257" id="page_257"></a> that the +president might not think she was trying to push herself unduly.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe there's anything that gives more pleasure than good +dancing. Dancing ought to be the expression of life's joy," said the +older woman, gazing at the pigeon-holes full of docketed files, at the +bookshelves stuffed with dry volumes of Ethics and Politics and +Economics, as if half regretting she, too, was not in the Orient Ballet. +"Dancing is the oldest art," she continued. "I like to think they danced +the spring in long before calendars were made. Your subscription is half +a crown a year."</p> + +<p>Jenny produced the coin from her bag; and it said much for Miss Bailey's +personality that the new member to adorn the action did not wink over +her shoulder at Lilli.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. Here's the badge. It's copied from an old Athenian medal. +This is Pallas Athene, the Goddess of Wisdom."</p> + +<p>"She isn't much to look at, is she?" commented Jenny.</p> + +<p>"My dear child, that's the owl."</p> + +<p>Jenny turned the medal over and contemplated the armed head. Then she +put it carefully away in her purse, wondering if the badge would bring +her luck.</p> + +<p>"Now, I shall let Lilli show you round the club rooms, for I'm very busy +this afternoon," said Miss Bailey in gentle dismissal.</p> + +<p>The two girls left the study and set out to explore the rest of the +house. Over the mantlepiece of the principal room Jenny saw Mona Lisa +and drew back so quickly that she trod on Lilli's foot.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going in there," she said.</p> + +<p>"Why not? It's a nice room."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going in. I don't want to," she repeated, without any +explanation of her whim.</p> + +<p>"All right. Let's go downstairs. We can have tea."</p> + +<p>It was a fine afternoon towards the end of July, so the tea-room was +empty. Jenny looked cautiously at all the pictures<a name="page_258" id="page_258"></a> but none of them +conjured up the past. There was a large photograph of the beautiful sad +head of Jeanne d'Arc, but Jenny did not bother to read that it came +originally from the church of St. Maurice in Orleans. There was a number +of somewhat dreary engravings of famous pioneers of feminism like Mary +Wolstonecraft, whose faces, she thought, would look better turned round +to the wall. Below these hung several statistical maps showing the +density of population in various London slums, with black splodges for +criminal districts. Most of the furniture was of green fumed oak fretted +with hearts, and the crockery that lived dustily on a shelf following +the line of the frieze came from Hanley disguised in Flemish or Breton +patterns, whose studied irregularity of design and roughness of +workmanship was symbolic of much. In order, apparently, to accentuate +the flimsiness of the green fumed oak, there were several mid-Victorian +settees that, having faded in back rooms of Wimpole Street and Portman +Square, were now exposed round the sides of their new abode in a +succession of hillocks. On the wall by the door hung a framed tariff, on +which poached eggs in every permutation of number and combination of +additional delicacies figured most prominently. Here and there on tables +not occupied with green teacups were scattered pamphlets, journals, and +the literary propaganda of the feminine movement. The general atmosphere +of the room was permeated by an odor of damp toast and the stale fumes +of asthma cigarettes.</p> + +<p>"What an unnatural smell," murmured Jenny.</p> + +<p>"It's those asthma cigarettes," Lilli explained. "One of the members has +got it very bad."</p> + +<p>Jenny was glad to escape very soon after tea, and told her friend a +second visit to Mecklenburg Square was not to be done.</p> + +<p>"I used to think they was nice houses when I passed by the other side in +that green 'bus going to Covent Garden, but I +think they're <i>very</i> stuffy, and what wall-paper! More like +blotting-paper."<a name="page_259" id="page_259"></a></p> + +<p>However, one Saturday evening in August, as Jenny was leaving the +theater, Lilli begged her to come and hear Miss Ragstead speak on the +general aims of the movement, with particular attention to a proposed +demonstration on the occasion of the re-opening of Parliament.</p> + +<p>"When's the old crow going to speak?" Jenny inquired.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow evening."</p> + +<p>"On a Sunday?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>So, because there was nothing else to do and because nowadays Sunday was +a long grim moping, a procession of pretty hours irrevocable, Jenny +promised to accompany her friend.</p> + +<p>It was a wet evening, and Bloomsbury seemed the wettest place in London +as the two girls turned into the sparse lamplight of Mecklenburg Square +and hurried along under the dank, fast-fading planes and elms. Inside +the house, however, there was an air of energetic jollity owing to the +arrival of several girl students from Oxford and Cambridge, who stumped +in and out of the rooms, greeting each other with tales of Swiss +mountains and comparisons of industry. In their strong, low-heeled boots +they stumped about consumed by holiday sunshine and the acquisition of +facts. With friendly smiles and fresh complexions, they talked +enthusiastically to several young men, whose Adam's apples raced up and +down their long necks, giving them the appearance of chickens swallowing +maize very quickly.</p> + +<p>"Talk about funny turns," whispered Jenny.</p> + +<p>"They're all very clever," Miss Vergoe apologized, as she steered her +intolerant friend past the group.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I should say they ought to be clever, too. They <i>look</i> as though +they were pecking each other's brains out."</p> + +<p>Miss Bailey encountered them here.</p> + +<p>"Why, this is capital," she said. "Miss Ragstead won't be long now. Let +me introduce a dear young friend of mine, Miss Worrill."</p> + +<p>"How are you?" Miss Worrill asked heartily.<a name="page_260" id="page_260"></a></p> + +<p>She was a pleasant girl dressed in Harris tweed strongly odorous from +the rain. Her hair might have been arranged to set off her features to +greater advantage, and it was a pity her complexion was spoilt by a +network of tiny purple veins which always attracted the concentration of +those who talked to her. Jenny began to count them at once.</p> + +<p>"Come to hear Connie Ragstead?" asked Miss Worrill. "Jolly good crowd +for August," she went on, throwing a satisfied glance round the room. +"Have you ever heard her?"</p> + +<p>"No," Jenny replied, wondering why something in this girl's way of +speaking reminded her of Maurice.</p> + +<p>"You'll like her most awfully. I met her once at the Lady Maggie +'Gaudy.'"</p> + +<p>"At the what?"</p> + +<p>"Our Gaude at Lady Margaret's. Festive occasion and all that. I say, do +you play hockey? I'm getting up a team to play at Wembley this winter."</p> + +<p>"My friend and I are too busy," Miss Vergoe explained, looking nervously +round at Jenny to see how she took the suggestion.</p> + +<p>"But one can always find time for 'ecker.'"</p> + +<p>"I <i>could</i> find time to fly kites. Only I don't want to," said Jenny +dangerously. "You see, I'm on the stage."</p> + +<p>"I'm frightfully keen on the stage," Miss Worrill volunteered. "I +believe it could be such a force. I thought of acting myself once—you +know, in real plays, not musical comedy, of course. A friend of mine was +in the 'Ecclesiasuzæ' at the Afternoon Theater. She wore a <i>rather</i> +jolly vermilion tunic and had bare legs. Absolutely realistic."</p> + +<p>Jenny now began to giggle, and whispered "Cocoanut knees" to Lilli, who, +notwithstanding the importance of the occasion, also began to giggle. So +Miss Worrill, presumably shy of their want of sensibility, retired.</p> + +<p>Soon, when the rumor of the speaker's arrival ran round the assemblage, +a general move was made in the direction of the large room on the first +floor. Jenny, as she entered with<a name="page_261" id="page_261"></a> the stream, saw Leonardo's sinister +portrait and tried to retreat; but there were too many eager listeners +in the way, and she had to sit down and prepare to endure the damnable +smile of La Gioconda that seemed directed to the very corner where she +was sitting.</p> + +<p>During the earlier part of Miss Ragstead's address, Jenny's attention +was chiefly occupied by her neighbors. She thought that never before was +such a collection of freaks gathered together. Close beside her, dressed +in a green djibbeh embroidered with daisies of terra-cotta silk, was a +tallowy woman who from time to time let several books slide from her lap +on to the floor—a piece of carelessness which always provoked the +audience to a lullaby of protest. In front of this lady were two Hindu +students with flowing orange ties; and just beyond her, in black velvet, +was a tall woman with a flat, pallid face, who gnawed alternately her +nails and the extinguished end of a cigarette. Then came a group of girl +students, all very much alike, all full of cocoa and the binomial +theorem; while the rest of the audience was made up of typists, clerks, +civil servants, copper-workers, palmists, nurses, Americans and poets, +all lending their ears to the speaker's words as in the Zoological +Gardens elephants, swaying gently, offer their trunks for buns. +Gradually, however, from this hotchpotch of types, the personality of +the speaker detached itself and was able to impress Jenny's attention. +Gradually, as she grew tired of watching the audience, she began to +watch Miss Ragstead and, after a critical appreciation of her +countenance, to make an attempt to comprehend the intention of the +discourse.</p> + +<p>Miss Constance Ragstead was a woman of about forty, possessing much of +the remote and chastened beauty that was evident in Miss Bailey. She, +too, was pale, not unhealthily, but with the impression of having lived +long in a rarefied atmosphere. Virginity has its fires, and Miss +Ragstead was an inheritor of the spirit which animated Saint Theresa and +Mary Magdalene of Pazzi. Her social schemes were crowned with aureoles, +her plans were lapped by tenuous gold flames. She<a name="page_262" id="page_262"></a> was a mystic of +humanity, one who from the contemplation of mortality in its individual +aspirations, had arrived at the acknowledgment of man as a perfect idea +and was able from his virtues to create her theogony. This woman's +presence implied the purification of ceaseless effort. Activity as +expressed by her was a sacrament. It conveyed the isolated solemnity of +a force that does not depend for its reality on human conceptions or +practical altruism. Her activity was a moral radium never consumed by +the expenditure of its energy; it was dynamic whether it effected little +or much. When she recalled the factory in which for a year she had +worked as a hand, the enterprise was hallowed with the romance of a +saint's pilgrimage. When she spoke of her green garden, where June had +healed the hearts of many young women, she seemed like an eremite in +whose consolation was absolute peace. Her voice was modulated with those +half-tones that thrushes ring upon the evening air; and since they were +produced suddenly with no hint of premeditation, the feeblest listener +was at some time inevitably waylaid.</p> + +<p>It was not astonishing Jenny should find herself caught in the melodious +twilight of the oration, should find that the craning audience was less +important than the speaker. She came to believe that Mona Lisa's smile +was kindlier. She began to take in some of the rhetoric of the +peroration:</p> + +<p>"I wish I could persuade you that, if our cause is a worthy cause, it +must exist and endure through the sanity of its adherents. It must never +depend upon the trivial eccentricities of a few. I want to see the +average woman fired with zeal to make the best of herself. I do not want +us to be contemptuously put aside as exceptions. Nor am I anxious to +recruit our strength from the discontented, the disappointed and the +disillusioned. Let us do away with the reproach that we voice a +minority's opinion. Let us preserve the grace and magic of womanhood, so +that with the spiritual power of virginity, the physical grandeur of +motherhood, in<a name="page_263" id="page_263"></a> a devoted phalanx huge as the army of Darius, we may +achieve our purpose."</p> + +<p>Here the speaker paused and, as if afraid she might be deemed to offer +counsels of pusillanimity, broke forth more passionately:</p> + +<p>"But because I wish to see our ambition succeed through the aggregate of +dignified opinion, I do not want to discredit or seek to dishearten the +advance-guard. Let us who represent the van of an army so mighty as to +be mute and inexpressive, let us, not thinking ourselves martyrs nor +displaying like Amazons our severed breasts, let us resolve to endure +ignominy and contempt, slander, disgrace and imprisonment. Some day men +will speak well of us; some day the shrieking sisterhood will be +forgotten, and those leaders of women whom to-day we alone venerate, +will be venerated by all. Pay no heed to that subtle propaganda of +passivity. Reject the lily-white counsels of moderation. Remember that +without visible audible agitation this phlegmatic people cannot be +roused. Therefore I call on you who murmur your agreement to join the +great march on Westminster. I implore you to be brave, to despise +calumny, to be careless of abuse and, because you believe you are in the +right, to alarm once more this blind and stolid mass of public opinion +with the contingency of your ultimate triumph."</p> + +<p>The speaker sat down, lost in the haze which shrouds a room full of +people deeply wrought by eloquence and emotion. There was a moment's +silence and then, after prolonged applause, the audience began to +babble.</p> + +<p>Jenny sat still. She had not listened to the reasoned arguments and +statistical illustrations of the main portion of the speech, nor had she +properly comprehended the peroration. Yet she was charged with resolves, +primed with determination and surgingly impelled to some sort of action. +She was the microcosm of a mob's awakening to the clarion of an orator. +A cataract of formless actions was thundering through her mind; the dam +of indifference had been burst by mere weight<a name="page_264" id="page_264"></a> of rhetoric, that +powerful dam proof against the tampering of logic. Perhaps she was +passing through the psychical crisis of conversion. Perhaps, in her dead +emotional state, anything that aroused her slightly would have aroused +her violently. No doubt a deep-voiced bishop could have secured a +similar result, had she been leaning against the cold stone of a +cathedral rather than the gray flock wall-paper of Mecklenburg Square.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to talk to her," she told Lilli.</p> + +<p>"She doesn't half stir you up, eh?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know so much about stirring up, Mrs. Pudding," said Jenny, +unwilling to admit any renascence of sensibility. "But I think she's +nice. I'd like to see what sort she'd be to talk to quiet."</p> + +<p>No opportunity for a conversation with Miss Ragstead presented itself +that evening; but Lilli, somewhat elated by the capture of Jenny, told +Miss Bailey of her admiration; and the president, who had been attracted +to the neophyte, promised to arrange a meeting. Lilli knew better than +to breathe a word to Jenny of any plan, and merely threw out a casual +suggestion to take tea at the club.</p> + +<p>So without any premonitory shyness Jenny found herself talking quite +easily in a corner of the tea-room to Miss Ragstead, who was not merely +persuasive with assemblages, but also acutely sympathetic with +individuals.</p> + +<p>"But I don't want a vote," Jenny was saying. "I shouldn't know what to +do with it. I don't see any use in it. My father's got one and it's a +regular nuisance. It keeps him out late every night."</p> + +<p>"My dear, you may not want a vote," said Miss Ragstead, "but I do, and I +want the help of girls like you to get it. I want to represent you. As +things are now, you have no say in the government of yourself. Tell me, +now, Jenny—I'm going to call you Jenny straight away—you wouldn't like +to be at the mercy of one man, would you?"</p> + +<p>"But I wouldn't. Not me," said Jenny. Yet somehow she spoke not quite so +bravely as once, and even as the assertion<a name="page_265" id="page_265"></a> was made, her heart throbbed +to a memory of Maurice. After all, she had been at the mercy of one man.</p> + +<p>"Of course you wouldn't," Miss Ragstead went on. "Well, we women who +want the vote have the same feeling. We don't like to be at the mercy of +men. I suppose you'd be horrified if I asked you to join our +demonstration in October?"</p> + +<p>"What, walk in procession?" Jenny gasped.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's not so very dreadful. Who would object? Your mother?"</p> + +<p>"She'd make fun of it, but that wouldn't matter. She'd make everyone +laugh to hear her telling about me in a procession."</p> + +<p>Jenny remembered how her mother had teased her father when she saw him +supporting a banner of the Order of Foresters on the occasion of a +beanfeast at Clacton.</p> + +<p>"Well, your lover?"</p> + +<p>Jenny looked sharply at Miss Ragstead to ascertain if she were laughing. +The word sent such a pang through her. It was a favorite word of +Maurice.</p> + +<p>"I haven't got one," she coldly answered.</p> + +<p>"No?" said Miss Ragstead, gently skeptical. "I can hardly believe that, +you know, for you surely must be a most attractive girl."</p> + +<p>"I did have one," said Jenny, surprised out of her reserve. "Only we +just ended it all of a sudden."</p> + +<p>"My dear," said Miss Ragstead softly, "I don't think you're a very happy +little girl. I'm sure you're not. Won't you tell me about it?"</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to tell. Men are rotters, that's all. If I thought I +could pay them out by being a suffragette, I'd be a suffragette."</p> + +<p>Jenny spoke with decision, pointing the avowal by flinging her cigarette +into the grate.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know that's a reason with some. But I don't think that revenge +is the best of reasons, somehow. I would rather you were convinced that +the movement is right."<a name="page_266" id="page_266"></a></p> + +<p>"If it annoys men, it must be right," Jenny argued. "Only I don't think +it does. I think they just laugh."</p> + +<p>"I see you're in a turbulent state of mind," Miss Ragstead observed. +"And I'm glad in a way, because it proves that you have temperament and +character. You ought to resent a wrong. Of course, I know you'll +disagree with me when I tell you that you're too young to be permanently +injured by any man—and, I think I might add, too proud."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am most shocking proud," Jenny admitted, looking down on the +floor and, as it were, regarding her character incarnate before her.</p> + +<p>"But it's just these problems of behavior under difficulties that our +club wants to solve. I'd like to put you on the road to express yourself +and your ambitions without the necessity of—say marriage for +convenience. You're a dancer, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Um, a ballet girl," said Jenny as usual, careful not to presume the +false grandeur of an isolated stellar existence.</p> + +<p>"Are you keen on your dancing?"</p> + +<p>"I was once. When I began. Only they crush you at the Orient. Girls +there hate to see you get on. I'm sick of it."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Miss Ragstead half to herself; "I wonder if active work +for the cause would give you a new zest for life. It might. You feel all +upside down just now, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"I feel as if nothing didn't matter. Not <i>any</i>thing," replied Jenny +decidedly.</p> + +<p>"That's terrible for a girl of your age. You can't be more than eighteen +or nineteen."</p> + +<p>"Twenty-one in October."</p> + +<p>"So much as that? Yes"—the older woman continued after a reflective +pause—"yes, I believe you want some spur, some excitement quite outside +your ordinary experience. You know I am a doctor, so without +impertinence I can fairly prescribe for you."</p> + +<p>"Well, what have I got to do?" Jenny asked. She was<a name="page_267" id="page_267"></a> almost fascinated +by this lady with her cool hands and deep-set, passionate eyes.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could invite you to spend some time with me in Somerset, but +I'm too busy now for a holiday. I feel rather uncertain whether, after +all, to advise you to plunge into the excitement of this demonstration. +And yet I'm sure it would be good for you. Dear child, I hope I'm not +giving bad advice," said Miss Ragstead earnestly as she leaned forward +and took hold of Jenny's hand.</p> + +<p>So it came about that Jenny was enrolled in the ranks of the great +demonstration that was to impress the autumnal session of Parliament. +She kept very quiet about her intention and no one, except Lilli, knew +anything about it. The worst preliminary was the purple, green and white +sash which contained her unlucky color. Indeed, at first she could +hardly be persuaded to put it across her shoulders. But when the booming +of the big drum marked the beat, she felt aflame with nervous +expectation and never bothered about the sash or the chance of casual +recognition.</p> + +<p>The rhythm of the march, the crashing of the band, the lilting motion, +the unreality of the crowds gaping on the pavements intoxicated her, and +she went swinging on to the tune in a dream of excitement. In the +narrower streets the music blazed with sound and fury of determination, +urging them on, inspiring them with indomitable energy, inexorable +progress. The tops of the houses here seemed to converge, blotting out +the sky; and Jenny felt that she was stationary, while they moved on +like the landscape of a cinematograph. As the procession swept into +Trafalgar Square with its great open space of London sky, the music +unconfined achieved a more poignant appeal and infected the mass of +arduous women with sentiment, making their temper the more dangerous. +The procession became a pilgrimage to some abstract nobility, to no set +place. Jenny was now bewitched by the steady motion into an almost +complete unconsciousness of the gaping sightseers, thought of them, if +she thought of them at all, as figures<a name="page_268" id="page_268"></a> in a fair-booth to be knocked +carelessly backwards as she passed, more vital than they were with their +painted grins.</p> + +<p>In Whitehall the air was again charged with anger. The tall banners far +ahead floated on airs of victory. The mounted women rode like +conquerors. Then for an instant as Jenny heard from one of the +pavement-watchers a coarse and mocking comment on the demonstration, she +thought the whole business mere matter for ridicule and recalled the +circus processions that flaunted through towns on sunny seaside holiday +mornings long ago. Soon, however, the tune reëstablished itself in her +brain, and once more she swept on to the noble achievement. The houses +grew taller than ever; faded into remote mists; quaked and shimmered as +if to a fall. Far down the line above the brass and drums was a sound of +screaming, a dull mutter of revolution, a wave of execration and +encouragement. The procession stopped dead: the music ceased in +discords. Two or three of the women fainted. The crowd on either side +suddenly came to life and pressed forward with hot, inquisitive breath. +Somewhere, a long way off, a leader shrieked, "Forward." Policemen were +conjured from the quivering throng. Somebody tore off Jenny's sash. +Somebody trod on her foot. The confusion increased. Nothing was left of +any procession: everyone was pushing, yelling, groaning, scratching, +struggling in a wreck of passions. Jenny was cut off from the +disorganized main body, was helpless in a mob of men. The police were +behaving with that magnificent want of discrimination which +characterizes their behavior in a crisis of disorder. Their tactics were +justified by success, and as they would rely on mutual support in the +official account of the riot, individual idiocy would escape censure.</p> + +<p>In so far as Jenny was pushing her way out of the mob, was seeking +desperately to gain the sanctuary of a side street and forever escape +from feminine demonstrations, she was acting in a way likely to cause a +breach of the peace. So it was not surprising that a young plough-boy +lately invested with an uniform should feel impelled to arrest her.<a name="page_269" id="page_269"></a></p> + +<p>"Now then, you come along of me," commanded the yokel as a blush ebbed +and flowed upon his cheeks glistening with down and perspiration.</p> + +<p>"Who are you pushing, you?" cried Jenny, enraged to find her arm in the +tight grasp of a podgy, freckled hand.</p> + +<p>"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," he declared.</p> + +<p>"Don't you speak to me, you. Why, what <i>are</i> you? Invisible blue when +you're wanted. Let go of me. I won't be held. I wasn't doing anything. I +was going home. Let go."</p> + +<p>The young policeman, disinclined to risk the adventure single-handed, +looked around for a fellow-constable to assist at the conveyance of +Jenny to the station. All his companions, however, seemed busily engaged +tugging at recalcitrant women; and instead of being congratulated on his +first arrest, a well-groomed man, white with rage, shouted: "Look here, +you blackguard, I've got your number and I'll have your coat off for +this. This lady was doing absolutely nothing but trying to escape from +the crowd."</p> + +<p>The young policeman looked about him once more with watery, +unintelligent eyes. He was hoping that someone would arrest the +well-groomed man; but as nobody did, and as the latter was not unlike +the Captain of the Volunteer Company from whose ranks he had climbed +into the force, the novice released his grip of Jenny and said:</p> + +<p>"Now, you be off. You won't get another chance."</p> + +<p>"No, you turnip-headed bumpkin," shouted the well-groomed man, "nor will +you, when I've had five minutes at Scotland Yard. I'm going to watch +you, my friend. You're not fit for a position of responsibility."</p> + +<p>Jenny, free of the crowd, walked through the peace of Whitehall Court +and promised herself that never again would she have anything to do with +suffragettes.</p> + +<p>"Soppy fools," she thought, "they can't do nothing. They can only +jabber, jabber." She reproached herself for imagining it was possible to +consummate a revenge on man by such<a name="page_270" id="page_270"></a> means. She had effected nothing but +the exposure of her person to the freckled paws of a policeman.</p> + +<p>"Not again," said Jenny to herself, "not ever again will I be such a +silly, soppy idiot."</p> + +<p>In the distance she could still hear the shouting of the riot; but as +she drew nearer to Charing Cross railway station, the noise of trains +took its place.<a name="page_271" id="page_271"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a>Chapter XXVII: <i>Quartette</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">S</span>UFFRAGISM viewed in retrospect was shoddy embroidery for the <i>vie +intérieure</i> of Jenny. There was no physical exhilaration for her in +wrestling with policemen, and the intellectual excitement of controversy +would never be likely to appeal to a mind naturally unfitted for +argument. There was, too, about her view of the whole business something +of Myrrhine's contempt. She may have been in an abnormal condition of +acute hostility to the opposite sex; but as soon as she found herself in +a society whose antipathy towards men seemed to be founded on inability +to attract the hated male, all her common sense cried out against +committing herself to such a devil-driven attitude. She felt that +something must be wrong with so obviously an ineffective aggregation of +Plain Janes. She was not concerned with that unprovided-for surplus of +feminine population. She had no acquaintance with that asceticism +produced by devotion to the intellect. She perceived, though not +consciously, the inherent weakness of the whole movement in its failure +to supply an emotional substitute for more elemental passions.</p> + +<p>Jenny was shrewd enough to understand that leaders like Miss Bailey and +Miss Ragstead were logically justified in demanding a vote. She could +understand that they would be able to use it to some purpose; but at the +same time she realized that to the majority of women a vote would be +merely an encumbrance. Jenny also saw through the folly of agitation +that must depend for success on equality of physique, and half divined +that the prime cause of such extravagance lay<a name="page_272" id="page_272"></a> in the needs of feminine +self-expression. Nuns are wedded to Christ; suffragists, with the +notable exceptions of those capable of sustaining an intellectual +predominance, must remain spiritual old maids. As Jenny asked, "What do +they all want?" Very soon the inhabitants of Mecklenburg Square became +as unreal as unicorns, and the whole episode acquired the reputation of +an interlude of unaccountable madness from the memory of which the +figure of Miss Ragstead stood out cool and tranquil and profoundly sane. +Jenny would in a way have been glad to meet her again; but she was too +shy to suggest meeting outside the domain of the Women's Political, +Social and Economic League, and their auspices were now unimaginable. In +order to avoid the whole subject, Jenny began to avoid Lilli Vergoe; and +very soon, partly owing to the opportunities of propinquity, partly +owing to a renewed desire for it, her friendship with Irene Dale was +reconstituted on a firmer basis than before.</p> + +<p>Six months had now elapsed since that desolate first of May. The ballet +of Cupid was taken off about the same time, and the occupation of +rehearsing for a new one had steered Jenny through the weeks immediately +following Maurice's defection. She was now dancing in a third ballet in +which she took so little interest that no account of it is necessary. +The pangs of outraged love were drugged to painlessness by time. From a +superficial standpoint the wounds were healed, that is, if a dull +insensibility to the original cause of the evil be a cure. Jenny no +longer missed Maurice on particular occasions, and, having grown used to +his absence, was not aware she missed him in a wider sense. Love so +impassioned as theirs, love lived through in moments of individual +ecstasy, was in the verdict of average comment a disease; but average +comment failed to realize that, like the scarlet fever of her youth, its +malignant influence would be extended in complications of abnormal +emotional states. Average comment did not perceive that the worst +tragedies of unhappy love are not those which end with death or +separation. Nor did Jenny<a name="page_273" id="page_273"></a> herself foresee the train of ills that in the +wake of such a shock to her feelings would be liable to twist her whole +life awry.</p> + +<p>With Maurice she had embarked on the restless ocean of an existence +lived at unusually high pressure. She had conjured for her soul dreams +of adventure, fiery-hearted dreams which would not be satisfied by the +awakening of common-place dawns. Time had certainly assuaged with his +heavy anodyne the intimate desire for her lover; but time would rather +aggravate than heal the universal need of her womanhood. These six +months of seared emotions and withered hopes were a trance from which +she would awake on the very flashing heels of the last mental and +physical excitement.</p> + +<p>It was said in the last chapter that a less sincere heart would have +been caught on the rebound. Those hearts are dragged but a little way +down into the depths of misery; for such have not fallen from great +heights. Jenny on the first of May fell straight and deep as a plummet +to the bed of the ocean of despair, there to lie long submerged. But to +one who had rejected death, life would not hold out oblivion. Life with +all its cold insistence called her once more to the surface; thence to +make for whatever beach chance should offer. Jenny, scarcely conscious +of any responsibleness for her first struggles, clutched at +suffragism—a support for which life never intended her. However, it +served to help her ashore; and now, with some of the cynicism that +creeps into the adventurer's life, she looked around for new adventures. +Her desire to revenge herself on men was superseded by anxiety to +rediscover the savor of living. Her instinct was now less to hurt others +than to indulge herself. A year's abstention from the episodic existence +spent by Irene and her before Maurice had created an illusion of +permanence, had given that earlier time a romantic charm; and a revival +of it seemed fraught with many possibilities of a more widely extended +wonder. One evening late in October she asked Irene casually, as if +there had been no interval of desuetude, whether she were coming out. To +this inquiry her friend, without any manifestation of surprise, +answered<a name="page_274" id="page_274"></a> in the affirmative. It was characteristic of both girls, this +manner of resuming a friendship.</p> + +<p>Now began a period not worth a detailed chronicle, since it was merely a +repetition of a period already discussed—a repetition, moreover, that +like most anachronisms seemed after other events jejune and somewhat +tawdry. The young men were just as young as those of earlier years; but +Irene and Jenny were older and, if before they had found it hard to +tolerate these ephemeral encounters, they found it harder still now. The +result of this was that, where once a single whisky and soda was enough, +now three or four scarcely availed to pass away the time. Neither of the +girls drank too much in more than a general sense, but it was an omen of +flying youth when whiskies were invoked to give an edge to existence.</p> + +<p>One evening they sat in the Café d'Afrique, laughing to each other over +the physical and social oddities of two Norwegians who had constituted +themselves their hosts on the strength of a daring stage-door +introduction. As Jenny paused in her laughter to catch some phrase of +melody in the orchestra, she saw Castleton drawing near their table. He +stopped in doubt, and looked at her from wide, gray eyes very eager +under eyebrows arched in a question. She returned his gaze without a +flicker of recognition, and, bowing imperceptibly, he passed out into +the night. The doors swung together behind him, and Jenny, striking a +match from the stand on the table, set the whole box alight to distract +Irene's attention from what she feared in the blush of a memory.</p> + +<p>"Come on; let's go," she said to her friend.</p> + +<p>So the girls left the two Norwegians desolate and volubly +unintelligible.</p> + +<p>One morning in November Irene came into Jenny's room at Stacpole +Terrace.</p> + +<p>"My Danby's coming home this week," she announced. "And his brother, +too."</p> + +<p>Jenny often thought to herself that Danby was a riddle. It was four +years now since he and Irene had been reputed in<a name="page_275" id="page_275"></a> love; yet nothing +seemed to have happened since the day when for a fancy he dressed his +sweetheart in short frocks. Here he was coming back from France as he +had come back time after time in company with his brother, at the notion +of meeting whom Jenny had always scoffed.</p> + +<p>"What of it?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Now don't be nasty, young Jenny. I shall be glad to see him."</p> + +<p>"I suppose this means every minute you can get together for a fortnight, +and then he'll be off again for six months. Why doesn't he marry you?"</p> + +<p>"He's going to," Irene asserted, twisting the knob on the corner of the +bed round and round until it squeaked. "But I don't want to get married, +not yet."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, it's only a rumor. Why ever not? If I loved a fellow as you +think you love Danby, I'd get married quick enough."</p> + +<p>"Well, you didn't——"</p> + +<p>"That's enough of you," said Jenny, sitting up in bed. "No, I know I +didn't. But that was different."</p> + +<p>"Why was it different? My Danby's a gentleman."</p> + +<p>"Yes, when he's asleep. He <i>can't</i> be much or he wouldn't have dressed +you up such a sight. I'd like to see a man make such a poppy-show of +me," cried Jenny, indignant at the recollection of the incident.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, he doesn't do it now," said Irene pacifically. "Aren't you +coming out with us?"</p> + +<p>"You're very free all of a sudden with your Danby," Jenny continued +mockingly. "I remember when you was afraid for your life some girl would +carry him off under your nose. Yet you let him go all the time to +France. I think you're silly."</p> + +<p>Jenny could not refrain from teasing Irene. The habit was firmly +established and, although she had not now the sense of outraged +independence which prompted her attitude in old days, she kept it up +because such rallying was easier than sympathetic attention.<a name="page_276" id="page_276"></a></p> + +<p>"His brother Jack says he'd like to meet you."</p> + +<p>Jenny laughed derisively.</p> + +<p>"I thought you weren't giving your Danby away with a pound of nothing. +Do you remember when I used to call Jack Danby 'Tin Ribs the Second,' +and you used to get so ratty?"</p> + +<p>"Well, what a liberty," said Irene, laughing at the now almost forgotten +insult.</p> + +<p>Towards the dripping fog-stained close of November Arthur and Jack Danby +arrived from Paris and, tall as lamp-posts, waited for the two girls at +the top of the court in Jermyn Street. It did not strike Jenny at the +time that the appointment seemed girt with intrigue, as if whispers had +gone to the making of it, whispers that voiced a deceitful purpose in +her friend. Jenny had often arraigned the methods of Mrs. Dale and +denounced the encouragement of Winnie and Irene in any association whose +profit transcended its morality. But she never really understood Irene, +and her teasing was a sign of this. Under the circumstances of lovers +reunited, she accepted her place at Jack Danby's side without suspicion; +and was only dimly aware of the atmosphere of satisfaction which clung +to the two brothers and her friend.</p> + +<p>In the bronzed glow of the Trocadero grill-room she had an opportunity +of studying the two men, and because the result of this was a decided +preference for Jack, she lost any suspicion of a plot, and appeared +almost to enjoy his company.</p> + +<p>All Arthur Danby's features, even his ears, seemed excessively pointed, +while his thinness and length of limb accentuated this peaked effect of +countenance. His complexion had preserved the clearness of youth, but +had become waxy from dissipation, and in certain lights was feathered +with fine lines that looked like scratches on a smooth surface. His +eyelids were puffy and tinged slightly round the rims with a redness +which was the more obvious from the vivid light blue eyes it surrounded. +A certain diabolic strangeness redeemed the whole effect from mere +unpleasantness. Jack Danby was not so tall<a name="page_277" id="page_277"></a> as his brother, and his +features were less sharply pointed, although they were as clearly +defined. He had similar eyes of almost cobalt blue when contrasted with +the dead whiteness of a skin that gave the impression of being powdered. +The younger brother's eyes preserved more fire and seemed under the +influence of a suggestive conversation to be lighted up from behind in a +way that sent a sudden breathlessness through many women. Jenny, when +she looked at him full, was aware less of his eyes than of her own, +which seemed to her to be kindling in the dry sparks that were radiated +by his; and even as she felt scorched by the brain which was thus +expressed, her own eyes would melt, as it were, to meet appropriately +the liquid softness that succeeded. His lips were never remarkably red, +and as the evening advanced they adopted the exact shade of his +complexion, which from paleness took on the lifeless monotone of color +that is seen in the rain-soaked petal of a pink rose. Danby's mouth +curved upwards, and when he smiled, he only smiled on one side of his +face. The immediate expression he conveyed was that of profound +lassitude changed by any topic of sly licentiousness to a startling +concentration.</p> + +<p>A pictorial representation of the party would have some decorative +value. The two brothers had ordered red mullet, which lay scattered +about their plates in mingled hues of cornelian, rose and tarnished +copper. Their wine was Lacrima Christi of the precise tint to carry on +the scheme of color. Jenny and Irene were drinking champagne whose pale +amber sparkled against the prevailing luster, contrasting and lightening +the arrangement of metallic tints, just as Jenny's fair hair set off and +was at the same time enhanced by Irene's copper-brown. As a group of +revellers the four of them composed into a rich enough study in <i>genre</i>, +and the fanciful observer would extract from the position of the two men +a certain potentiality for romantic events as, somewhat hunched and +looking up from down-turned heads, they both sat with legs outstretched +to the extent of their length. The more imaginative<a name="page_278" id="page_278"></a> observer would +perceive in the group something unhealthy, something <i>faisandé</i>, an air +of too deliberate enjoyment that seemed to imply a perfect knowledge of +the limitations of human pleasure. These men and girls aimed no arrow of +fleeting gayety to pierce in a straight, sharp course the heart of the +present. Sophistication clung to them, and weariness. That senescent +October moon which a year ago marked the end of love's halcyon would +have been a suitable light for such a party. Jenny herself had gone back +to that condition of cynicism which before the days of Maurice was due +to ignorance, but was now a profounder cynicism based on experience. +Irene had always been skeptical of emotional heights, had always +accepted life sensually without much enthusiasm either for the +gratification or the denial of her ambitions. As for the two men, they +had grown thin on self-indulgence.</p> + +<p>"Fill up your glasses, girls," said Arthur.</p> + +<p>"Fill up," echoed Jack. "Is there time for another bottle?" he added +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"This cheese is very good," commented Arthur.</p> + +<p>"Delicious," the other agreed.</p> + +<p>"You two seem to think of nothing but eating and drinking," said Jenny +distastefully.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, we think of other things, don't we, Jack?" contradicted the +older brother, with a sort of frigid relish.</p> + +<p>"Rather," the younger one corroborated, looking sideways at Jenny.</p> + +<p>"We must have a good time this winter," Arthur announced. "We needn't go +back to Paris for a month or two. We must have a good time at our flat +in Victoria."</p> + +<p>"London's a much wickeder city than Paris," said Jack, addressing the +air like some pontiff of vice. "I like these November nights with shapes +of women looming up through the fog. A friend of mine——" As Jack Danby +descended to personal reminiscence, he lost his sinister power and +became mean and common. "When I say friend—I should say business +friend, eh, Arthur?" he asked, smiling on the side of his<a name="page_279" id="page_279"></a> face nearer +to his brother. "Well, he's a lord as a matter of fact," he continued in +accents of studied indifference.</p> + +<p>"Tell the girls about him," urged his brother, and "Fill up your +glasses," he murmured as, leaning back in his chair, he seemed to fade +away into clouds of smoke blown from a very long, thin and black cigar.</p> + +<p>"This lord—I won't tell you his name——" said Jack, "he wanders about +in fogs until he meets a shape that attracts him. Then he hands her a +velvet mask, and takes her home. What an imagination," chuckled the +narrator.</p> + +<p>"Well, I call him a dirty rotter," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Do you?" asked Jack, as if struck by the novelty of such a point of +view.</p> + +<p>The lights were being extinguished now. The quenching of the orange +illumination, and the barren waste of empty tables gave the grill-room a +raffish look which consorted well with the personalities of the two +brothers. The party broke up in the abrupt fashion of England, and +within a few minutes of sitting comfortably round a richly lighted +supper-table, the two girls were seated in a dark taxi on the way to +Camden Town.</p> + +<p>"How do you like Jack Danby?" Irene inquired.</p> + +<p>"He's all right. Only I don't know—I think if I'd met him last year I'd +have thought him a swine. I think I must be turning funny. What are +they—these long friends of yours?" she added, after a pause. "What do +they do in Paris?"</p> + +<p>"They bring out books," Irene informed her.</p> + +<p>"Books?" echoed Jenny. "What sort of books?"</p> + +<p>"Ordinary books, I suppose," said Irene, slightly huffed by Jenny's +contemptuous incredulity.</p> + +<p>"Well, what do they want to live in Paris for, if they're ordinary +books?"</p> + +<p>"That's where their business is."</p> + +<p>"Funny place to do a business in ordinary books."<a name="page_280" id="page_280"></a></p> + +<p>"I don't see why."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, it doesn't matter. But <i>I</i> think it's funny, that's all. You +<i>are</i> deep, Irene."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said Irene, looking out of the window at the waves of light +that broke against the window with each passing street lamp. "You always +say that, but I'm not near so deep as what you are."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are, because I'm always catching you out in a lie <i>which</i> you +don't me."</p> + +<p>"No, because I'm not so nosy."</p> + +<p>"Now don't be silly and get in a paddy about nothing," Jenny advised. +"You can't help having funny friends. Only what I can't understand is +myself. I think they're both beasts, and yet I'd like to see them again. +That's where I'm funny, I think."</p> + +<p>Irene assumed an attitude of lofty indifference.</p> + +<p>"There's no need for you to see them again, if you don't like them. Only +they give you a good time, and Arthur gave me some glorious rings."</p> + +<p>"<i>Which</i> your mother pawned," interrupted Jenny.</p> + +<p>"And he's going to marry me," Irene persisted.</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you get married after dinner when he's drunk."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, what of it? You're not so clever as what you make out to be."</p> + +<p>"That's quite right," said Jenny, lapsing into a gloom of introspection.</p> + +<p>Lying awake that night in the bewilderment of a new experience, the +image of Jack Danby recurred to her like the pale image of a sick dream +at once repulsive and perilously attractive. Time after time she would +drive him from her mind, but as fast as he was banished, his slim face +would obtrude itself from another quarter. He would peep from behind the +musty curtains, he would take form in the wavering gray shadow thrown +upon the ceiling by the gas. He would slide round pictures and +materialize from the heap of clothes on the wicker arm-chair by the +bed.<a name="page_281" id="page_281"></a></p> + +<p>One other image could have contended with him; but that image had been +finally exorcised by six months of mental discipline. All that was left +of Maurice was the fire he had kindled, the fire of passion that, lying +dormant since his desertion, was now burning luridly in Jenny's heart.<a name="page_282" id="page_282"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a>Chapter XXVIII: <i>St. Valentine's Eve</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>HE supper at the Trocadero only marked the first of many such evenings +spent in the company of Irene and the two brothers. However much one +side of Jenny's character might despise Jack Danby, to another side he +was strangely soothing. When she was beside Maurice, every moment used +to be haunted by its own ghost, bitter-sweet with the dread of finality. +Danby's effect was that of a sedative drug whose action, however +grateful at the time, is loathed in retrospect, until deprivation renews +desire. Jenny found herself longing to sit near him and was fretful in +his absence because, not being in love with him, he did not occupy her +meditations pleasantly. He was worth nothing to her without the sense of +contact. He was a bad habit: under certain conditions of opportunity in +association he might become a vice.</p> + +<p>Evolution, in providence for the perpetuation of the species, has kept +woman some thousands of years nearer to animals than man. Hence their +inexplicableness to the majority of the opposite sex. Men have built up +a convention of fastidious woman to flatter their own sexual rivalry. +Woman is relinquished as a riddle when she fails to conform to masculine +standards of behavior. Man is accustomed to protest that certain +debased—or rather highly specialized—types of his own sex are +unreasonably attractive. He generally fails to perceive that when a +woman cannot find a man who is able to stimulate her imagination, she +often looks for another who will gratify her senses.</p> + +<p>Maurice was never the lover corresponding most nearly<a name="page_283" id="page_283"></a> with an ideal of +greensick maiden dreams. Jenny's sensibility had not been stultified by +these emotional ills, so that when he crossed her horizon, she loved him +sanely without prejudice. She made him sovereign of her destiny because +he seemed to her fit for power. He completely satisfied her imagination; +and, having made a woman of her, he left a libertine to reap what he had +sown.</p> + +<p>Jack Danby possessed the sly patience of an accomplished rake. He never +alarmed Jenny with suggestions of escort, with importunity of embraces. +His was the stealthy wooing of inactivity and smoldering eyes. He would +let slip no occasion for interpreting life to the disadvantage of +virtue; he was always sensually insistent. He and his brother, offspring +of a lady's maid and an old demirep, owed to their inheritance of a +scabrous library the foundations of material prosperity. They owed also +their corrupt breed which, through some paradox of healing, might be +valuable to women in the mood for oblivion whom the ordinary anæsthetics +of memory had failed.</p> + +<p>One Saturday night early in January, Arthur suggested that the two girls +should come to tea and spend the evening at the flat in Victoria. Irene +looked at Jenny, and Jenny nodded her approval of the plan.</p> + +<p>Greycoat Gardens lay between the Army and Navy Stores and Vincent +Square. The windows at the back looked out over the playground of an +old-fashioned charity school, and the roof made a wave in that sea of +roofs visible from the studio window in Grosvenor Road. But that was ten +months ago.</p> + +<p>When Jenny and Irene reached the Gardens, the mud-splashed January +darkness had already fallen; but for some reason the entrance-hall of +the block containing the Danbys' flat was not yet lighted up. It seemed +cavernous and chill; the stone stairs were repellent and the whole air +full of hollow warnings. Half-way up, a watery exhalation filtered +through the frosted glass of a flat's front door in a cold effulgence<a name="page_284" id="page_284"></a> +which added eerily to the lifelessness of all the other doors. The +Danbys lived at the very top, and it took all Irene's powers of +persuasion to induce Jenny to complete the ascent. At last, however, +they gained their destination and immediately on the shrilling of an +electric bell walked through a narrow hall misty with the fumes of +Egyptian cigarettes. The sitting-room looked cosy with its deep crimson +paper and fireglow and big arm-chairs heaped with downy cushions. Yet +the atmosphere had the sickly oppression of an opiate, and it did not +take Jenny long to pull back the purple velvet curtains and throw open +the window to the raw winter night.</p> + +<p>"It's like being in a bottle of port in this room. Phew! I shall have a +most shocking headache soon," she prophesied.</p> + +<p>"Won't you leave your coats and things in my room?" said Jack Danby.</p> + +<p>"That's not such a dusty idea. Come on, young Ireen."</p> + +<p>The two girls followed their host to his room which was hung with rose +du Barri draperies prodigally braided with gold.</p> + +<p>"What a glorious room," cried Jenny.</p> + +<p>"You think so?" asked its owner.</p> + +<p>"Rather."</p> + +<p>The evening passed away without any development of the situation. The +girls looked at books and pictures according to the custom of first +visits, and drank Green Chartreuse after the supper which they had +helped to lay. They also smoked many fat Egyptian cigarettes during an +evening of heavy silences, broken by the crunch of subsiding coal and +occasional cries that floated in from neighboring slums across the +stillness of a wet Sunday night.</p> + +<p>As Jenny paused on the step of the taxi that was to drive them home, +Jack Danby held her hand very tightly.</p> + +<p>"You'll come again?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>After this first visit Jenny and Irene spent almost every afternoon at +the flat in Greycoat Gardens. Jenny liked the<a name="page_285" id="page_285"></a> sensation of Jack Danby +brushing against her, of the sudden twitches he would give her hands, +nor did she resent an unexpected kiss with which he once burnt her neck +as she leaned over the table looking at a portfolio of Lancret's +engravings.</p> + +<p>Arthur Danby went back to Paris in advance of his brother, and Jenny +fell into the habit of visiting the flat alone. Jack still never +startled her with sudden importunities, never suggested the existence of +another point of view beside her own. He seemed perfectly content to +watch her enjoyment of his luxury and heavy comfort.</p> + +<p>One Sunday afternoon in the middle of February—St. Valentine's Eve, to +be precise—when the snowdrops drift in myriads across the London parks, +Jenny went to pay her farewell visit. Jack Danby was leaving England on +the next day to rejoin his brother in Paris. Before she came away from +Stacpole Terrace, Jenny had arranged for Irene to pick her up in the +course of the evening, so that they could go back together. For some +reason she was very particular in exacting a strict promise from Irene +not to fail her.</p> + +<p>"What a fuss about nothing," grumbled her friend.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, Ireen, I don't like coming back alone on a Sunday +night. I hate Sunday, and you know it."</p> + +<p>Jenny, buried in a big arm-chair, dozed away the afternoon as usual and +after tea sat staring into the fire, while Danby from the hearthrug +assiduously stroked the slim white hand that drooped listlessly over an +arm of the chair. A steady drench of rain had set in with the dusk, and, +being close under the roof, they could hear the gurgle and hiss of the +flooded gutters. Neither of them made a move to turn on the electric +light or stir the lowering fire to flame. Danby even denied himself +three or four cigarettes so that the magnetic current of sensuousness +should not be interrupted. Inch by inch he drew closer to Jenny, sliding +noiselessly over the thick fur of the rug. He was now near enough to +kiss slowly her bare forearm and separately each supple finger. Jenny +leaned back unconscious of him, though remotely pleased by his kisses, +in<a name="page_286" id="page_286"></a> her dull hell of memory where repressed inclinations smoldered like +the fire on which her eyes were fixed. What a fool she had been for the +sake of a silly powerlessness to take the plunge. It was bound to be +taken in the end—with someone. But Maurice was a rotter, and would he +after all have been worthy of the ultimate sacrifice? Would he not have +tired and put her under an even more severe humiliation? Toys were good +enough for Maurice. It was ridiculous to make life a burden for the sake +of one man. Twenty-two next October. How quickly the years were flying. +So, in a maze of speculation, regret and resolution, Jenny lay back in +the deep arm-chair while Jack Danby drugged her with kisses. She drew +her arm away at last, feeling hungry in a vague way.</p> + +<p>"What's the time?" she asked, yawning.</p> + +<p>"It must be after nine."</p> + +<p>"Good lord, and we haven't had supper yet."</p> + +<p>"Are we going to wait for Irene?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Not for supper. She is late. I won't half tell her off."</p> + +<p>Danby had risen from the hearth-rug and turned on the light. Jenny was +poking the fire vigorously.</p> + +<p>"I've got <i>pâté de foie gras"</i> he informed her.</p> + +<p>"Ugh, what horrible-looking stuff," she said.</p> + +<p>"Don't you like it?"</p> + +<p>"I never tried it."</p> + +<p>"Try now," Danby urged.</p> + +<p>"No, thanks, it looks like bad butter."</p> + +<p>The rain increased in volume as the evening wore on. Still Irene did not +come. It struck eleven o'clock, and Jenny said she could wait no longer.</p> + +<p>"I'll get a cab," said Danby.</p> + +<p>"No; don't leave me here all alone," cried Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Why should you go home at all to-night?" Danby breathed in a parched +whisper.</p> + +<p>Jenny pressed her face against the jet-black window-pane and suddenly +away beyond Westminster there was a low bourdon of thunder.<a name="page_287" id="page_287"></a></p> + +<p>"Stay with me," pleaded Danby; "it's such a night for love."</p> + +<p>"Who cares?" murmured Jenny. "I've only myself to think about."</p> + +<p>"What did you say?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"But you will stay?"</p> + +<p>She nodded.<a name="page_288" id="page_288"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXIX" id="XXIX"></a>Chapter XXIX: <i>Columbine at Dawn</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">C</span>OLUMBINE, leaden-eyed, sat up in the strange room, where over an +unfamiliar chair lay huddled all her clothes. Through the luminous white +fog of dawn a silver sun, breasting the house-tops, gleamed very large. +Wan with a thousand meditations, seeming frail as the mist of St. +Valentine's morning, suddenly she flung herself deep into the pillow +and, buried thus, lay motionless like a marionette whose wire has +snapped.<a name="page_289" id="page_289"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXX" id="XXX"></a>Chapter XXX: <i>Lugete, O Veneres</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>HE silver dawn was softened to a mother-of-pearl morning that seemed +less primal than autumnal. When Danby came into the sitting-room, he +found Jenny, fully dressed for departure, crouched over the ashes of +last night's fire. He had a pinched, unwholesome look so early in the +day, and was peevish because Jenny's presence kept him from summoning +the housekeeper to bring up breakfast.</p> + +<p>"We must get something to eat," he said.</p> + +<p>"I don't want anything," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"I've got a headache."</p> + +<p>Danby tried to appear sympathetic; but his hands so early were cold as +fish, and his touch made Jenny shrink.</p> + +<p>"What a nuisance packing is. I've got a fearful lot to do to get to +Charing Cross in time for the boat train."</p> + +<p>Like many other people he tried to demonstrate his sympathy by enlarging +on his own trials.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Jenny, regarding him from eyes pinpointed with revulsion in +a critical survey that was not softened by the gray morning light, for +whatever silkiness clung to the outside air was lost in the stale room.</p> + +<p>"I wish I hadn't got to go away," said Danby awkwardly.</p> + +<p>"Why?" Jenny asked, screwing up her eyes as if she had perceived upon +the wall an unpleasant insect.</p> + +<p>"Well, it seems a pity now that we've—we've got to know each other +better."</p> + +<p>"You don't think," said Jenny, chiseling the words from<a name="page_290" id="page_290"></a> the very +bedrock of her contempt, "you <i>don't</i> think that because I've been in +your flat all a night, you know me? Why, I don't know myself even."</p> + +<p>"Aren't you going to come and see me off?" he asked in a ludicrous +attempt at sentiment.</p> + +<p>"See you off? See you off? Oh yes, that's a game of mine seeing off +clothes-props. If you can't move," she added, "I can. Let me pass, +please."</p> + +<p>Jenny walked towards the door of the contaminated flat followed by Danby +in a state of weak bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"You'll write to me, little girl?" he asked, making a motion to detain +her hand.</p> + +<p>"You seem to think I'm struck on you," she rapped out. "But I'm not."</p> + +<p>"Well, why did you——"</p> + +<p>"Ah, Mr. Enquire Within," she interrupted, "you're right. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Surely," he persisted, "the first person who——"</p> + +<p>"The first! Hark at Mr. Early Bird. If you go out with your long soppy +self like that, you'll miss your train. Ching-a-ling."</p> + +<p>So Jenny parted from Mr. Jack Danby as long ago she had parted from Mr. +Terence O'Meagh of the Royal Leinster Fusiliers. It was typical of her +pride that, in order to rob Danby of any satisfaction in his +achievement, she should prefer to let him assume he was merely one of a +crowd, a commonplace incident in her progress. Anything seemed more +suitable to the fancy of such a despicable creature than the +self-congratulation of the pioneer.</p> + +<p>Yet, though she bore herself so bravely from the hated room which had +witnessed the destruction of her inaccessibility, when she was seated +alone in the taxi whirring back to Camden Town, Jenny was very near to +an emotional collapse. This was averted by an instinct to review the +several aspects of the experience. The actual event, happening in the +normal course of a temperament's advance to completeness, scarcely<a name="page_291" id="page_291"></a> +distressed her. On the other hand, the circumstances and actors were +abhorrent. The very existence of the Danbys was an outrage, and as for +Irene, her behavior was treachery incarnate. What added bitterness to +her meditations was the reflection that, however contemptuous she might +show herself of the two brothers, they, with Irene to voice their +absence, would have the laugh on their side. From one point of view it +had been a skillful seduction effected with the deliberation of use. +Jenny was maddened by the thought that Irene would believe she had been +unable to avoid it, that she had been bewitched by Jack Danby's +dissolute accomplishments. She would never be able to impress Irene's +stolidity with the fact that she had used Danby for her own purpose. +Irene would be bound to consider the wretched business a justification +of her own dependence on the elder brother. She would triumph with +damaging retorts, pointing out the fallibility of other girls when +brought beneath the Danby sway, citing Jenny in a manner that would +infuriate her with the impotence of argument. All larger issues were +obscured by this petty annoyance, and at first her regrets were confined +to wishing she had played the inevitable drama of womanhood in some +secret place with only her own soul for audience. Why had she stayed at +Greycoat Gardens last night?</p> + +<p>After the first vexation of her loss of prestige, deeper commentaries +upon the act wrote themselves across her mind. She had intended, while +her mother was still alive, to be rigidly unassailable. There was +weakness in her failure to sustain this resolution, and Jenny loathed +weakness. What had made her carry this experience through against the +finest influence upon her life? Well, it was done; but the knowledge of +it must be kept from her mother. Regrets were foolish; yet she would +make some reparation. She would go and live at home again and, before +anything, please her mother for a long time to come. She would be extra +nice to May. She would be—in parental terminology—a really good girl.</p> + +<p>Whatever agony Maurice's love had caused her to bear, this<a name="page_292" id="page_292"></a> sacrifice of +her youth upon a tawdry altar had finally and effectually deadened. She +could meet without a tremor now the cause of all the miserable business. +Things might have been different, were fidelity an imaginable virtue. +But it was all over now; she had consummated the aspirations of youth. +There should be an end of love henceforth. For what it was worth of +bitter and sweet, she had known it. No longer was the viceroy of human +destiny a riddle. He had lost his wings and lay like a foundling in the +gutter. No more of such a sorry draggled god for her. Jenny's ambition +now was in reconciliation with her mother to be reëstablished in the +well-beloved house in Hagworth Street, and in affection for old familiar +things to forget the wild adventures of passion.</p> + +<p>The taxi swept on down the Hampstead Road until it turned off on the +right to Camden Town, whose curious rococo squares mildewed and queerly +ornamented seemed the abode of a fantastic depression. For all the +sunlight of St. Valentine, the snowdrops looked like very foolish +virgins as they shivered in the wind about the blackened grass, good +sport for idle sparrows. The impression of faded wickedness made on +Jenny's mind by Stacpole Terrace that morning suited her disgust. Every +window in the row of houses was askew, cocking a sinister eye at her +reappearance. Every house looked impure with a smear of green damp over +the stucco. Stacpole Terrace wore an air of battered gayety fit only for +sly entrances at twilight and furtive escapes in the dawn; while in one +of the front gardens a stone Cupid with broken nose smirked perpetually +at whatever shady intrigue came under his patronage.</p> + +<p>It was nearly eleven o'clock when Jenny, entering the sitting-room, +found Irene bunched sloppily over the fire. Mrs. Dale and her youngest +daughter were busy in the kitchen. Winnie was not yet out of bed, and +the head of the family was studying in the dust of his small apartment +the bargains advertised in yesterday's paper.<a name="page_293" id="page_293"></a></p> + +<p>"Why didn't you call for me last night?" Jenny demanded straight and +swift.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, it was too wet," grumbled Irene, covering as well as she +could her shame with nonchalance.</p> + +<p>"Ireen, I think you're a rotter. I think you're real mean, and nothing +won't ever make me believe you didn't do it for the purpose. Too wet!"</p> + +<p>Irene declined to admit herself in the wrong.</p> + +<p>"Well, it was too wet. You could easy have come home in a taxi if you'd +wanted to."</p> + +<p>Jenny stamped with rage.</p> + +<p>"What I could have done hasn't got nothing to do with it all, and you +know it hasn't. You said you were coming for me and you didn't, and I +say you're a sneak. Because you and your massive sister behave anyhow, +you'd like to make everyone else as bad."</p> + +<p>Irene, contending even with unclasped stays, made an effort at dignity.</p> + +<p>"You can just shut up, Jenny Pearl, because you know very well my mother +wouldn't allow me to <i>do</i> anything. You know that."</p> + +<p>Jenny fumed with indignation.</p> + +<p>"Your mother? Why, when she's got half a bottle of gin to cry with over +her darling Ireen or darling Winnie, she's <i>very</i> glad to pawn what her +darlings get given to them."</p> + +<p>"You've got very good," said Irene, bitterly sarcastic, "since this +night out."</p> + +<p>"Which you meant for me to spend out from the moment you introduced me +to him."</p> + +<p>"What do you take me for?" inquired Irene rashly.</p> + +<p>"I take you for what you are—a rotter. God! and think what you will be +one day—I know—a dirty old woman in a basement with a red petticoat +and a halfpenny dip and a quartern of gin."</p> + +<p>Irene's imagination was not extensive enough to cap this prophecy, so +she poked the fire instead of making the attempt.<a name="page_294" id="page_294"></a></p> + +<p>"Nobody wants you to stay here," she muttered.</p> + +<p>"Don't you worry yourself. I'm going upstairs to pack my things up now."</p> + +<p>Jenny was not able to make a completely effective departure with cab at +the door and heaped-up baggage, because her taxi back from Victoria and +the payment of a week's board at Stacpole Terrace had exhausted her +ready money. However, she had the satisfaction of seeing her +portmanteau, her hatbox and a small bag stacked in tapering stories upon +the bedroom floor, there to await the offices of Carter Paterson.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dale emerged from the kitchen at the rumor of change and, as +morning did not evoke sentiment, indulged in a criticism of Jenny's +personal appearance.</p> + +<p>"I don't like that hat of yours and never did," she announced. "I can't +get used to these new-fangled fashions and never shall."</p> + +<p>"What of it?" said Jenny, with marked indifference.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing at all, if it pleases you. You've got to wear it and I +suppose there's nothing more to be said. But I think that hat is vulgar. +Vulgar it would have been called when I was a girl. And I can't think +what you want to go all of a sudden for like this. It isn't often I make +a beefsteak pudding."</p> + +<p>Jenny was in a flutter to be away.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Mrs. Dale," she said firmly.</p> + +<p>"Well, good-bye, Jenny. You mustn't mind shaking hands with me all +covered in suet. As I say, it's very seldom I do make a beefsteak +pudding. I won't disturb my old man. He's busy this morning. Come and +tell us how you get on soon."</p> + +<p>It was a relief to be seated inside the tram and free of Stacpole +Terrace. It was pleasant to change cars at the Nag's Head and behold +again the well-known landscape of Highbury. A pageant of childish +memories, roused by the sight of the broad pavements of Islington, was +marshalled in Jenny's brain. Somehow on the visits she had paid her home +during<a name="page_295" id="page_295"></a> the last year these aspects were obscured by the consciousness +of no longer owning any right to them. Now, really going home, she +turned into Hagworth Street with a glow of pride at seeing again its +sobriety and dignity so evident after the extravagant stucco and Chinese +balconies of Camden Town's terraces and squares. There was Seventeen, +looking just the same, prophetic of refuge and solid comfort to the +exile. She wondered what freak of folly had ever made her fancy home was +dingy and unpleasant, home that held her bright-eyed mother's laugh, her +absurd father always amusing, and her little sister May. Home was an +enchanted palace with more romance in each dear room than was to be +found elsewhere in the world. Home was alive with the past and preserved +the links which bound together all the detached episodes of Jenny's +life. As she turned into the garden that once had seemed a district, as +she rattled the letter-box—in the days of her estrangement she always +rang the bell—remorse came welling up in tears. She remembered what +good times had been recurrent through the past, tea-parties and +pantomimes and learning to ride a bicycle in the warm sunsets of June. +And in the house opposite nothing was altered, not a fold of the lace +curtains, not a leaf of the dusty aspidistra that took all the light in +the ground-floor window.</p> + +<p>What a long time they were opening the door. She rattled the letter-box +again and called out to May. It was like coming home after summer +holidays by the blue sparkling sea, coming home to dolls and toys and +the long, thin garden at the back which from absence had acquired an +exaggerated reputation for entertainment.</p> + +<p>Suddenly May opened the door, peeping round over the latch, much scared +apparently.</p> + +<p>"How quick you've been," she said.</p> + +<p>"Quick?" repeated Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Didn't you get my telegram?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Jenny, and perceiving that May's eyes were red with weeping, +her delightful anticipation was clouded with<a name="page_296" id="page_296"></a> dread. "What did you want +to telegraph for? Not—not about mother?"</p> + +<p>May nodded.</p> + +<p>"She isn't dead?" Jenny gasped.</p> + +<p>"No, she isn't dead. But she's had to be took away. You know. To an +asylum."</p> + +<p>"Go on," said Jenny. "Oh, what a dreadful thing."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't stand there," May commanded. "There's been crowd enough +round here this morning as it is."</p> + +<p>In the kitchen she unfolded the story. It seemed that for the last +fortnight their mother had been queer.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she was funny," said May. "She used to sit moping over the +fire—never doing nothing and saying all the time how her head hurt."</p> + +<p>"Didn't dad fetch in a doctor?" Jenny demanded.</p> + +<p>"Not at first he wouldn't. You know what dad's like. I said she was +really ill and he kept on saying: 'Nonsense, why look at me. I'm as ill +as I can be, but I don't want no doctor. I've got a sort of a paralytic +stroke running up and down my arm fit to drive anybody barmy. And here +am I going off to work so cheerful, the chaps down at the shop say they +don't know how I does it.'"</p> + +<p>"He ought to be bumped," Jenny asserted wrathfully. "I only wish I'd +been at home to tell him off. Go on about mother. And why wasn't I sent +for directly?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Well, I did think about fetching you back. But I didn't really think +myself it was anything much at first. She got worse all of a sudden +like. She took a most shocking dislike to me and said I was keeping her +indoors against her will, and then she carried on about you, said you +was—well, I don't know what she didn't say. And when the doctor come, +she said he was a detective and asked him to lock you and me both up, +said she had the most wicked daughters. I was quite upset, but the +doctor he said not to worry as it was often like that with mad people, +hating the ones they liked best. And I said, 'She's never gone mad? Not +my mother? Oh, whatever<a name="page_297" id="page_297"></a> shall I do?' And he said, 'She has,' and then +she started off screaming enough to make anyone go potty to hear her, +and a lot of boys come and hung about the gate and people was looking +out of windows and the greengrocer was ringing all the time to know if +there was any orders this morning."</p> + +<p>"When was all this?" asked Jenny, frozen by the terrible narrative.</p> + +<p>"This morning, I keep telling you."</p> + +<p>"Just now?"</p> + +<p>"No, early. They come and took her away to an asylum somewhere in the +country and we can go and see her once a fortnight. But she's very ill, +the doctor says—some sort of abscess on her brain."</p> + +<p>"Where's dad?"</p> + +<p>"He went round to the 'Arms.' He said he felt quite shaky."</p> + +<p>Jenny sat mute and hopeless. Would her mother never recognize her? Would +she die in the belief that she was neither loved nor appreciated?<a name="page_298" id="page_298"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXXI" id="XXXI"></a>Chapter XXXI: <i>A Document in Madness</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">A</span>SHGATE Asylum was a great gray accumulation of stone, standing at the +head of a wide avenue of beech trees on a chalky ridge of the Chiltern +Hills. Here in a long ward lay Mrs. Raeburn, fantasies riding day and +night through the darkness of her mind.</p> + +<p>Jenny and May used to go once a fortnight to visit her sad seclusion. In +a way it was a fruitless errand of piety, for she never recognized her +daughters, staring at them from viewless eyes. Nobody else in the family +made the slow, dreary journey through the raw spring weather. To be sure +every fortnight Charlie intended to go; but something always cropped up +to prevent him, and as he was unable to realize the need for instancy, +he finally made up his mind to postpone any visit to the early summer, +when, as he optimistically announced, it would no doubt be time to fetch +his wife home completely cured.</p> + +<p>Jenny and May used to be met at the railway station by the Asylum +brougham, which would bear them at a jogging pace up the straight +melancholy avenue and set them down by the main entrance beside which +hung the huge bell-chain whose clangor seemed to wake a multitude of +unclean spirits. Often, as they walked nervously over the parquet of the +lobby ample as a cloister, and past a succession of cheerful +fire-places, Jenny would fancy she heard distant screams, horrid cries, +traveling down the echoing corridors that branched off at every few +paces. The nurse who was directing them would talk away pleasantly +without apparent concern, without seeming to notice those patients +allowed a measure of liberty. Jenny and<a name="page_299" id="page_299"></a> May, however, could hardly +refrain from shrieking out in terror as they shivered by these furtive, +crouching shapes whose gaze was concentrated on things not seen by them. +In the long ward at whose extreme end their mother's bed was situated, +these alternations of embarrassment and fear became even more acute. +Nearly all the occupants of the beds had shaved heads which gave them, +especially the gray-haired women, a very ghastly appearance. Many of +them would mutter audible comments on the two girls as they passed +along, comparing them extravagantly to angels or to long-lost friends +and relatives. Some would whimper in the terrible imagination that Jenny +and May had arrived to hurt them. The girls were glad when the battery +of mad eyes was passed and they could stand beside their mother's bed.</p> + +<p>"Here are your daughters come all this long way to see you, Mrs. +Raeburn," the nurse would announce, and "Well, mother," or "How are you +now, mother?" they would shyly inquire.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn could not recognize them, but would regard them from +wide-open eyes that betrayed neither friendliness nor dislike.</p> + +<p>"Won't you say you're glad to see them?" the nurse would ask.</p> + +<p>Then sometimes Mrs. Raeburn would bury herself in the bedclothes to lie +motionless until they had gone, or sometimes she would count on her +fingers mysterious sums and ghostly numerals comprehended in the dim +mid-region where her soul sojourned. If Jenny or May looked up in +embarrassment, they would see all around them reasonless heads, some +smiling and bobbing and beckoning, some grimacing horribly, and every +one, save the listless head they loved best, occupied with mad +speculations upon the identity of the two girls. After every visit, as +hopelessly they were leaving the ward, the nurse would say:</p> + +<p>"I expect your mother will be better next time you come and able to talk +a bit."</p> + +<p>They would be shown into a stuffy little parlor while the<a name="page_300" id="page_300"></a> brougham was +being brought round, a stuffy little room smelling of plum-cake and +sherry. In the window hung a cage containing an old green paroquet that +all the time swore softly to itself and seemed in the company of the mad +to have lost its own clear bird's intelligence. Then back they would +drive along the straight, wet avenue in a sound of twilight gales, back +to the rain-soaked, dreary little station in whose silent waiting-room +they would sit, crying softly to themselves, until the Marylebone train +came in.</p> + +<p>These visits continued for six weeks, and then, on the fourth visit, +just as April had starred the Chilterns with primroses, the nurse +whispered while they were walking through the ward's distraught glances:</p> + +<p>"I think your mother will know you to-day."</p> + +<p>"Why?" Jenny whispered back.</p> + +<p>"I think she will, somehow."</p> + +<p>Up the ward they went with hearts beating expectantly, while the voices +of the mad folk chattered on either side. "Look at her golden hair." +"That's St. Michael. Holy Michael, pray for us." One young woman with +pallid, tear-washed face was moaning: "Why can't I be dead, oh, why +can't I be dead?" And an old woman, gray as an ash tree, was muttering +very quickly to herself: "Oh, God help me; O, dear Lord help me!" on and +on without a pause in the gibbering reiteration. Some of the patients +waved and bobbed as usual, mopping and mowing and imparting wild secrets +from the wild land in which they lived, and others scowled and shook +their twisted fists. This time, indeed, their mother did look different, +as if from the unknown haunted valleys in which her soul was imprisoned +she had gained some mountain peak with a view of home.</p> + +<p>"How are you, mother?" Jenny asked.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Raeburn stared at her perplexed but not indifferent. Nor did she +try to hide herself as usual. Suddenly she spoke in a voice that to her +daughters seemed like the voice of a ghost.<a name="page_301" id="page_301"></a></p> + +<p>"Is that little May?"</p> + +<p>May's ivory cheeks were flushed with nervous excitement as, by an effort +of brave will, she drew near to the mad mother's couch.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is little May," said Mrs. Raeburn, fondling her affectionately. +"Poor little back. Poor little thing. What a dreadful misfortune. My +fault, all my fault. I shouldn't have bothered about cleaning up so +much, not being so far gone as I was. Poor little May. I'm very ill—my +head is hurting dreadfully."</p> + +<p>Suddenly over the face of the tortured woman came a wonderful change, a +relief not mortal by its radiance. She sank back on her pillow in a +vision of consolation. Jenny leaned over her. "Mother," she whispered, +"don't you know me? It's Jenny! Jenny!" she cried in agony of longing to +be recognized.</p> + +<p>"Jenny," repeated her mother, as if trying to make the name fit in with +some existing fact of knowledge. "Jenny?" she murmured more faintly. +"No, not Jenny, Cupid."</p> + +<p>"What's she mean?" whispered May.</p> + +<p>"She's thinking of the ballet. It was last time she saw me on the +stage."</p> + +<p>"Cupid," Mrs. Raeburn went on. "Yes, it's Cupid. And Cupid means love. +Love! God bless all good people. It's a fine day. Yes, it is a fine day. +I'm very fond of this window, Carrie; I think it's such a cheerful view. +Look at those lovely clouds. What a way you can see—right beyond the +'Angel' to the country. Those aunts are coming again. Tut, tut. What do +<i>they</i> want to come here for? They sha'n't have her, they sha'n't have +my Jenny. Jenny!" cried Mrs. Raeburn, recognizing at last her best-loved +daughter. "I meant you to be so sweet and handsome, my Jenny! Oh, be +good, my pretty one, my dainty one. I wish you'd see about that knob, +Charlie. You <i>never</i> remember to get a new one."</p> + +<p>Then, though her eyes were rapturous and gay again, her mind wandered +further afield in broken sentences.<a name="page_302" id="page_302"></a></p> + +<p>"I think you'd better kiss her good-bye," the nurse said.</p> + +<p>Softly each daughter kissed that mother who would always remain the +truest, dearest figure in their lives.</p> + +<p>Downstairs in the stuffy little parlor, Dr. Weever interviewed them.</p> + +<p>"Whoever allowed you two girls to come here?" he asked sharply. "You've +no business to visit such a place. You're too young."</p> + +<p>"Will our mother get better?" Jenny asked.</p> + +<p>"Your poor mother is dying and you should be glad, because she suffers +great pain all the time." His voice was harsh, but, nevertheless, full +of tenderness.</p> + +<p>"Will she die soon?" Jenny whispered. May was sobbing to herself.</p> + +<p>"Very soon."</p> + +<p>"Then I'd better tell my father to come at once?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, if he wants to see his wife alive."</p> + +<p>Jenny did not go to the Orient that night, and when her father came in, +she told him how near it was to the end.</p> + +<p>"What, dying?" said Charlie, staggered by a thought which had never +entered his mind. "Dying? Go on, don't make a game of serious things +like death."</p> + +<p>"She is dying. And the doctor said if you wanted to see her alive, you +must go at once."</p> + +<p>"I'll go to-night," said Charlie, feeling helplessly for his best hat.</p> + +<p>Just then came a double-knock at the door.</p> + +<p>"That means she's dead already," said Jenny in a dull monotone.<a name="page_303" id="page_303"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></a>Chapter XXXII: <i>Pageantry of Death</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">M</span>R. Raeburn determined that, if there had sometimes been a flaw in his +behavior towards his wife when alive, there should be no doubt about his +treatment of her in death. Her funeral should be famous for its +brass-adorned oaken coffin, splendidly new in the gigantic hearse. There +should be long-tailed sable horses with nodding plumes, and a line of +mourning coaches. Mutes should be everywhere and as many relatives as +could be routed out within the time. Black silks and satins, jet and +crape and somber stuffs should oppress the air, and Death with darkling +wings should overshadow Islington. Many mourners were gathered together +whose personalities had never played any part in Jenny's life; but +others arrived who had in the past helped her development.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Purkiss came, escorted by Claude Purkiss representing with pale +face and yellow silky mustache the smugness of himself and Percy the +missionary. Claude's majority would occur in May, when he would be +admitted to a partnership in the business. Already a bravery of gold +paint, symbolizing his gilt-edged existence, was at work adding "And +Son" to "William Purkiss." Uncle James Threadgale made the journey from +Galton, bringing with him Mrs. Threadgale the second—a cheerful country +body who pressed an invitation upon Jenny and May to visit them. Uncle +James did not seem to have altered much, and brought up with him a roll +of fine black cloth for Jenny, but was so much upset on <a name="page_304" id="page_304"></a>realizing he +had omitted May from his thoughtfulness that immediately upon his +arrival he slipped out to buy a similar roll for her. The two lodgers +were present as a mark of respect to the dead woman who had been so +admirable a landlady; and both of them, with kindly tact, announced they +were going away for a few days. Alfie, of course, was there with his +fiancée, whom Jenny somewhat grudgingly admitted to be very smart. Edie +came with the children and her husband. His arrival caused a slight +unpleasantness, because Alfie said he would rather not go at all to the +funeral than ride with Edie and Bert. But in the end a compromise was +effected by which he and his Amy occupied a coach alone. After these +mourners came a cortège of friends and cousins, all conspicuously black, +all intent to pay their homage of gloom.</p> + +<p>Jenny, when she had made herself ready, sat on the end of the bed and +laughed.</p> + +<p>"I can't help it, May. I know it's wicked of me. But I can't keep from +laughing, I can't really."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't let any of them downstairs hear you," begged May, "because +<i>they</i> wouldn't understand."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't mean I'm not sorry about mother because I laugh. And I +believe she'd be the first to understand. Oh, May, what a tale she'd +have made of it, if she'd only been alive to see her own funeral. She'd +have kept anyone in fits of laughter for a week."</p> + +<p>Even during the slow progress of the pomp, Jenny, in the first coach +with her father and May, was continually on the verge of laughter +because, just as by a great effort she had managed to bring her emotions +under control, Aunt Mabel had tripped over her skirt and dived head +foremost into the carriage that was to hold Claude, Uncle James and his +wife, and herself. Moreover, to make matters worse, her father's black +kid gloves kept splitting in different places until, by the time the +cemetery was reached, his hands merely looked as if they were +plentifully patched with court-plaster. It was blue and white April +weather, fit for cowslips and young<a name="page_305" id="page_305"></a> lambs, when the somber people +darkened the vivid, wet grass round the grave. During the solemnity and +mournfulness of the burial service Jenny stood very rigid and pale, more +conscious of the wind sighing through the yew trees than of finality and +irremediable death. She was neither irritated nor moved by the sniffling +of those around her. The fluttering of the priest's surplice and the +tear-dabbled handkerchiefs occupied her attention less than the figure +of a widow looking with sorrowful admiration at a tombstone two hundred +yards away. She did not advance with the rest to stare uselessly down on +the lowered coffin. The last words had been said: the ceremony was done. +In the sudden silver wash of an April shower they all hurried to the +shelter of the mourning coaches. Jenny looked back once, and under the +arc of a rainbow saw men with gleaming spades: then she, too, lost in +the dust and hangings of the heavy equipage, was jogged slowly back to +Islington.</p> + +<p>Funerals, like weddings, are commonly employed by families to weld +broken links in the chain of association with comparisons of progress +and the condolences or congratulations of a decade's chance and change. +Jenny could not bear to see these relations cawing like rooks in a +domestic parliament. She felt their presence outraged the humor of the +dead woman and pictured to herself how, if her father had died, her +mother would have sent them all flapping away. She did not want to hear +her mother extolled by unappreciative people. She loathed the sight of +her sleek cousin Claude, of Alfie glowering at Edie, of her future +sister-in-law picking pieces of white cotton off her skirt, of Edie +brushing currants from the side of Norman's mouth. Finally, when she was +compelled to listen to her father's statement of his susceptibility to +the knocks of a feather on receiving the news of his wife's death, she +could bear it no longer, but went upstairs to her bedroom, whither Aunt +Mabel presently followed in search.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Jenny, this is a sad set out and no mistake," Mrs. Purkiss began.<a name="page_306" id="page_306"></a></p> + +<p>Jenny did not deign to pay any attention, but looked coldly out of the +window.</p> + +<p>"You must feel quite lost without her," continued the aunt, "though to +be sure you didn't trouble her much with your company this last year. +Poor Florrie, she used to fret about it a lot. And your father wasn't +much use—such an undependable sort of a man as he is. Let's all hope, +now he's got two motherless girls to look after, he'll be a bit more +strict."</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't keep on at me, Auntie," Jenny protested, "because I +shall be most shocking rude to you in a minute, which I shouldn't like +to be at such a time."</p> + +<p>"Tut—tut, I wish you could control that temper of yours; but there, I +make allowances for I know you must be feeling it all very much, +especially as you must blame yourself a bit."</p> + +<p>Jenny turned sharply round and faced her aunt.</p> + +<p>"What for?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"Why, for everything. Nothing'll ever convince me it wasn't worry drove +your poor mother into the grave. Your Uncle William said the same when +he heard of it. He was <i>very</i> disappointed to think he couldn't come to +the funeral; but, as he said, 'what with, Easter almost on us and one +thing and another, I really haven't got the time.'"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Purkiss had seated herself in the arm-chair and was creaking away +in comfortable loquacity.</p> + +<p>"I think it's nothing more than wicked to talk like that," Jenny +declared indignantly. "And, besides, it's silly, because the doctor said +it was an abscess, nothing else."</p> + +<p>"Ah, well, doctors know best, I daresay; but we all have a right to our +opinions."</p> + +<p>"And you think my leaving home for a year killed my mother?"</p> + +<p>"I don't go so far as that. What I said was you were a worry to her. You +were a worry when you were born, for I was there. You were a worry when +you would go on the<a name="page_307" id="page_307"></a> stage against whatever I said. You were a worry +when you dyed your hair and when you kept such disgraceful late hours +and when you went gallivanting about with that young fellow. However, I +don't want to be the one to rub in uncomfortable facts at such a time. +What I came up to ask was if you wouldn't like to come and stay with us +for a little while, you and May. You'll have to get an extra servant to +look after the lodgers if your father intends keeping things on as they +were, and you'll be more at home with us."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Purkiss spoke in accents almost ghoulish, with a premonitory relish +of macabre conversations.</p> + +<p>"Stay with you?" repeated Jenny. "Stay with <i>you</i>? What, and hear +nothing but what I ought to have done? No, thanks; May and I'll stay on +here."</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't disturb your Uncle William," Mrs. Purkiss continued +placidly, "if that's what you're thinking of. You'd be gone to the +theater when he reads his paper of an evening."</p> + +<p>"If I went to stay anywhere," said Jenny emphatically, "I should go and +stay with Uncle James at Galton. But I'm not, so please don't keep on, +because I don't want to talk to <i>any</i>body."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Purkiss sighed compassionately and vowed she would forgive her +nieces under the circumstances, would even spend the evening in an +attempt to console the sad household of Hagworth Street.</p> + +<p>"But I want to be alone, and so does May."</p> + +<p>"Well, I always used to say you was funny girls, and this proves my +words true. Anyone would think you'd be glad to talk about your poor +mother to her only sister. But, no, girls nowadays seem to have no +civilized feelings. Slap-dashing around. In and out. Nothing but amuse +themselves, the uncultivated things, all the time. No wonder the papers +carry on about it. But I'm not going to stay where I'm not wanted and +don't need any innuendives to go."</p> + +<p>Here Mrs. Purkiss rose from the chair and, having in a<a name="page_308" id="page_308"></a> majestic sweep +of watered silk attained the door, paused to deliver one severe +speculation.</p> + +<p>"If you treated your poor mother as you behave to your aunt, I'm not +surprised she got ill. If my Percy or my Claude behaved like you—well, +there, but they don't, thank goodness."</p> + +<p>Jenny listened quite unmoved to the swishing descent of her aunt. She +was merely glad to think her rudeness had been effectual in driving her +away, and followed her downstairs very soon in order to guarantee her +departure.</p> + +<p>One by one the funereal visitors went their ways. One by one they faded +into the sapphire dusk of April. Some went in sable parties like +dilatory homing cattle, browsing as they went on anecdotes of the dead. +On the tail of the last exit, their father, somewhat anxiously, as if +afraid of filial criticism, went also. He sat for a long time, as he +told them afterwards, without drinking anything, the while he stared at +his silk hat enmeshed in crape, and when he did drink he called for +stout.</p> + +<p>The two girls stayed alone in the parlor with little heart to light the +gas, with little desire to talk over the mournful buzz which had filled +the house all day. The lodgers being gone, no responsibility of general +illumination rested with Jenny or May. Soon, however, they moved in +accord to the kitchen, where on each side of the glowing fire they +listened to the singing of a kettle and the tick of the American clock. +An insistent loneliness penetrated their souls. In that hour of sorrow +and twilight, they drew nearer to one another than ever before. Outside +a cat was wailing, and far down the road a dog, true to superstition, +howled at intervals. The kitchen was intolerably changed by Mrs. +Raeburn's absence. Jenny suddenly realized how lonely May must have been +during those weeks of illness and suspense. She herself had had the +distractions of the theater, but May must have moped away each heavy +moment.</p> + +<p>"I wonder where Ruby is now?" said Jenny suddenly.<a name="page_309" id="page_309"></a></p> + +<p>"Fancy! I wonder."</p> + +<p>They sighed. The old house in Hagworth Street seemed, with the death of +its laughing mistress, to have lost its history, to have become merely +one of a dreary row.</p> + +<p>"Oh, May, look," said Jenny. "There's her apron never even gone to the +wash."</p> + +<p>After that the sisters wept quietly; while Venus dogged the young moon +down into the green West, and darkness shrouded the gray Islington +street.<a name="page_310" id="page_310"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII"></a>Chapter XXXIII: <i>Loose Ends</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">F</span>OR all that Jenny was so contemptuous of her aunt's opinion at the time +of its expression, when she came to weigh its truth she found it +somewhat disturbing. Was an abscess, indeed, the sole cause of her +mother's madness and death? And could Aunt Mabel have any justification +for so cruelly hinting at a less obvious cause? Jenny herself possessed +a disconcerting clarity of intuition which she inherited from her +mother, who might have divined the progress of the Danby incident and +brooded over it too profoundly in the absence of her daughter. Indeed, +she might have been actually goaded into sheer madness by a terrible +consciousness of that rainy St. Valentine's night; for it was strange +that her sanity should fly forever on the very next morning. It was +horrid to think that all night long her mother, kept awake by pain, +might have been conscious of her actions. Yet the doctor had so +confidently blamed the abscess for everything. Moreover, in the asylum +her mother had seemed just as much distressed by the thought of May's +back as anything else. Sensitiveness to her mother's feelings had led +Jenny into wrecking her own happiness with Maurice, and even Fortune +could scarcely be so fierce as to drive her mother mad on account of the +pitiful corollary to that ruined love. Yet it might be so, and if it +were, what remorse would burden her mind everlastingly. And now it was +too late for explanations. Jenny, having felt all through her mother's +life an inability to confide in her completely, now when she was dead +developed an intense desire to pour out her soul, to acquaint her with +every detail<a name="page_311" id="page_311"></a> of experience and even to ascertain if her own passionate +adventures had been foreshadowed in her mother's life.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, with all these potential horrors of culpable actions, there +was the practical side of the future to consider. In a week the lodgers +would return, and a servant must be found at once to help May. She +herself would do as much as possible, but most of her energy was sapped +by the theater. She wished her father had the smallest conception of +management. The death of his wife, however, seemed to have destroyed +what small equipment of resolution he possessed, and the "Masonic Arms" +received him more openly, more frequently than ever.</p> + +<p>Jenny debated the notion of leaving the Orient and applying all her mind +to keeping house; but it was too late for her temperament to inure +itself to domesticity without the spur of something sharper than mere +pecuniary advantage. Perhaps it would be better to give up the house in +Hagworth Street and take a smaller one, where, on the joint earnings of +herself and her father, he and the two sisters could live in tolerable +comfort. Perhaps she might even accept the risk of setting up house with +May alone. But thirty shillings a week was not a large sum for two +girls, one of whom must be well dressed and able to hold her own in +company where dress counted for a good deal. The more she thought of it, +the more impossible did it seem to give up the theater. Those few days +of absence proved how intimately her existence was wrapped up in the +certainty of an evening's employment. As the time had drawn on for going +down to the Orient, she had become very restless in the quiet of home. +However much she might scoff at it, there was wonderful comfort in the +assurance of a cheerful evening of dressing-room gossip. Besides, there +was always the chance of an interesting stranger in front or of suddenly +being called upon to play a noticeable part, though that pleasure grew +more and more insipid all the time. There was, however, still a certain +agreeable reflection in the consciousness of looking pretty and knowing +that a few<a name="page_312" id="page_312"></a> eyes every night remarked her face and figure. And even if +all these consolations of theatrical existence failed, there was a very +great satisfaction in making up and leaving, as it were, one's own +discontented body behind.</p> + +<p>For a time everything went on as usual and nobody put forward any +definite proposal involving a change either of residence or mode of +life. Jenny began to think she was doomed to settle down into perpetual +dullness and never again to be launched desperately on a passionate +adventure. She was beginning to be aware how easy it was for a woman to +belie the temperament of her youth with a common-place maturity. By the +end of the summer their father had already advanced so far on the road +to moral and financial disintegration as to make it evident to Jenny and +May that they must fend for themselves. One lodger, an old clerk in a +Moorgate firm of solicitors, had already left, and the other, a +Cornishman working in a dairy, would soon be carrying the result of his +commercial experience back to his native land. Neither of the girls +liked the prospect of new lodgers and were nervous of affording shelter +to possible thieves or murderers. Nor did May in particular enjoy the +supervision of the servant or wrestling with the slabs of unbaked dough +which heralded her culinary essays. So at last she and Jenny decided the +house was altogether too large and that they must give notice to quit.</p> + +<p>"And aren't I to give no opinion on the subject of my own house?" asked +their father indignantly.</p> + +<p>"You?" cried Jenny; "why should you? You don't do nothing but drink +everything away. Why should we slave ourselves to the death keeping +you?"</p> + +<p>"There's daughters!" Charlie apostrophized. "Yes, daughters is all very +nice when they're small, but when they grow up, they're worse than +wives. It comes of being women, I suppose." And Charlie, as if +sympathizing with his earliest ancestor, sighed for Eden. "Look here, I +don't want to take my hook from this house."<a name="page_313" id="page_313"></a></p> + +<p>"All right, stay on, then, stupid," May advised; "only Jenny and I are +going to clear off."</p> + +<p>"Stay on by yourself," Jenny continued in support of her sister, "and a +fine house it'll be in a year's time. No one able to get in for empty +bottles and people all around thinking you've opened a shooting-gallery, +I should say."</p> + +<p>"Now don't go on," said Charlie, "because I want to have a lay down, so +you can just settle as you like."</p> + +<p>It was Sunday afternoon and no problems of future arrangements were +serious enough to interrupt a lifelong habit.</p> + +<p>"It's no good talking to him," said Jenny scornfully; "what we've got to +do is give notice sharp. I hate this house now," she added, savagely +appraising the walls.</p> + +<p>So it was settled that after so many years the Raeburns should leave +Hagworth Street. Charlie made no more attempts to contest the decision, +and acquiesced almost cheerfully when he suddenly reflected that +public-houses were always handy wherever anyone went. "Though, for all +that," he added, "I shall miss the old 'Arms.'"</p> + +<p>"Fancy," said Jenny, "who'd have thought it?"</p> + +<p>On the following Sunday afternoon Mr. Corin, the remaining lodger, came +down to interview his hostesses.</p> + +<p>"I hear you're leaving then, Miss Raeburn," he said. "How's that?"</p> + +<p>"It's too hard work for my sister," Jenny answered very politely. "And +besides, she don't care for it, and nor don't I."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm going home along myself in November month, I believe, or I +should have been sorry to leave you. What I come down to ask about was +whether you'd let a bedroom to a friend of mine who's coming up from +Cornwall on some law business in connection with some evidence over a +right of way or something. A proper old mix up, I believe it is. But I +don't suppose they'll keep him more than a week, and he could use my +sitting-room."</p> + +<p>Jenny looked at May.<a name="page_314" id="page_314"></a></p> + +<p>"Yes, of course, let him come," said the housewife. "But when will it +be?"</p> + +<p>"October month, I believe," said Mr. Corin. "That's when the witnesses +are called for."</p> + +<p>Everything seemed to happen in October, Jenny thought. In October she +would be twenty-two. How time was flying, flying with age creeping on +fast. In the dreariness of life's prospect, even the arrival of Mr. +Corin's friend acquired the importance of an expected event, and, though +neither of the sisters broke through custom so far as to discuss him +beforehand, the coming of Mr. Corin's friend served as a landmark in the +calendar like Whitsuntide or Easter. Meanwhile, Mr. Raeburn, as if aware +of the little time left in which the "Masonic Arms" could be enjoyed, +drank more and more as the weeks jogged by.</p> + +<p>Summer gales marked the approach of autumn, and in the gusty twilights +that were perceptibly earlier every day, Jenny began to realize how +everything of the past was falling to pieces. There was an epidemic of +matrimony at the theater, which included in the number of its victims +Maudie Chapman and Elsie Crauford. Of her other companions Lilli Vergoe +had left the ballet and taken up paid secretarial work for some +misanthropic society, while the relations between Irene and herself had +been as grimly frigid ever since the quarrel. New girls seemed to occupy +old places very conspicuously, and all the stability of existence was +shaken by change. Only the Orient itself remained immutably vast and +austere, voracious of young life, sternly intolerant of fading beauty, +antique and unscrupulous.</p> + +<p>Jenny was becoming conscious of the wire from which she was suspended +for the world's gaze, jigged hither and thither and sometimes allowed to +fall with a flop when fate desired a new toy. The ennui of life was +overwhelming. A gigantic futility clouded her point of view, making +effort, enjoyment, sorrow, disappointment, success equally unimportant. +She was not induced by that single experience of St. Valentine's night<a name="page_315" id="page_315"></a> +to prosecute her curiosity. This may have been because passion full-fed +was a disillusionment, or it may have been that the shock of her +mother's madness appeared to her as a tangible retribution. Everything +was dead. Her dancing, like her life, had become automatic, and even her +clothes lasted twice as long as in the old days.</p> + +<p>"I can't make out what's happened to everybody," she said to May. "No +fellows ever seem to come round the stage door now. All the girls have +either got married or booked up that way. Nobody ever wants to have +larks like we used to have. You never hardly hear anybody laugh in the +dressing-room now. I met someone the other day who knew me two years ago +and they said I'd gone as thin as a threepenny-bit."</p> + +<p>Jenny meditated upon the achievement of her life up to date and wrote it +down a failure. Where was that Prima Ballerina Assoluta who with +pitter-pat of silver shoes had danced like a will-o'-the-wisp before her +imagination long ago? Where was that Prima Ballerina with double-fronted +house at Ealing or Wimbledon, and meek, adoring husband? Where, indeed, +were all elfin promises of fame and fairy hopes of youth? They had fled, +those rainbow-winged deceivers, together with short frocks +accordion-pleated and childhood's tumbled hair. Where was that love so +violent and invincible that even time would flee in dismay before its +progress? Where, too, was the laughter that once had seemed illimitable +and immortal? Now there was nothing so gay as to keep even laughter +constant to Jenny's world. For her there was no joy in lovely +transcience. She knew by heart no Horatian ode which, declaiming against +time, could shatter the cruelty of impermanence. Without an edifice of +love or religion or art or philosophy, there seemed no refuge from +decay.</p> + +<p>When the body finds existence a mock, the mind falls back upon its +intellectual defences. But Jenny had neither equipment, commissariat or +strategic position. She was a dim figure on the arras of civilization, +faintly mobile in the stressful winds<a name="page_316" id="page_316"></a> of life. She was a complex +decorative achievement and should have been cherished as such. Therefore +at school she was told that William the Conqueror came to the throne in +1066, that a bay is a large gulf, a promontory a small cape. She had +been a plaything for the turgid experiments by parrots in education on +simple facts, facts so sublimely simple that her mind recorded them no +more than would the Venus of Milo sit down on a bench before a pupil +teacher. When she was still a child, plastic and wonderful, she gave her +dancing and beauty to a country whose inhabitants are just as content to +watch two dogs fight or a horse die in the street. When ambition +withered before indifference, she set out to express herself in love. +Her early failures should not have been fatal, would not have been if +she had possessed any power of mental recuperation. But even if William +the Conqueror had won his battle at Clacton, the bare knowledge of it +would not have been very useful to Jenny. Yet she might have been useful +in her beauty, could some educationalist have perceived in her youth +that God as well as Velasquez can create a thing of beauty. She lived, +however, in a period of enthusiastic waste, and now brooded over the +realization that nothing in life seemed to recompense one for living, +however merrily, however splendidly, the adventure began.</p> + +<p>Such was Jenny's mood when, just after her twenty-second birthday, Mr. +Corin announced that his friend, Mr. Z. Trewhella, would arrive in three +days' time.<a name="page_317" id="page_317"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV"></a>Chapter XXXIV: <i>Mr. Z. Trewhella</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">M</span>R. CORIN was anxious to make his friend's visit to London as pleasant +as possible, and in zeal for the enjoyment of Zachary Trewhella to +impress him with the importance and knowingness of William John Corin. +By way of extirpating at once any feeling of solitude, he was careful to +invite Jenny and May to take tea with them on the afternoon following +Trewhella's arrival. The first-floor sitting-room, once in the +occupation of Mr. Vergoe, looked very different nowadays; and indeed no +longer possessed much character. Corin's decorative extravagance had +never carried beyond the purchase of those glassy photographs of City +scenes in which from a confusion of traffic rise landmarks like St. +Paul's or the Royal Exchange. These, destined ultimately to adorn the +best parlor of his Cornish home, were now propped dismally against the +overmantel, individually obscured according to the vagaries of the +servant's dusting by a plush-bound photograph of Mr. Lloyd George. The +walls of the room were handed over to wall-paper save where two prints, +billowy with damp, showed Mr. Gladstone looking at the back of Mr. +Spurgeon's neck over some tabulated observations on tuberculosis among +cows.</p> + +<p>Zachary Trewhella did more than share his friend's sitting-room: he +occupied it, not so much actively, as by sheer inanimate force. To see +him sitting in the arm-chair was to see a bowlder flung down in a flimsy +drawing-room. He was a much older man than Corin, probably about +thirty-eight, though Jenny fancied he could not be less than fifty. His +eyes,<a name="page_318" id="page_318"></a> very deep brown and closely set, had a twinkle of money, and the +ragged mustache probably concealed a cruel and avaricious mouth. His +hands were rough and swollen with work and weather: his neck was lean +and his pointed ears were set so far back as to give his high +cheek-bones over which the skin was drawn very taut a prominence of +feature they would not otherwise have possessed. He belonged to a common +type of Cornish farmer, a little more than fox, a little less than wolf, +and judged by mere outward appearance, particularly on this occasion of +ill-fitting broadcloth and celluloid collar, he would strike the casual +glance as mean of form and feature. Yet he radiated force continually +and though actually a small man produced an effect of size and power. It +was impossible definitely to predicate the direction of this energy, to +divine whether it would find concrete expression in agriculture or lust +or avarice or religion. Yet so vitally did it exist that from the moment +Trewhella entered Corin's insignificant apartment, the room was haunted +by him, and not merely the room, but Hagworth Street itself and even +Islington.</p> + +<p>"Well, Zack," said Mr. Corin, winking at the two girls, and for effect +lapsing into broadest dialect. "What du'ee thenk o' Lonnon, buoy, grand +auld plaäce 'tis, I b'liv."</p> + +<p>"I don't know as I've thought a brae lot about it," said Zack.</p> + +<p>"He's all the time brooding about this right of way," Mr. Corin +explained.</p> + +<p>Jenny and May were frankly puzzled by Trewhella. He represented to them +a new element. Jenny felt she had received an impression incommunicable +by description, as if, having been flung suddenly into a room, one were +to try to record the experience in terms of the underground railway.</p> + +<p>The farmer himself did not pay any attention to either of the girls, so +that Jenny was compelled to gain her impression of him as if he were an +animal in a cage, funny or dull or interesting, but always remote. She +was content to watch him eat with a detached curiosity that prevented +her from being<a name="page_319" id="page_319"></a> irritated by his deliberation, or, after noisy drinking, +by the colossal fist that smudged his lips dry.</p> + +<p>"Ess," Trewhella announced after swallowing a large mouthful of +plum-cake. "Ess, I shall be brim glad when I'm back to Trewinnard. ’Tis +my belief the devil's the only one to show a Cornishman round London +fittee."</p> + +<p>Mr. Corin laughed at this sardonic witticism, but said he was going to +have a jolly good try at showing Zack the sights of the town that very +night.</p> + +<p>"You ought to take him to the Orient," May advised.</p> + +<p>"By gosh, and that's a proper notion," said Corin, slapping his thigh. +"That's you and me to-night, Zack."</p> + +<p>"What's the Orient?" inquired Trewhella.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you never heard of the Orient?" Jenny gasped, her sense of +fitness disturbed by such an abyss of ignorance.</p> + +<p>"No, my dear, I never have," replied Trewhella, and for the first time +looked Jenny full in the face.</p> + +<p>"I dance there," she told him, "in the ballet."</p> + +<p>The Cornishman looked round to his friend for an explanation.</p> + +<p>"That's all right, boy," said Corin jovially. "You'll know soon enough +what dancing is. You and me's going there to-night."</p> + +<p>Trewhella grunted, looked at Jenny again and said after a pause: "Well, +being in the city, I suppose we must follow city manners, but darn'ee, I +never thought to go gazing at dancing like maidens at St. Peter's Tide."</p> + +<p>Corin chuckled at the easy defeat of the farmer's prejudice, and said he +meant to open old Zack's eyes before he went back to Cornwall, and no +mistake.</p> + +<p>Soon after this the two girls left the tea-party, and while Jenny +dressed herself to go down to the theater, they discussed Mr. Z. +Trewhella.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever hear anyone talk so funny. Oh, May, I nearly split myself +for laughing. Oh, he talks like a coon."<a name="page_320" id="page_320"></a></p> + +<p>"I thought he talked like a gramaphone that wants winding up," said May.</p> + +<p>"But what a dreadful thing to talk like that. Poor man, it's a shame to +laugh at him, though, because he can't help it." Jenny was twisting +round to see that no dust lay on the back of her coat.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what he'll think of you dancing," May speculated. "But I don't +expect he'll recognize you."</p> + +<p>"I think he will, then," contradicted Jenny as she dabbed her nose with +the powder-puff. "Perhaps you never noticed, but he looked at me very +funny once or twice."</p> + +<p>"Did he?" said May. "Well, I'm jolly glad it wasn't me or I should have +had a fit of the giggles."</p> + +<p>Presently, under the scud of shifting clouds, Jenny hurried through the +windy shadows of twilight down to the warm theater. When she was back in +the bedroom that night, May said:</p> + +<p>"Mr. Trewhella's struck on you."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"He is—honest. He raved about you."</p> + +<p>"Shut up."</p> + +<p>"He went to see you dance and he's going again to-morrow night and all +the time he's in London, and he wants you and me to go to tea again +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"I've properly got off," laughed Jenny, as down tumbled her fair hair, +and with a single movement she shook it free of a day's confinement.</p> + +<p>"Do you like him?" May inquired.</p> + +<p>"Yes, all right. Only his clothes smell funny. Lavingder or something. I +suppose they've been put away for donkey's years. Well, get on with it, +young May, and tell us some more about this young dream."</p> + +<p>"You date," laughed her sister. "But don't make fun of the poor man."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, he is an early turn, now isn't he, Maisie? What did dad say +to him?"<a name="page_321" id="page_321"></a></p> + +<p>"Oh, dad. If beer came from cows, dad would have had plenty to say."</p> + +<p>"You're right," agreed Jenny, standing rosy-footed in her nightgown. She +gave one critical look at her image in the glass, as if in dreams she +meant to meet a lover, then put out all lights and with one leap buried +herself in the bedclothes.</p> + +<p>On the following afternoon during tea Mr. Trewhella scarcely took his +eyes off Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Well, how did you enjoy the ballet?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"I don't know so much about the ballet. I was all the time looking for +one maid in that great old magic lantern of a place, and when I found +her I couldn't see her so well as I wanted. But, darn'ee, I will +to-night. William John!"</p> + +<p>"Zack!"</p> + +<p>"William John, if it do cost a golden guinea to sit down along to-night, +we'm going to sit in they handsome chairs close up to the harmony."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, boy," chuckled Corin. "We'll sit in the front row."</p> + +<p>"That's better," sighed Trewhella, much relieved by this announcement.</p> + +<p>When Jenny said she must go and get ready for the theater, the farmer +asked if he might put her along a bit of the way.</p> + +<p>"If you like," she told him. "Only I hope you walk quicker than what you +eat, because I shall be most shocking late if you don't."</p> + +<p>Trewhella said he would walk just as quick as she'd a mind to; but Jenny +insured herself against lateness by getting ready half an hour earlier +than usual.</p> + +<p>They presented a curious contrast, the two of them walking down Hagworth +Street. There was a certain wildness in the autumnal evening that made +Trewhella look less out of keeping with the city. All the chimneys were +flying streamers of smoke. Heavy clouds, streaked with dull red veins, +were moving down the sky, and the street corners looked very bare in the +wind. Trewhella stalked on with his long, powerful body<a name="page_322" id="page_322"></a> bent forward +from crooked legs. His twisted stick struck the pavement at regular +intervals: his Ascot tie of red satin gleamed in the last rays of the +sunset. Beside him was Jenny, not much shorter actually, but seeming +close to him very tiny indeed.</p> + +<p>"Look, you maid," said Trewhella when, after a silent hundred yards, +they were clear of the house, "I never seed no such a thing as your +dancing before. I believe the devil has gotten hold of me at last. I sat +up there almost falling down atop of 'ee? Yet I'm the man who's sat +thinking of Heaven ever since I heard tell of it. Look, you maid, will +you be marrying me this week and coming home along back to Cornwall?"</p> + +<p>"What?" cried Jenny. "Marry you?"</p> + +<p>"Now don't be in a frizz to say no all at once. But hark what I do tell +'ee. I've got a handsome lill farm set proper and lew— Bochyn we do call +it. And I've got a pretty lill house all a-shining wi' brass and all +a-nodding wi' roses and geraniums where a maid could sit looking out of +the window like a dove if she'd a mind to, smelling the stocks and +lilies in the garden and harking to the sea calling from the sands."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't keep on so fast," Jenny interrupted. "You <i>don't</i> think I'd +marry anyone I'd only just seen? And besides you don't hardly know me."</p> + +<p>"But I do know you're the only maid for me, and I can't go back without +you. That's where it's to. When I've been preaching and sweating away +down to the chapel, when I've been shouting and roaring about the +glories of Heaven, I've all the time been thinking of maids' lips and +wondering how I didn't care to go courting. I'm going to have 'ee."</p> + +<p>"Thanks," said Jenny loftily. "I seem to come on with the crowd in this +scene. I don't want to marry you."</p> + +<p>"I don't know how you can be so crool-hearted as to think of leaving me +go back home along and whenever I see the corn in summer-time keep +thinking of your hair."</p> + +<p>"But I'm not struck on you," said Jenny. "You're too old.<a name="page_323" id="page_323"></a> Besides, it's +soppy to talk like that about my hair when you've never hardly seen it +at all."</p> + +<p>Trewhella seemed oblivious to everything but the prosecution of his +suit.</p> + +<p>"There's hundreds of maids have said a man was too old. And what is +love? Why, 'tis nothing but a great fire burning and burning in a man's +heart, and if 'tis hot enough, it will light a fire in the woman's +heart."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but supposing, like me, she's got a fireproof curtain?" said Jenny +flippantly.</p> + +<p>Trewhella looked at her, puzzled by this counter. He perceived, however, +it was hostile to his argument and went on more earnestly than before:</p> + +<p>"Yes, but you wouldn't have me lusting after the flesh. I that found the +Lord years ago and kept Him ever since. I that showed fruits of the +Spirit before any of the chaps in the village. I that scat up two apple +orchards so as they shouldn't go to make cider and drunkenness. You +wouldn't have me live all my life in whorage of thoughts."</p> + +<p>"Who cares what you do?" said Jenny, getting bored under this weight of +verbiage. "I don't want to marry."</p> + +<p>"I've been too quick," said Trewhella. "I've been led away by my +preacher's tongue. But you'll see me there in front of 'ee to-night," he +almost shouted. "You'll see me there gazing at 'ee, and I don't belong +to be bested by nothing. Maid nor bullock. Good night, Miss Raeburn, +I'll be looking after William John."</p> + +<p>"Good night," said Jenny pleasantly, relieved by his departure. "I'll +see you in front, then."</p> + +<p>She thought as she said this how utterly inappropriate Trewhella and +Corin would look in the stalls of the Orient. She fancied how the girls +would laugh and ask in the wings what those strange figures could be. It +was lucky none of them were aware they lodged in Hagworth Street. What a +terrible thing it would be if it leaked out that such unnatural-looking +men, with such a funny way of talking, lodged at<a name="page_324" id="page_324"></a> Jenny Pearl's. The +thought of the revelation made her blush. Yet Corin had not seemed +extraordinary before the arrival of his friend. It was Trewhella who had +infected them both with strangeness. He had an intensity, a dignity that +made him difficult to subdue with flippancy. He never seemed to laugh at +her retorts, and yet underneath that ragged mustache he seemed to be +smiling to himself all the time. And what terrible hands he had. More +like animals than hands. When Jenny caught his eye glinting down in the +stalls, she wished she were playing anything but an Ephesian flute-girl, +for Ephesian flute-girls, owning a happier climate, dressed very +lightly.</p> + +<p>"He sat there looking me through and through," she told May, "till I +nearly run off to the side. He stared at me just like our cat stares at +the canary in the window next door."</p> + +<p>"It's not a canary," May corrected. "It's a goldfinch."</p> + +<p>"Now don't be silly, and shut up, you and your goldfinches. Who cares if +it's a parrot? You know what I mean. Tell me what I'm to do about Borneo +Bill."</p> + +<p>May began to laugh.</p> + +<p>"Well, he is. He's like the song."</p> + +<p>On the next day Mr. Corin interviewed Jenny about the prospects of his +friend's suit.</p> + +<p>"You know, Miss Raeburn, he's very serious about it, is Zack. He's +accounted quite a rich man down west. ’Tis his own farm freehold—and +he's asked Mr. Raeburn's permission."</p> + +<p>"Well, that wins it!" Jenny proclaimed. "Asked my father's permission? +What for? What's it got to do with him who I marry? Thanks, I marry who +I please. What a liberty!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Corin looked apologetic.</p> + +<p>"I only told you that so as you shouldn't think there was anything funny +about it. I never saw a man so dead in earnest, and he's a religious +man, too."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not," Jenny retorted. "I don't see what religion's got to do +with marrying."<a name="page_325" id="page_325"></a></p> + +<p>"You come to think of it, Miss Raeburn, it's not such a bad offer. I +don't believe you could meet with a safer man than Zack. I suppose if +he's worth a dollar, he's worth three hundred pounds a year, and that's +comfortable living in Cornwall."</p> + +<p>"But he's old enough to be my father," Jenny contended.</p> + +<p>"He looks older than what he is," continued Mr. Corin plausibly. +"Actually he isn't much more than thirty-five."</p> + +<p>"Yes, then he woke up," scoffed Jenny.</p> + +<p>"No, really he isn't," Corin persisted. "But he's been a big worker all +his life. Thunder and sleet never troubled him. And, looking at it this +way, you know the saying, '’Tis better to be an old man's darling than a +young man's slave.'"</p> + +<p>"But I don't like him—not in the way that I could marry him." Jenny had +a terrible feeling of battered down defenses, of some inexorable force +advancing against her.</p> + +<p>"Yes; but you might grow to like him. It's happened before now with +maids. And look, he's willing for 'ee to have your sister to live with +you, and that means providing for her. What 'ud become of her if +anything happened to you or your father?"</p> + +<p>"She could go and live with my sister Edie or my brother."</p> + +<p>"Yes; but we all know what that may mean, whereas if she comes to live +with you, Zack will be so proud of her as if she were his very own +sister."</p> + +<p>Jenny was staggered by the pertinacity of this wooing and made a slip.</p> + +<p>"Yes; but when does he want to marry me?"</p> + +<p>The pleader was not slow to take hold of this.</p> + +<p>"Then you'll consider it, eh?"</p> + +<p>"I never said so," Jenny replied in a quick attempt to retrieve her +blunder.</p> + +<p>"Well, he wants to marry you now at once."</p> + +<p>"But I couldn't. For one thing I couldn't leave the theater all in a +hurry. It would look so funny. Besides——"<a name="page_326" id="page_326"></a></p> + +<p>"Well," Zack said, "Don't worry the maid, William John, but leave her to +find out her own mind and I'll bide here along till she do know it."</p> + +<p>Mr. Corin dwelt on the magnanimity of his friend and having, as he +thought, made a skillful attack on Jenny's prejudice, retired to let his +arguments sink in. He had effected even more than he imagined by his +cool statement of the proposal. Put forward by him, devoid of all +passion and eccentricity of language, it seemed a very business-like +affair. Jenny began to think how such a step would solve the problem of +taking a new house, of moving the furniture, of providing for May, of +getting rid of her father, now daily more irritating on account of his +besotted manner of life. All the girls at the theater were marrying. It +was in the air. She was growing old. The time of romantic adventure was +gone. The carnival was petering out in a gloomy banality. Change was +imminent in every direction. Why not make a clean sweep of the old life +and, escaping to some strange new existence, create a fresh illusion of +pleasure? What would her mother have said to this offer? Jenny could not +help feeling she would have regarded it with very friendly eyes, would +have urged strongly its acceptance. Why, she had even been anxious for +Jenny to make a match with a baker; and here was a prosperous man, a +religious man, a steady man, inviting her to be mistress almost of a +country estate. She wished that Mr. Z. Trewhella were not so willing to +wait. It made him appear so sure, so inevitable. And the time for moving +was getting very near. Change was in the air. Jenny thought she would +sound May's views on the future in case of sudden accident or any +deliberate alteration of the present mode of life.</p> + +<p>"Where would you live if I went away?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" said May, looking very much alarmed by the prospect, +and turning sharply on her pillow.</p> + +<p>"I mean who would you live with? Alfie or Edie?"</p> + +<p>"Neither," May affirmed emphatically.<a name="page_327" id="page_327"></a></p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because I wouldn't."</p> + +<p>This reply, however unsatisfactory it might have been to a logician, was +to Jenny the powerfullest imaginable.</p> + +<p>"But supposing I got married?" she went on.</p> + +<p>"Well, couldn't I live with you? No, I suppose I couldn't," said May +dejectedly. "I'm a lot of good, ain't I? Yes, you grumble sometimes, but +what about if you was like me?"</p> + +<p>Jenny had always accepted May's cheerfulness under physical disability +so much as a matter of fact that a complaint from her came with a shock. +More than ever did the best course for May seem the right course for +Jenny. She recalled how years ago her mother had intrusted May to her +when a child. How much more sacred and binding was that trust now that +she who imposed it was dead.</p> + +<p>"Don't get excited," said Jenny, petting her little sister. "Whatever I +done or wherever I went, you should come along of me."</p> + +<p>May, not to display emotion, said:</p> + +<p>"Well, you needn't go sticking your great knee in my back." But Jenny +knew by the quickness with which she fell asleep that May was happy and +secure.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to have a rare old rout out this morning," Jenny announced +when she woke up to the sight of an apparently infinitely wet day, a +drench in a gray monotone of sky from dawn to nightfall.</p> + +<p>About eleven o'clock the rout out began and gradually the accumulated +minor rubbish of a quarter of a century was stacked in various heaps all +over the house.</p> + +<p>"What about mother's things?" May inquired.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to put them all away in a box. I'm going through them this +afternoon," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"I've promised to go out and see some friends of mine this afternoon," +said May. "So I'll leave them to you because they aren't tiring."</p> + +<p>"All right, dear."<a name="page_328" id="page_328"></a></p> + +<p>After dinner when her sister had gone out and Jenny, except for the +servant, was alone in the old house, she began to sort her mother's +relics. One after another they were put away in a big trunk still +plentifully plastered with railway labels of Clacton G.E.R. and +Liverpool Street, varied occasionally by records of Great Yarmouth. +Steadily the contents of the box neared the top with ordered layers of +silk dresses and mantles. Hidden carefully in their folds were old +prayer books and thimbles, ostrich plumes and lace. Jenny debated for a +moment whether to bury an old wax doll with colorless face and fragile +baby-robes of lawn—a valuable old doll, the plaything in childhood of +the wife of Frederick Horner, the chemist.</p> + +<p>"I suppose by rights Alfie or Edie ought to have that," Jenny thought. +"But it's too old for kids to knock about. If they remember about it, +they can have it."</p> + +<p>So the old doll was relegated to a lavendered tomb. "After all," thought +Jenny, "we wasn't even allowed to play with it. Only just hold it gently +for a Sunday treat."</p> + +<p>Next a pile of old housekeeping books figured all over in her mother's +neat thin handwriting were tied round with a bit of blue ribbon and put +away. Then came the problem of certain pieces of china which Mrs. +Raeburn when alive had cherished. Now that she was dead Jenny felt they +should be put away with other treasures. These ornaments were vital with +the pride of possession in which her mother had enshrined them and +should not be liable to the humiliation of careless treatment.</p> + +<p>At last only the contents of the desk remained, and Jenny thought it +would be right to look carefully through these that nothing which her +mother would have wished to be destroyed should be preserved for +impertinent curiosity. The desk smelt strongly of the cedar-wood with +which it was lined, and the perfume was powerfully evocative of the +emotions of childish inquisitiveness and awe which it had once always +provoked. Here were the crackling letters of the old Miss Horners, and<a name="page_329" id="page_329"></a> +for the first time Jenny read the full history of her proposed adoption. +"Good job that idea got crushed," she thought, appalled by the profusion +of religious sentiment and half annoyed by their austere prophecies and +savage commentaries upon the baby Jenny. In addition to these letters +there was a faded photograph of her parents in earliest matrimony and +another photograph of someone she did not recognize—a man with a heavy +mustache and by the look of his clothes prosperous.</p> + +<p>"Wonder who he was," Jenny speculated. "Perhaps that man who was struck +on her and who she wouldn't go away with." This photograph she burned. +Suddenly, at the bottom of the packet of letters, Jenny caught sight of +a familiar handwriting which made her heart beat with the shock of +unexpected discovery.</p> + +<p>"However on earth did that come there?" she murmured as she read the +following old letter from Maurice.</p> + +<div class="blockd"><p class="r">422 G. R.<br /> +Friday.</p> + +<p class="nind">My little darling thing,</p> + +<p>I've got to go away this week-end, but never mind, I shall see you +on Tuesday, or anyway Wednesday for certain. I'll let you know at +the theater. Good night, my sweet one. You know I'm horribly +disappointed after all our jolly plans. But never mind, my dearest, +next week it will be just as delightful. 422 kisses from Maurice.</p> +</div> + +<p>The passion which had once made such sentences seem written with fire +had long been dead. So far as the author was concerned, this old letter +had no power to move with elation or dejection. No vestige even of +fondness or sentiment clung to this memorial of anticipated joy. But why +was it hidden so carefully in her mother's desk, and why was it crumpled +by frequent reading? And how could it have arrived there in the +beginning? It was written in February after Jenny had left home. She +must have dropped it on one<a name="page_330" id="page_330"></a> of her visits, and her mother finding it +must have thought there was something behind those few gay words. Jenny +tried to remember if she had roused the suspicion of an intrigue by +staying for a week-end with some girl friend. But, of course, she was +away all the time, and often her mother must have thought she was +staying with Maurice. All her scruples, all her care had gone for +nothing. She had wrecked her love to no purpose, for her mother must +have been weighed down by the imagination of her daughter's frailty. She +must have brooded over it, fed her heart with the bitterness of +disappointment and, ever since that final protest which made Jenny leave +home, in gnawing silence. Jenny flung the letter into the fire and sat +down to contemplate the dreadful fact that she had driven her mother +slowly mad. These doctors with their abscess were all wrong. It was +despair of her daughter's behavior which had caused it all. She went +into the kitchen and watched the servant wrestle inadequately with her +work, then wandered back to the parlor and slammed the lid of the trunk +down to shut out the reproach of her mother's possessions. It was +growing late. Soon she must get ready to start for the theater. What a +failure she was! The front door bell rang and Jenny, glad of relief from +her thoughts, went to open it. Trewhella, wringing wet, stepped into the +passage.</p> + +<p>"Why, Miss Raeburn," he said, "here's a grand surprise."</p> + +<p>"Have you had your tea?" the hostess inquired.</p> + +<p>"Ess, had tea an hour ago or more. Dirty weather, 'tis, sure enough."</p> + +<p>He had followed her into the parlor as he spoke, and in the gray gloom +he seemed to her gigantic and like rock immovable.</p> + +<p>"Finished your business?" she asked, oppressed by the silence which +succeeded his entrance.</p> + +<p>"Ess, this right of way is settled for good or bad, according to which +one's happy. And now I've got nothing to do but wait for your answer."</p> + +<p>The lamplighter's click and dying footfall left the room in<a name="page_331" id="page_331"></a> a ghostly +radiance, and the pallid illumination streaming through the lace +curtains threw their reflection on the walls and table in a filigree of +shadows.</p> + +<p>"I'll light the gas," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"No, don't; but hark to what I do say. I'm regular burnt up for love of +'ee. My heart is like lead so heavy for the long waiting. Why won't 'ee +marry me, my lovely? ’Tis a proper madness of love and no mistake. Maid +Jenny, what's your answer?"</p> + +<p>"All right. I will marry you," she said coldly. "And now let me turn on +the gas."</p> + +<p>She struck a match, and in the wavering glow she saw his form loom over +her.</p> + +<p>"No," she half screamed; "don't kiss me. Not yet. Not yet. People can +see through the window."</p> + +<p>"Leave 'em stare so hard as they've a mind to. What do it matter to we?"</p> + +<p>"No, don't be silly. I don't want to start kissing. Besides, I must run. +I'm late for the theater."</p> + +<p>"Darn the theater. You don't want to go there no more."</p> + +<p>"I must give a fortnight's notice."</p> + +<p>Mr. Z. Trewhella, a little more than fox, perceived it would not take +much to make her repudiate her promise and wisely did not press the +point.</p> + +<p>"Will I putt 'ee down along a little bit of the road?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No, no. I'm in a hurry. Not to-night."</p> + +<p>Presently, in the amber fog that on wet nights suffuses the inside of a +tram, Jenny rode down towards the Tube station, picturing to herself her +little sister in a garden of flowers.<a name="page_332" id="page_332"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXXV" id="XXXV"></a>Chapter XXXV: <i>The Marriage of Columbine</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>REWHELLA spent in Cornwall the fortnight during which Jenny insisted on +dancing out her contract with the Orient. The withdrawal, ostensibly to +prepare his mother for the wife's arrival, was a wise move on his part, +for Jenny was left merely with the contemplation of marriage as an +abstract condition of existence undismayed by the presence of a future +husband whom she did not regard with any affection. She did not announce +her decision to the girls in the theater until the night before her +departure. At once ensued a chorus of surprise, encouragement, +speculation and good wishes.</p> + +<p>"If I don't like Cornwall," Jenny declared, "I shall jolly soon come +back to dear old London. Don't you worry yourselves."</p> + +<p>"Write to us, Jenny," the girls begged.</p> + +<p>"Rather."</p> + +<p>"And mind you come and see us first time you get to London."</p> + +<p>"Of course I shall," she promised and, perhaps to avoid tears, ran +quickly down the court, with her box of grease paints underneath her +arm.</p> + +<p>"Good luck," cried all the girls, waving farewell in silhouette against +the dull orange opening of the stage door.</p> + +<p>"See you soon," she called back over her shoulder. "Good-bye, all."</p> + +<p>Another chorus of good-byes traveled in pursuit along the darkness as, +leaving behind her a legend of mirth, an echo of laughter, she vanished +round the corner.<a name="page_333" id="page_333"></a></p> + +<p>Jenny and Trewhella were married next morning in a shadowy old church +from whose gloom the priest emerged like a spectre. She was seized with +a desire to laugh when she found herself kneeling beside Trewhella. She +fell to wondering how May was looking behind her, and wished, when the +moment came for her father to give her away, that he would not clip his +tongue between his teeth, as if he were engaged on a delicate piece of +joinery. Mr. Corin, too, kept up a continuous grunting and, when through +the pervading silence of the dark edifice any noise echoed, she dreaded +the rustle of Aunt Mabel's uninvited approach. It did not take so long +to be married as to be buried, and the ceremony was concluded sooner +than she expected. In the registry she blushed over the inscription of +her name, and let fall a large blot like a halo above her spinsterhood. +Luckily there was no time for jests and banqueting as, in order to +arrive in Cornwall that night, it was necessary to catch the midday +train from Paddington. Jenny looked very small beneath the station's +great arch of dingy glass, and was impressed by the slow solemnity of +Paddington, so different from the hysteria of Waterloo and frosty fog of +Euston. Trewhella, leaning on his blackthorn, talked to their father and +Mr. Corin, while the two girls ensconced themselves in the compartment.</p> + +<p>"Take your seats," an official cried, and when Trewhella had got in, Mr. +Raeburn occupied the window with his last words.</p> + +<p>"Well, I sha'n't go down to the shop to-day, not now. Let's have a line +to say you've arrived all safe. You know my address after I clear out of +Hagworth Street."</p> + +<p>"So long, dad," said Jenny awkwardly. Neither she nor May had ever +within memory kissed their father, but on this last opportunity for +demonstrative piety they compromised with sentiment so far as each to +blow him a kiss when the train began to move, and in token of goodwill +to let for a little while a handkerchief flutter from the window.</p> + +<p>There was no one else in the carriage besides themselves,<a name="page_334" id="page_334"></a> and in the +stronger light that suddenly succeeds a train's freedom from stationary +dimness, Jenny thought how lonely they must look. To be sure, May's +company was a slight solace, but that could neither ease the constraint +of her attitude towards Trewhella nor remove the sense of imprisonment +created by his proximity. It was a new experience for her to be +compelled to meet a man at a disadvantage, although as yet the nearness +of freedom prevented the complete realization of oppression. Trewhella +himself seemed content to sit watching her, proud in the consciousness +of a legalized property.</p> + +<p>So the green miles rolled by until the naked downs of Wiltshire first +hinted of a strange country, and in a view of them through the window +Trewhella seemed to gather from their rounded solitudes strength, +tasting already, as it were, the tang of the Cornish air.</p> + +<p>"Well, my lovely, what do 'ee think of it all?"</p> + +<p>"It's nice, I like it," replied Jenny.</p> + +<p>Conversation faltered in the impossibility of discussing anything with +Trewhella, or even in his presence. Jenny turned her mind to the moment +of first addressing him as Zachary or Zack. She could not bring herself +to mouth this absurd name without an inward blush. She began to worry +over this problem of outward behavior, while the unusual initial twisted +itself into an arabesque at once laughable and alarming. And she was +Mrs. Z. Trewhella. Jenny began to scrabble on the pane filmed with smoke +the fantastic initial. As for Jenny Trewhella, madness would have to +help the signature of such an inapposite conjunction. Then, in a +pretense of reading, she began to study her husband's countenance, and +with the progress of contemplation to persuade herself of his unreality. +Sometimes he would make a movement or hazard a remark, and she, waking +with a start to his existence, would ponder distastefully the rusted +neck, the hands like lizard skin, and the lack luster nails frayed by +agriculture.</p> + +<p>The train was rocking through the flooded meads of Somerset in a +desolation of silver, and the length of the journey was<a name="page_335" id="page_335"></a> already heavy +on Jenny's mind. She had not traveled so far since she was swept on to +the freedom of Glasgow and Dublin. Now, with every mile nearer to the +west, her bondage became more imminent. Trewhella loomed large in the +narrow compartment as Teignmouth was left behind. They seemed to be +traveling even beyond the sea itself, and Jenny was frightened when she +saw it lapping the permanent way as they plunged in and out of the +hot-colored Devonshire cliffs. Exeter with its many small gardens and +populated back windows cheered her, and Plymouth, gray though it was, +held a thought of London. Soon, however, they swung round the curve of +the Albert Bridge over the Tamar and out of Devon. Sadly she watched the +Hamoaze vanish.</p> + +<p>"Cornwall at last," said Trewhella, with a sigh of satisfaction. "’Tis a +handsome place, Plymouth, but I do dearly love to leave it behind me."</p> + +<p>The heavy November twilight caught them as the train roared through the +Bobmin valley past hillsides stained with dead bracken—like iron mold, +Jenny thought. St. Austell shone white in the aquamarine dusk, and +darkness wrapped the dreary country beyond Truro. Every station now +seemed crowded with figures, whose unfamiliar speech had a melancholy +effect upon the girls in inverse ratio to the exhilaration it produced +in Trewhella. Jenny thought how little she knew of her destination: in +fact without May's company she might as well be dead—into such an abyss +of strange gloom was she being more deeply plunged with every mile. +Trewhella, as if in reply to her thoughts, began to talk of Trewinnard.</p> + +<p>"Next station's ours," he said. "And then there's a seven-mile drive; so +we sha'n't get home along much before half-past eight."</p> + +<p>"Fancy, seven miles," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Long seven mile, 'tis, too," he added. "And a nasty old road on a dark +night. Come, we'll set out our passels."</p> + +<p>It was like action in a dream to reach down from the rack various +parcels and boxes, to fold up cloaks and collect umbrellas.<a name="page_336" id="page_336"></a> Jenny +watched from the window for the twinkle of town lights heralding their +stopping-place, but without any preliminary illumination the train +pulled up at Nantivet Road.</p> + +<p>"Here we are," shouted Trewhella, and as the girls stood with frightened +eyes in the dull and tremulous light of the platform, he seemed fresh +from a triumphant abduction. The luggage lay stacked in a gray pile with +ghostly uncertain outlines. The train, wearing no longer any familiar +look of London, puffed slowly on to some farther exile, its sombre bulk +checkered with golden squares, the engine flying a pennant of sparks as +it swung round into a cutting whence the sound of its emerging died away +on the darkness in a hollow moan. The stillness of the deep November +night was now profound, merely broken by the rasp of a trunk across the +platform and the punctuated stamping of a horse's hoof on the wet road.</p> + +<p>"That's Carver," said Trewhella, as the three of them, their tickets +delivered to a shadowy figure, walked in the direction of the sound.</p> + +<p>"Carver?" repeated Jenny.</p> + +<p>"My old mare."</p> + +<p>The lamps of the farm cart dazzled the vision as they stood watching the +luggage piled up behind. To the girls the cart seemed enormous; the mare +of mammoth size. The small boy who had driven to meet them looked like a +gnome perched upon the towering vehicle, and by his smallness confirmed +the impression of hugeness.</p> + +<p>"Well, boy Thomas," said his master in greeting.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Trewhella!"</p> + +<p>"Here's missus come down."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Trewhella!" said the boy in shy welcome.</p> + +<p>"And her sister, Miss Raeburn," added the farmer.</p> + +<p>Jenny looked wistfully at May as if she envied her the introduction with +its commemoration of Islington.</p> + +<p>"Now, come," said Zachary, "leave me give 'ee a hand up."<a name="page_337" id="page_337"></a></p> + +<p>He lifted May and set her down on the seat. Then he turned to his wife.</p> + +<p>"Come, my dear, leave me put 'ee up."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather get in by myself," she answered.</p> + +<p>But Trewhella caught her in his arms and, with a kiss, deposited her +beside May. Thomas was stowed away among the luggage at the back; the +farmer himself got in, shook up Carver, and with a good night to the +porter set out with his bride to Bochyn.</p> + +<p>The darkness was immense: the loneliness supreme. At first the road lay +through an open stretch of flat boggy grassland, where stagnant pools of +water glimmered with the light of the cart lamps as the vehicle shambled +by. After a mile or so they dipped down between high hedges and +overarching trees that gave more response to their lights than the open +country, whose incommensurable blackness swallowed up their jigging, +feeble illumination.</p> + +<p>"It smells like the inside of a flower-shop, doesn't it?" said May. "You +know, sort of bathroom smell. It must be glorious in the daytime."</p> + +<p>"Yes, 'tis grand in summer time, sure enough," Trewhella agreed.</p> + +<p>The declivity became more precipitous, and the farmer pulled up.</p> + +<p>"Get down, you, boy Thomas, and lead Carver."</p> + +<p>Thomas scrambled out, and with a loud "whoa" caught hold of the reins.</p> + +<p>"It's like the first scene of a panto. You know, demons and all," said +Jenny.</p> + +<p>Indeed, Thomas, with his orange-like head and disproportionately small +body, leading the great mare, whose breath hung in fumes upon the murky +air, had a scarcely human look. At the walking pace May was able to +distinguish ferns in the grass banks and pointed them out to Jenny, who, +however, was feeling anxious as in the steep descent the horse from time +to time slipped on a loose stone. Down they went, down<a name="page_338" id="page_338"></a> and down through +the moisture and lush fernery. Presently they came to level ground and +the gurgle of running water. Trewhella pulled up for Thomas to clamber +in again. Beyond the rays of their lamps, appeared the outline of a +house.</p> + +<p>"Is this a place?" Jenny asked.</p> + +<p>"’Tis Tiddlywits," Trewhella answered. "Or belonged to be rather, for +there's nothing left of it now but a few mud walls. A wisht old place, +'tis."</p> + +<p>On restarting, they splashed through a stream that flowed across the +road.</p> + +<p>"Oo-er," cried Jenny, "take care, we're in the water."</p> + +<p>Trewhella laughed loudly, and a moorhen waking in sudden panic rose with +a shrill cry from a belt of rushes.</p> + +<p>"Oo-er, I'm getting frightened," said Jenny. "Put me down. Oh, May, I +wish we hadn't come."</p> + +<p>Trewhella laughed louder than before. The wish appealed in its futility +to his humor.</p> + +<p>Now came a slow pull up an equally deep lane, followed at the summit by +another stretch of open country very wild. Suddenly the mare swerved +violently. Jenny screamed. A long shape leaned over them in menace.</p> + +<p>"Ah, look! Oh, no! I want to go back," she cried.</p> + +<p>"Steady, you devil," growled Trewhella to the horse. "’Tis nothing, my +dear, nothing only an old stone cross."</p> + +<p>"It gave me a shocking turn," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"It made <i>me</i> feel rather funny," said May. "You know, all over like."</p> + +<p>The girls shivered, and the cart jogged on across the waste. They passed +a skewbald sign-post crowded with unfamiliar goblin names, and a dry +tree from which once depended, Trewhella assured them, the bodies of +three notorious smugglers. One of the carriage candles proved too short +to sustain the double journey and presently flickered out gradually, so +that the darkness on one side seemed actually to advance upon them. +After a long interval of silence Trewhella pulled up with a jerk.<a name="page_339" id="page_339"></a></p> + +<p>"Listen," he commanded.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what is it?" asked Jenny, with visions of a murderer's approach. On +a remote road sounded the trot of horses' hoofs miles away.</p> + +<p>"Somebody coming after us," she gasped, clutching May's sleeve.</p> + +<p>"No, that's a cart; but listen, can't you hear the sea?"</p> + +<p>Ahead of them in the thick night like the singing of a kettle sounded +the interminable ocean.</p> + +<p>"Wind's getting up, I believe," said Trewhella. "There's an ugly smell +in the air. Dirty weather, I suppose, dirty weather," he half chanted to +himself, whipping up the mare.</p> + +<p>Soon, indeed, with a wide sigh that filled the waste of darkness, the +wind began to blow, setting all the withered rushes and stunted gorse +bushes hissing and lisping. The effort, however, was momentary; and +presently the gust died away in a calm almost profounder than before. +After another two miles of puddles and darkness, the heavy air was +tempered with an unwonted freshness. The farmer again pulled up.</p> + +<p>"Now you can hark to it clear enough," he said.</p> + +<p>Down below boomed a slow monotone of breakers on a long flat beach.</p> + +<p>"That's Trewinnard Sands, and when the sea do call there so plain, it +means dirty weather, sure enough. And here's Trewinnard Churchtown, and +down along a bit of the way is Bochyn."</p> + +<p>A splash of light from a dozen cottages showed a squat church surrounded +by clumps of shorn pine trees. The road did not improve as they drew +clear of the village, and it was a relief after the jolting in and out +of ruts to turn aside through a white gate, and even to crunch along +over a quarter of a mile of rough stones through two more gates until +they reached the softness of farmyard mud. As they pulled up for the +last time, between trimmed hedges of escallonia a low garden gate was +visible; and against the golden stream suffused<a name="page_340" id="page_340"></a> by a slanting door, the +black silhouette of a woman's figure, with hand held up to shade her +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Here we are, mother," Trewhella called out. Then he lifted down the two +girls, and together they walked up a flagged path towards the light. +Jenny blinked in the dazzle of the room's interior. Old Mrs. Trewhella +stared critically at the sisters.</p> + +<p>"Yon's a wisht-looking maid," she said sharply to her son, with a glance +at May.</p> + +<p>"Oh, they're both tired," he answered gruffly.</p> + +<p>"And what do 'ee think of Cornwall, my dear?" asked the old woman, +turning to the bride.</p> + +<p>"I think it's very dark," said Jenny.<a name="page_341" id="page_341"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXXVI" id="XXXVI"></a>Chapter XXXVI: <i>The Tragic Loading</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>HE bridal feast was strewn about the table; the teapot was steaming; +the cream melted to ivory richness, and, among many more familiar +eatables, the saffron cake looked gaudy and exotic. After the first +bashful make-weights of conversation, Jenny and May put their cloaks +down, took off wraps, and made the travelers' quick preparation for a +meal which has expected their arrival for some time. Then down they all +sat, and with the distraction of common hunger the painful air of +embarrassment was temporarily driven off. Old Mrs. Trewhella was +inclined with much assertion of humility to yield to Jenny her position +at the head of the table; but she, overawed by the prodigal display of +new dishes, of saffron cake and pasties and bowls of cream, prevailed +upon the older woman to withhold her resignation.</p> + +<p>The living-room of Bochyn was long, low, and raftered, extending +apparently to the whole length of the farmhouse, except where a parlor +on the left of the front door usurped a corner. Very conspicuous was the +hearth, with its large double range extravagantly embossed with brass +ornaments and handles. On closer inspection the ironwork itself was +hammered out into a florid landscape of pagodas, mandarins and dragons. +Jenny could not take her eyes off this ostentatious piece of utility.</p> + +<p>"Handsome slab, isn't it?" said Trewhella proudly.</p> + +<p>"Slab?"</p> + +<p>"Stove—we do call them slabs in Cornwall."</p> + +<p>"It's nice. Only what a dreadful thing to clean, I should say."<a name="page_342" id="page_342"></a></p> + +<p>"Maid Emily does that," explained Mrs. Trewhella.</p> + +<p>Jenny turned her glances to the rest of the room. By the side of the +slab hung a copper warming-pan holding in ruddy miniature the room's +reflection. Here were also brass ladles and straining spoons and a pair +of bellows, whose perfectly circular box was painted with love-knots and +quivers. On the high mantlepiece stood several large and astonished +china dogs with groups of roughly cast, crudely tinted pottery including +Lord Nelson and Elijah, all set in a thicket of brass candle-sticks. +Indeed, brass was the predominant note in the general decoration. The +walls were shining with tobacco boxes, snuffers, sconces and trays. Very +little space on the low walls could be found for pictures; but one or +two chromolithographs, including "Cherry Ripe" and "Bubbles," had +succeeded in establishing a right to be hung. All down the middle of the +room ran a long oak trestle-table, set with Chippendale chairs at the +end which Jenny and the family occupied, but where the rest of the +household sat, with benches. The five windows were veiled in curtains of +some dim red stuff, and between the two on the farther side from the +front door stood an exceptionally tall grandfather's clock, above whose +face, in a marine upheaval that involved the sun, moon and stars, united +rising, a ship rocked violently with every swing of the pendulum. A door +at the back opened to an echoing vault of laundries, sculleries, larders +and pantries, while in the corner beyond the outhouse door was a dark +and boxed staircase very straight and steep, a cavernous staircase +gaping to unknown corridors and rooms far away.</p> + +<p>Old Mrs. Trewhella suited somehow that sinister gangway, for, being so +lame as to depend on a crutch, the measured thump of her progress was +carried down the gloom with an eternal sameness of sound that produced +in the listener a sensation of uneasiness. She had a hen-like face, the +brightness of whose eyes was continually shuttered by rapid blinks. Her +hair, very thin but scarcely gray, was smoothed down so close as to give +her head the appearance of a Dutch doll's. She had<a name="page_343" id="page_343"></a> a slight mustache +and several tufted moles. There was much of the witch about her and more +of the old maid than the mother.</p> + +<p>When the new arrivals had been seated at the table for some minutes, the +rest of the household trooped in through the outhouse door. Thomas +Hosken led the procession. His face under the glaze of soap looked more +like an orange than ever, and he had in his walk the indeterminate roll +of that fruit. Emily Day came next, a dark slip of a maid with +long-lashed stag's eyes, too large for the rest of her. She was followed +by Dicky Rosewarne, a full-blooded, handsome, awkward boy of about +twenty-three, loose-jointed like a yearling colt and bringing in with +him a smell of deep-turned earth, of bonfires and autumn leaves. Bessie +Trevorrow, the dairymaid, ripe as a pippin, came in, turning down the +sleeves of a bird's-eye print dress over forearms that made Jenny gasp. +She could not reconcile the inconsistencies of feature in Bessie, could +not match the burning almond eyes with the coarse lips, nor see how such +weather-stained cheeks could belong to so white a neck. Last of all came +Old Man Veal, whose duties and status no one rightly knew. The household +individually slid into their separate places along the benches with +sidelong shy greetings to Jenny and May, who for their part would have +sat down with more ease to supper with a flock of sheep. One chair still +remained empty.</p> + +<p>"Where's Granfa Champion?" asked Trewhella.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear life, that old man is always last," grumbled Mrs. +Trewhella. "What a thing 'tis to have ancient old relations as do never +know to come in to a meal. Go find him, boy Thomas," she added with a +sigh.</p> + +<p>Thomas was much embarrassed by this order, and a subdued titter ran +round the lower part of the table as Thomas made one of his fruit-like +exits to find Granfa Champion.</p> + +<p>"He's my uncle," explained Mrs. Trewhella to Jenny. "A decent old man as +anyone could wish to meet, but most terrible unknowing of the time. I +believe he's so old that time do<a name="page_344" id="page_344"></a> mean nothing to him. I believe he's +grown to despise it."</p> + +<p>"Is he very old?" asked Jenny, for want of anything better to say.</p> + +<p>"Well, nobody do know how old he is. There's a difference of twenty +years in the opinions you'll hear put about. Poor old soul, he do give +very little trouble at all. For when the sun do shine, he's all the time +walking up and down the garden, and when 'tis dropping, he do sit in his +room so quiet as a great old lamb."</p> + +<p>Here Thomas came back with positive news.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Champion can't get his boot off and he's in some frizz about it."</p> + +<p>"How can't he get his boot off? How didn't 'ee help him?"</p> + +<p>"So I did," said Thomas. "But he wouldn't hear nothing of what I do know +about boots, and kept on all the time telling what a fool I was. I done +my best with 'en."</p> + +<p>At this moment Granfa Champion himself appeared, his countenance flushed +with conquest, his eyes shining in a limpid blue, his snow-white hair +like spindrift round his face.</p> + +<p>"Come in, you Granfa," his nephew invited.</p> + +<p>"Is the maids come?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Ess, ess, here they are sitting down waiting for 'ee."</p> + +<p>Mr. Champion advanced with a fine stateliness and nobility of welcome. +Indeed, shy as she was, his entrance tempted Jenny to rise from her +chair.</p> + +<p>"Come, leave me look at 'ee," said Granfa, placing his hands on her +shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Keep quiet, uncle," said Mrs. Trewhella. "You'll make her fire up."</p> + +<p>"Ah, nonsense," contradicted the old man. "That's nothing. I do dearly +love to see maids' cheeks in a blush. Wish you well, my lovely," he +added, clasping Jenny's hands. "I'm terrible hurried I wasn't here to +give 'ee a welcome by the door."</p> + +<p>Jenny liked this old man, who for the exile from a distant country by +his age and dignity and sweetness conjured a few<a name="page_345" id="page_345"></a> tears of home. The +supper, a late meal for such a household, went its course at a fair +speed; for they were all anxious to be off to bed with the prospect of +work in the windy November dawn. Very soon they all vanished through the +out-house door, and Granfa, with lighted candle, a hot brick wrapped in +flannel under his arm, twinkled slowly up to bed through the hollow +staircase. The rest of them were left alone in a silence. It was ten +o'clock, and the fire was already paling behind the fluted bars of the +slab.</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose you're thinking of bed?" suggested Mrs. Trewhella.</p> + +<p>May looked anxiously at her sister.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose we are," Jenny agreed.</p> + +<p>Zachary began to whistle a Sankey hymn tune.</p> + +<p>"You'll be wishing to unpack your things first," continued Mrs. +Trewhella.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I ought to unpack," Jenny said in a frozen voice.</p> + +<p>"I've put May in the bedroom next to you. Come, I'll show 'ee."</p> + +<p>Zachary still sat whistling his hymn tune. A bird shielded from view by +the window-curtain stirred in his cage. Mrs. Trewhella lighted three +candles. Cloaks were picked up and flung over arms, and in single file +the three figures, each with her winking guide, vanished up the +staircase.</p> + +<p>"What a long passage," whispered Jenny when they stood in a bunch at the +top.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trewhella led the way to the bride's chamber.</p> + +<p>"You're here, where the wives of the Trewhellas have slept some long +time."</p> + +<p>After the low room downstairs the bedroom seemed enormous. The ceiling +in Gothic irregularities of outline slanted up and up to cobwebs and +shadows. It was a great barn of a room. A tall four-post bed, hung with +faded tapestries of Love and War, was set off by oak chests-of-drawers +and Court cupboards. The floor was uneven, strangely out of keeping with +the rose-infested Brussels carpet so vividly new. Most<a name="page_346" id="page_346"></a> of the windows, +latticed and small, were set flush with the floor; but high up in a +dormer was a large window with diamonded panes, uncurtained, black and +ominous. A couple of tall cheval-glasses added to the mystery of the +room with their reduplication of shadowy corners.</p> + +<p>"And May's in here," Mrs. Trewhella informed them, leading the way. "The +loft begins again after your bedroom, so the ceiling isn't so tall."</p> + +<p>Certainly, May's room was ordinary enough, even dainty, with the dimity +curtains and wall-paper of bows and forget-me-nots. Round the +toilet-table crackled a pink chintz valance, draped in stiffest muslin.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trewhella looked closely at Jenny for a moment before she left +them.</p> + +<p>"You're thin, my dear," she commented. "Ah, well, so was I; and I can +mind the time when they wondered what a man could see in such a maid. +The men was all for plumpness then. Wish you good night."</p> + +<p>The old woman thumped off down the corridor, her candle a-bob with every +limping step.</p> + +<p>"What a dreadful place," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Don't let's stay," said May eagerly. "Don't let's stay. Let's go +back—now—now."</p> + +<p>"<i>Don't</i> be silly. How can we? But we never oughtn't to have come. Oh, +May, I only wish I could sleep in here with you."</p> + +<p>"Well, why don't you?" suggested May, who was shocked to see how the +usually so indomitable sister was shaking with apprehension. "There's +plenty of room and I'd chance what <i>he</i> says."</p> + +<p>Jenny pulled herself together by a visible effort.</p> + +<p>"No, I can't go on sleeping with you. I've <i>got</i> to be married, now I've +done it."</p> + +<p>The two sisters, as if drawn by some horrid enchantment, went back to +the bride's room.</p> + +<p>"How big that candle looks, doesn't it, but small in one way. May, I'm +frightened," whispered the bride.<a name="page_347" id="page_347"></a></p> + +<p>There was a rattle of falling plaster, a squeak, a dying scamper.</p> + +<p>"Oo-er, what was that?" cried May.</p> + +<p>"Rats, I suppose. Oh, this is a shocking place," said Jenny, trembling. +"Never mind, it's got to be done. It's got to be finished some day. +It'll be all the same in a hundred years, and anyway, perhaps it won't +be so bad in the morning. May!" she added sharply.</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Why, when you come to think of it, the second ballet's well on now and +here am I starting off to undress in this dog's island. Let's go back to +your room for a minute."</p> + +<p>Again the sisters sought May's kindlier room and Jenny had an idea.</p> + +<p>"May, if we pushed your bed back close to the wall, you could tap +sometimes, and if I was awake in the night I'd hear you. May, don't go +to sleep. Promise you won't go to sleep."</p> + +<p>They pushed the bedstead back against the ribbons and forget-me-nots. +Then Jenny, summoning every tradition of pride, every throb of +determination, kissed May and ran to the lonely Gothic room, where the +flame of the solitary candle burned so still and shapely in the +breathless night. She undressed herself in a frenzy. It was like falling +into a river to enter those cold linen sheets and, worse, to lie there +with pulses thudding and breast heaving under a bravery of new pink bows +and ribbons. It could not be long now. She sat up in bed thinking to tap +on the wall; but the tapestried headpiece muffled the sound. May, +however, heard and rapped her answer.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow," vowed Jenny, "I'll slit those unnatural curtains with my +scissors so as I can tap easily."</p> + +<p>Then down the passage she heard her husband's tread. He was still +whistling that tune, more softly, indeed, but with a continuous +reiteration that was maddening. Round the door <a name="page_348" id="page_348"></a>his shadow slipped +before him. Jenny hid beneath the bed-clothes, breathing faster than a +trapped bird. She heard his movements slow and dull and heavy, +accompanied by the whistling, the endless damnable whistling. Then the +lights went out and, as if he walked on black velvet, Trewhella stole +nearer to the bed.<a name="page_349" id="page_349"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXXVII" id="XXXVII"></a>Chapter XXXVII: <i>Columbine in the Dark</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">J</span>ENNY lay awake in a darkness so intense, so thick, so material that her +effort to repulse it produced an illusion of a suffocating fabric +desperately torn. What ivory cheeks were hidden by the monstrous gloom, +what sparkling eyes were quenched in the dry mouth of night!</p> + +<p>"Oh, morning, morning," she moaned. "Come quickly, oh, do come quick."</p> + +<p>Far away in the blackness a cock crowed. She from London did not +understand his consolation. Trewhella, sleeping soundly as he was wont +to sleep on market nights, did not stir to the appeal. Jenny lay +sobbing.</p> + +<p>"What's it all for?" she asked. Then sleep, tired of love's cruelty, +sent rosy dreams to comfort her, and in the morning, when she woke, her +husband was gone from her side. It was a morning of moist winds and rich +November sunlight, of pattering leaves and topaz lights, full of +sea-gulls' wings and the cawing of rooks.</p> + +<p>A little sister stood by the end of the bed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, get in beside me," Jenny cried.</p> + +<p>And whatever else was mad and bad, there would always be that little +sister.<a name="page_350" id="page_350"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXXVIII" id="XXXVIII"></a>Chapter XXXVIII: <i>The Alien Corn</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">B</span>OCHYN was built to escape as easily as possible the many storms of the +desolate country that surrounded it. The windows in the front of the +house looked out between two groves of straight Cornish elms over a +moist valley to a range of low hills, whose checkered green and brown +surface in the perpetual changes of light and atmosphere took on the +variety and translucence of water or precious stones; and not merely +their peripheral tints, but even their very contours seemed during the +courses of the sun and moon hourly to shift. Behind the house was the +town-place, a squelchy courtyard hemmed in by stables and full of casual +domestic animals. From here a muddy lane led up to the fields on the +slopes above, slopes considerably more lofty than those visible from the +front windows and ending in a bleak plateau of heather and gorse that +formed the immediate approach to the high black cliffs of many miles of +coast. The house itself was a long two-storied building, flanked by low +gray stone hedges feathered with tamarisks and fuchsias. The garden, +owing principally to the care of Granfa Champion, had an unusual number +of flowers. Even now in November the dahlias were not over, and against +the walls of the house pink, ivy-leaved geraniums and China roses were +in full bloom. The garden itself ended indeterminately, with no +perceptible line of severance, in the moors or watery meads always +vividly colored, and in summer creaming with meadow-sweet. At the bottom +of the garden was a rustic gazebo, from which it was<a name="page_351" id="page_351"></a> possible to follow +the course of the stream up the valley between cultivated slopes that +gave way to stretches of gorse and bracken, until the valley swept round +out of sight in thick coverts of dwarfed oaks. Westward in the other +direction the stream, flowing straighter and straighter as it neared the +sea, lost itself in a brown waste of sand, while the range whose +undulations it had followed sank abruptly to a marsh. This flatness made +the contrary slope, which jutted forward so as to hide the actual +breaking of the waves, appear portentously high. Indeed, the cliffs on +that side soon reached three hundred feet and on account of their sudden +elevation looked much higher. The stream spread out in wide shallows to +its outlet, trickling somewhat ineffectively in watery furrows through +the sand.</p> + +<p>On the farther side of the brown waste, where not even rushes would +grow, so complete and perpetual was the devastation of the gales, a line +of towans followed the curve of the coast, a desolate tract, gray-green +from the rushes planted to bind the shifting surface, and preserving in +its endless peaks and ridges the last fantastic glissades and diversely +elevated cones into which the wind had carved and gathered and swept the +sand. Mostly, these towans presented to the beach a low line of serrated +cliffs perhaps forty feet high; but from time to time they would break +away to gullies full of fine drifted sand, whose small cavities hoarded +snail-shells wind-dried to an ethereal lightness, and rabbit-bones +bleached and honeycombed by weather. After a storm the gullies gave an +impression of virgin territory, because the sand lay in drifts like +newly fallen snow on which footprints were desecration. The beach itself +was at low water a very wide and flat and completely desolate expanse, +shining near the sea's edge with whatever gold or silver was in the air, +shot with crimson bars at sunset, crinkled by the wind to a vast replica +of one of its own shells, ribbed and ploughed by tempests. The daily +advance or retreat of extreme high water was marked by devious lines of +purple muvices, by claws of seaweed and the stain of<a name="page_352" id="page_352"></a> dry spume. Beyond +the limit of the spring tides the sand swept up in drifts against the +low cliffs that crumbled like biscuit before an attempted ascent.</p> + +<p>This sea solitude reduced all living things to a strange equality of +importance. Twittering sea-swallows whose feet printed the sand with +desultory and fugitive intagliation, sea-parrots flying in profile +against the sky up and down over the water, porpoises rolling out in the +bay, sand-hoppers dancing to any disturbance, human beings—all became +equally minute and immaterial. Inland the towans tumbled in endless +irregularities of outline about a solitude equally complete. The +vegetation scarcely marked the changing seasons, save where in winter +the moss was a livelier golden-green, or where, beside spurges and +sea-holly and yellow horned poppies, stone-crops were reddened by August +suns. At wide intervals, where soil had formed over the sand, there was +a close fine grass starred in spring with infinitesmal squills and +forget-me-nots. But mostly the glaucous rushes, neither definitely blue +nor green nor gray, occupied the landscape. Close at hand they were +vitreous in color and texture, but at a distance and in the mass they +seemed to have the velvety bloom of a green almond or grape. Life of a +kind was always present in the scud of rabbits, in the song of larks and +click of stonechats, in the dipping steel-blue flight of the wheatear +and ruffled chestnut feathers of the whinchat. Yet as the explorer +stumbled in and out of the burrows, forcing a prickly advance through +the sharp rushes and often plunging ankle deep in drifts of sand, life +was more apparent in the towans themselves than in the presence of the +birds and beasts haunting their solitude. The sand was veritably alive +in its power to extract from the atmosphere every color and quality. +Sometimes it was golden, sometimes almost snow-white. Near sunset mauve +and rose and salmon-pink trembled in waves upon its surface, and as it +caught fire to welcome day, so it was eager to absorb night. Moonlight +there was dazzling when, in a cold world, it was possible to count the +snail-shells like<a name="page_353" id="page_353"></a> pearls and watch the sand trickle from rabbit-skulls +like powdered silver.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Jenny had never looked so well placed as when, with May beside +her in a drift of sand, she rested against the flat fawns and creams and +distant blues and grays of the background. Years ago when she danced +beneath the plane tree, her scarlet dress by long use had taken on the +soft texture of a pastel. Now she herself was a pastel, indescribably +appropriate to the setting, with her rose-leaf cheeks buried in the high +collar of a lavender-colored frieze coat, with her yellow curls and deep +blue eyes, deeper with the loss of their merriment. Her hands, too, were +very white in the clear sea air. May sitting beside her looked dark as a +pine tree against an April larch. If Jenny was coral, May was ivory. +Here they sat while the sea wind lisped over the sand. Jenny marked the +beauty of the country the more carefully because she disliked so +intensely the country people. Every day the sisters went for long walks, +and when May was tired she would sit on the beach, while Jenny wandered +on by the waves' edge.</p> + +<p>November went by with silver skies and silver sunsets, with clouds of +deepest indigo and pallid effulgences of sun streaming through traveling +squalls. Days of swirling rain came in with December, when Jenny would +have to sit in the long room, listening to the hiss of the wind-whipped +elms, watching the geranium petals lie sodden all about the paths, and +the gulls, blown inland, scattered on the hillsides like paper. The +nights were terrible with their hollow moanings and flappings, with the +whistle and pipe of the chimneys, with crashing of unclosed doors, with +rattled lattices and scud and scream and shriek and hum and roar of the +wild December storms. Every morning would break to huge shapes of rain +swept up the valley, one after another until the gales of dawn died away +to a steady drench of water. Then Jenny would sit in the hot room, where +the slab glowed quietly into the mustiness, and idly turn the +damp-stained pages of year-old periodicals, of mildewed calendars, even +of hymn-books. At last she would sally forth<a name="page_354" id="page_354"></a> desperately, and after a +long battle with wind or gurgling walk through mud and wet, she would +return to a smell of pasties and saffron cake and sometimes the cleaner +pungency of marinated pilchards.</p> + +<p>Some time before Christmas the gales dropped; the wind veered releasing +the sun, and for a fortnight there was fleckless winter weather. These +were glorious mornings to wander down through the west garden past the +escallonias aromatic in the sunlight, past the mauve and blue and purple +veronicas, out over the watery meadows and up the hill-sides, where the +gorse was almond-scented about midday in the best of the sun. Here for a +week she and May roamed delightfully, until they found themselves in a +field of bullocks and, greatly terrified, went back to the seashore. +"Handsome weather," old Mrs. Trewhella would say, watching them set out +for their long walks, and, after blinking once or twice at the sun, +thumping back to the kitchen, back to household superintendence and the +preparation of heavy meals for the farm workers. Jenny was not inclined +to talk much with them. They lived a life so remote from hers that not +even the bridge of common laughter could span the gulf. Dicky Rosewarne, +for all his good looks, was detestably cruel with his gins and snares +and cunning pursuit of goldfinches and, worse, his fish-hooks baited for +wild duck. Yet he was kind enough to the great cart-horses, conversing +with them all work-time in a guttural language they seemed perfectly to +comprehend. Bessie Trevorrow, the dairymaid, was even less approachable +than Dicky. She had the shyness of a wild thing, and would fly past +Jenny, gazing in the opposite direction. Once or twice, under the +pressure of proximity, they embarked upon a conversation; but Jenny +found it difficult to talk well with a woman who answered her in +ambiguous phrases of agreement or vague queries. Old Man Veal Jenny +disliked since on one occasion she observed him bobbing up and down +behind a hedge to watch her. Thomas was her favorite among the hands. He +had grown used to bringing her curiosities newly<a name="page_355" id="page_355"></a> found, and others +chosen from a collection that extended back to his earliest youth. These +he would present for her inspection, as a dog lays a stick at his +mistress's feet. Jenny, although she was profoundly uninterested by the +cannon-ball he had found wedged between two rocks, by the George III +halfpenny turned up by the plough, by his strings of corks and bundles +of torn nets, was nevertheless touched by his offer to strike a "lemon" +for her under a jam-jar in the spring. Nor did she listen distastefully +to the long sing-song tales with which he entertained May.</p> + +<p>The fine weather lasted right up to Christmas Day. Violets bloomed +against the white stones that edged the garden paths. Wallflowers wore +their brown velvet in sheltered corners and, best of all, bushes of +Brompton stocks in a sweetness of pink and gray scented the rich Cornish +winter. Jenny and May would wander up and down the garden with Granfa, +while the old man would tell in his high chant tales as long as Thomas's +of by-gone Australian adventures, tales ripened in the warmth of spent +sunshine, and sometimes stories of his own youth in Trewinnard with +memories of maids' eyes and lads' laughter. Then in January came storm +on storm, dark storms that thundered up the valley, dragging night in +their wake. Lambing went on out in the blackness, a dreadful experience, +Jenny thought, when Zachary came in at all hours, sometimes stained with +blood in the lantern light. Jenny was scarcely aware of her husband in +the daytime. The volubility which had distinguished his conversation in +London was not apparent here. Indeed, he scarcely spoke except in +monosyllables, and spent all his time working grimly on the farm. He did +not seem to notice Jenny, and never inquired into her manner of passing +the day. She was his, safe and sound in Cornwall, a handsome property +like a head of fine stock. He had desired her deeply and had gained his +desire. Now, slim and rosy, she was still desirable; but, as Jenny +herself half recognized, too securely fastened, too easily attainable +for any misgiving. She certainly had no wish for a closer intimacy,<a name="page_356" id="page_356"></a> and +was very thankful for the apparent indifference which he felt towards +her. She would have been horrified, had he suggested sharing her walks +with May, had he wanted to escort them over Trewinnard Sands, or worst +of all, had he invited her to sit beside him on his Sunday drives to +preach at distant chapels. He did not even bother her to come and hear +him preach in Trewinnard Free Church. Yet as the weeks went by, Jenny +came to think that he regarded her more than she thought at first. He +often seemed to know where she had been without being informed. When she +complained about Old Man Veal's spying on her, Zachary laughed oddly, +not much annoyed presumably by his servant's indiscretion. Jenny tried +sometimes to imagine what Trewinnard would have been like without her +sister. The fancy made her shudder. With May, however, it was like a +rather long, pleasantly dull holiday.</p> + +<p>February brought fair days, scattered shining celandines like pieces of +gold over the garden beds, set the stiff upright daffodil buds drooping +and was all too soon driven out by the bleakest March that was ever +known, a fierce, detestable month of withering east winds, of starved +primroses, and dauntless thrushes singing to their nests in the shaken +laurustinus. Jenny began to hate the country itself now, when all she +could see of it was savage and forbidding as the people it bred.</p> + +<p>In the middle of this gray and blasted month, Jenny became aware that +she was going to have a baby. This discovery moved her principally by a +sudden revival of self-consciousness so acute that she could scarcely +compel herself to break the news even to May. It seemed such an absurd +fact when she looked across the table at Zachary somberly munching his +pasty. She could hardly bear to sit at meals, dreading every whisper and +muffled giggle from the lower end of the table. Although the baby would +not arrive till September, and although she tried to persuade herself +that it was impossible for anyone to discern her condition, her own +knowledge of it dismayed her.<a name="page_357" id="page_357"></a></p> + +<p>"But it'll be nice to have a baby," said May.</p> + +<p>"What, in this unnatural house? I <i>don't</i> think. Oh, May, whatever shall +I do? Can't I go away to have it?"</p> + +<p>"Why don't you ask him?" suggested May.</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly, how can I tell <i>him</i> anything about it?"</p> + +<p>"He's got to know some time," May pointed out.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but not yet. And then you can tell the old woman and she can tell +him, and I'll hide myself up in the bedroom for a week. Fancy all the +servants knowing. What a dreadful thing! Besides, it hurts."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's no use for you to worry about that part of it now," said +May. "I call it silly."</p> + +<p>"I hope it'll be a boy," said Jenny. "I love boys. I think they're such +rogues."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather it was a girl," said May.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it don't matter which after all," Jenny decided. "A boy would +be nicest, though, if you loved the man. Because you'd see him all over +again. Perhaps I'd rather have a girl. I expect she'd be more like me. +Poor kid!" she added to herself, meditating.</p> + +<p>During April the subject was put on one side by mutual consent. There +was no immediate necessity for bother; but Jenny's self-consciousness +made her unwilling to wander any more over the towans, for all that the +weather was very blue and white, and the sheltered sand-drifts +pleasantly warm in the spring sun. Jenny, however, felt that every +rush-crowned ridge concealed an inquisitive head. She knew already how +curious the country people were, and that Old Man Veal was no exception. +Once she had walked through Trewinnard Churchtown near dusk, and had +been horribly aware of bobbing faces behind every curtained window, +faces that bobbed and peered and followed every movement and gesture of +her person.</p> + +<p>Therefore May and Jenny determined to withdraw all opportunity from +inquisitiveness by exploring the high cliffs behind Bochyn. They climbed +up a steep road washed very<a name="page_358" id="page_358"></a> bare by the sea wind, but pleasant enough +with its turfed hedges fluttering with the cowslips that flourished in a +narrow streak of limestone. At the top the road ran near the cliff's +edge through gorse and heather and moorland scrub. They found a spot +where the cliff sloped less precipitous in a green declivity right down +to the sea. This slope was gay with sea-pinks and fragrant with white +sea-campion. Primroses patterned the turf, and already ferns were +uncrumpling their fronds. Below them the sea was spread like a peacock's +tail in every lustrous shade of blue and green. Half-way down they threw +themselves full length on the resilient cushions of grass and, bathed in +sunshine, listened to the perpetual screaming of the gulls and boom of +the waves in caverns round the coast.</p> + +<p>"Not so dusty after all," said Jenny contentedly. "It's nice. I like it +here."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it lovely and warm?" said May.</p> + +<p>So they buzzed idly on with their sunlit gossip and drowsy commentaries, +until a bank of clouds overtook the sun and the water became leaden. +Jenny shivered.</p> + +<p>"Somebody sitting on my grave," she said. "But it's nice here. Nicer +than anywhere we've walked, I think."<a name="page_359" id="page_359"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XXXIX" id="XXXIX"></a>Chapter XXXIX: <i>Intermezzo</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">C</span>IRCUMSTANCES made it necessary that before the end of the month May +should inform old Mrs. Trewhella of Jenny's expected baby.</p> + +<p>"What did she say?" Jenny inquired when the interview was over.</p> + +<p>"She said she thought as much."</p> + +<p>"What a liberty. Why? Nobody could tell to look at me. Or I hope not."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but her!" commented May. "She's done nothing all her life only +make it her business to know. They're all like that down here. I noticed +that very soon about country people."</p> + +<p>"What else did she say?" Jenny went on with for her unusual persistence. +She was not yet able to get rid of the idea that there was something +remarkable in Jenny Pearl going to have a baby. Not even the universal +atmosphere of fecundity which pervaded the farm could make this fact a +whit more ordinary.</p> + +<p>"She didn't say much else," related May, not rising to the solemnity of +the announcement, the revolutionary and shattering reality of it.</p> + +<p>"But she's going to tell him?" Jenny asked.</p> + +<p>"That made her laugh."</p> + +<p>"What did?"</p> + +<p>"Her having to tell him."</p> + +<p>"Why?" demanded Jenny indignantly.</p> + +<p>"Well, you know they're funny down here. I tell you they<a name="page_360" id="page_360"></a> don't think +nothing about having a baby. No more than picking a bunch of roses, you +might say."</p> + +<p>This humdrum view of childbirth, although it might have relieved her +self-consciousness, was not at all welcome to Jenny. She could not bring +herself to believe that, when after so many years of speculation on this +very subject, she herself was going to have a baby, the world at large +would remain profoundly indifferent. She remembered how as a child she +had played with dolls, and how in the foggy weeks before Christmas she +had been wont to identify her anticipation with the emotional expectancy +of young motherhood. And now it was actually in the slow process of +happening, this event, happening, too, as far as could be judged, +without any violent or even mildly perceptible transfiguration, mental +or physical. Still it must not be forgotten that Mrs. Trewhella had +divined her condition. By what? Certainly not at present by her form or +complexion.</p> + +<p>"I think it's your eyes," said May.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with them now?"</p> + +<p>"They look different somehow. Sort of far-away look which you didn't use +to have."</p> + +<p>"Shut up," scoffed Jenny, greatly embarrassed.</p> + +<p>That evening when, after tea, Jenny leaned against the stone hedge under +a sunset of rosy cumulus, Trewhella came through the garden and faced +her.</p> + +<p>"So you and me's going to have a child, missus?"</p> + +<p>Jenny resented the assumption of his partnership and gave a cold +affirmative.</p> + +<p>"That's a good job," he sighed, staring out into the air stained with +crimson from twilight's approach. "I feel brim pleased about that. +There'll be some fine Harvest Home to Bochyn come September month."</p> + +<p>Then from the vagueness of such expressed aspirations Zachary turned to +a practical view of the matter on hand, regarding his wife earnestly as +he might from the support of a gate have looked discriminatingly at a +field of young wheat.<a name="page_361" id="page_361"></a></p> + +<p>"Is there anything you do want?" he presently inquired.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the cool straightness of the question contained a hint of expert +advice, as if for his field he would prescribe phosphates or nitrate or +sulphate of ammonia. There was no suggestion of spiritual needs that +might call out for nourishment under the stress of a new experience. +Jenny felt that she was being sized up with a view to the best practical +conduct of the agitating business.</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't talk about me," she protested, "like you talked +about that cow the other day at dinner."</p> + +<p>Trewhella looked perplexed. He never seemed able to grasp whether this +sharp-voiced Londoner whom he had married were laughing at him or not.</p> + +<p>"I've always heard it spoken," he began slowly. He always proceeded +slowly with a conversation that held a warning of barbed wire, as if by +disregarding the obstacle and by cautious advance any defense could be +broken down.</p> + +<p>"I've always heard it spoken that the women do dearly love something or +other at such times. Mother used to tell how before I were born, she +were in a terrible hurry to eat a Cornish Gillyflower. But there wasn't +one tree as bore an apple that year. Irish Peaches? Ess, bushels. No, +that wouldn't do for her. Tom Putts? Sweet Larks? Ess, bushels. No more +wouldn't they serve. Boxers? Sops and Wines? Ess, bushels, and, darn +'ee, they made her retch to look at 'em."</p> + +<p>"She'd properly got the pip, hadn't she?" observed Jenny mockingly.</p> + +<p>Trewhella saw the wire and made a circuit.</p> + +<p>"So I was thinking you might be wanting something as I could get for 'ee +on market-day to Camston."</p> + +<p>"No, thanks, there's nothing I want. Not even a penny pomegranate," said +Jenny, who was anxious for Zachary to go. She did not like this attempt +at intimacy. She had not foreseen the alliance of sympathy he presumably +wished to form on account of her child. The more she considered his +claim, the more irrational and impertinent did it seem that he should<a name="page_362" id="page_362"></a> +dare assume any share in the unborn miracle worked by Jenny Pearl.</p> + +<p>Trewhella pulled himself together, still progressing slowly, even +painfully, but braced to snap if necessary every strand of barbed wire +still between him and his object.</p> + +<p>"What I were going to say to 'ee was, now that there's this lill baby, +I'd like for 'ee both to go chapel. I've said nothing so far about your +not going; but I daren't run up against the dear Lord's wrath in the +matter of my baby."</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly," said Jenny. "How can anything happen to <i>my</i> baby +without its happening to me?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I'd like for 'ee to come," Trewhella persisted.</p> + +<p>Here was Jenny in a quandary. If she refused, according to her fiery +first impulse, what religious pesterings would follow her round the +garden. How he would drawl in that unnatural manner of speech a lot of +rubbish which had nothing to do with her. He might even take to +preaching in bed. He had once frightened her by demanding in a +sepulchral speculation whether she had ever reflected that the flames of +hell were so hot that there a white-hot poker would be cool as +ice-cream. If on the other hand she submitted to a few hours' boredom, +what an amount of treasured liberty would be sacrificed and what more +intrusive attempts might not be made upon the inviolable egoism.</p> + +<p>"But I don't like church and chapel," said Jenny. "It doesn't interest +me."</p> + +<p>Then she saw her husband gathering his eloquence for wearisome argument +and decided to compromise—and for Jenny to compromise meant character +in the melting-pot.</p> + +<p>"I might come once and again," she said.</p> + +<p>Trewhella seemed relieved and, after a moment's awkwardness in which he +gave her the idea that he was on the verge of thanks, departed to his +business.</p> + +<p>So, not on the following Sunday, for that would have looked like too +easy a surrender, but on the Sunday after that, Jenny and May went in +the wake of the household to the Free<a name="page_363" id="page_363"></a> Church—a gaunt square of +whitewashed stone, whose interior smelt of varnish and stale hymn-books +and harmonium dust. The minister, a compound of suspicion, petty +authority and deep-rooted servility, had bicycled from Camston and had +in consequence a rash of mud on his coat. Without much fire, gnawing his +mustache when in need of a word, he gave a dreary political address in +which several modern statesmen were allotted prototypes in Israel. The +mean Staffordshire accent destroyed whatever beauty was left to his +maimed excerpts from Holy Scripture.</p> + +<p>"What a terrible man!" whispered Jenny to May.</p> + +<p>Presently during the extempore prayers, when the congregation took up +the more comfortable attitude of prayer by bending towards their laps, +Jenny perceived that the eyes of each person were surreptitiously fixed +on her. She could see the prying sparkle through coarse fingers—a +sparkle that was instantly quenched when she faced it. Jenny prodded +May.</p> + +<p>"Come on," she whispered fiercely. "I'm going out of this dog's island."</p> + +<p>May looked alarmed by the prospect of so conspicuous an exit, but +loyally followed Jenny as they picked their way over what seemed from +their upright position a jumble of corpses. An official, either more +indomitably curious or less anxiously self-repressive than the majority, +hurried after them.</p> + +<p>"Feeling slight, are 'ee, missus?" inquired this red-headed farmer.</p> + +<p>"No, thanks," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"It do get very hot with that stove come May month. I believe it ought +to be put out. And you're not feeling slight?"</p> + +<p>"No, thanks."</p> + +<p>The man seemed unwilling to go back inside the chapel; but the two girls +walked quickly away from him down through the deserted village.</p> + +<p>After dinner the incident was discussed with some bitterness.<a name="page_364" id="page_364"></a></p> + +<p>"How did 'ee go out of chapel like that?" asked Trewhella.</p> + +<p>"Because I don't go to a chapel or a church neither to be stared at. +It's a game of mine played slow, being stared at by a lot of old crows +like them in there."</p> + +<p>Jenny defiantly surveyed Zachary, his mother and old Mr. Champion, while +May murmured encouragement behind her.</p> + +<p>"’Tisn't paying any great respect to the dear Lord," said Trewhella. +"Trooping out like a lot of great bullocks! I went so hot as lead."</p> + +<p>"’Tisn't paying any great respect to the dear Lord, staring at two women +when you belong praying," said Granfa severely.</p> + +<p>"Darn 'ee," said Trewhella savagely. "’Tis nothing to do with you, a +heathen old man as was once seen picking wrinkles off the rocks on a +Sunday morning."</p> + +<p>"I believe it is then," said Granfa stoutly. "I believe that it's got a +brae lot to do with me and, darn 'ee, if it hasn't——"</p> + +<p>He thumped the table so that all the crockery rattled. This roused Mrs. +Trewhella, who had been blinking in silence.</p> + +<p>"Look, see what you're doing, Granfa. You'll scat all the cloam," she +cried shrilly.</p> + +<p>Trewhella, having surveyed Jenny's defenses, began his usual slow +advance.</p> + +<p>"What nobody here seems to understand is my feelings when I seed my +missus making a mock of holy things."</p> + +<p>"Oh, rats!" cried Jenny, flouncing angrily from the room.</p> + +<p>Nothing could persuade her to humor Zachary so far as to go to chapel a +second time. It pleased her to contemplate his anxiety for the spiritual +welfare of the unborn child. "I wish you'd wrastle with the devil a bit +more," he said. But she would only set her lips obstinately, and perhaps +under his mother's advice, Zachary gradually allowed the subject to +drop.</p> + +<p>Jenny and May went often to the cliffs in the fine weather, mostly to +Crickabella (such was Granfa's name for their<a name="page_365" id="page_365"></a> favorite slope), where +summer marched by almost visibly. The sea-pinks turned brown, the +sea-campion decayed to an untidy mat of faded leaves and flowers. +Bluebells came up in asparagus-like heads that very soon broke into a +blue mist of perfume. The ferns grew taller every day, and foxgloves +waved right down to the water's edge. On the moorland behind the cliffs, +heather and burnet roses bloomed with azure scabious and white +mothmulleins, ladies' tresses and sweet purple orchids. Here and there +grew solitary columbines, which Jenny thought were lovely and carried +home to Granfa, who called them Blue Men's Caps. Remote from curious +eyes, remote from life itself save in the progress of inanimate things +towards the accomplishment of their destiny, she dreamed unceasingly day +after day amid the hollow sounding of the ocean, watching idly the +metallic green flight of the shags, the timorous adventures of rock +pipits, and sometimes the graces of a seal.</p> + +<p>With the advance of summer Jenny began to dread extremely the various +insects and reptiles of the country. It was vain for Thomas to assure +her that apple-bees did not sting without provocation, that eeriwigs +were not prone to attack, that piskies were harmless flutterers and +neither Johnny Jakes nor gram'ma sows actively malicious. These rural +incidents of a wasp on a hat or a woodlouse in a sponge were to her +horrible events which made her tremble in the recollection of them long +afterwards. The state of her health did not tend to allay these terrors, +and because Crickabella was comparatively free from insects, that lonely +green escarpment, flung against the black ramparts of the towering +coast, was more than ever dear to Jenny.</p> + +<p>In July, however, she was not able to walk so far as Crickabella, and +was forced to pass all her days in the garden, gazing at the shimmering +line of the hills opposite. Granfa Champion used to spend much time in +her company, and was continually having to be restrained from violent +digging in the heat. During August picture post-cards often arrived +from<a name="page_366" id="page_366"></a> girls spending their holidays at Margate or Brighton, postcards +that gave no news beyond, "Having a fine old time. Hope you're alright," +but, inasmuch as they showed that there was still a thought of Jenny in +the great world outside, very welcome.</p> + +<p>August dragged on with parched days, and cold twilights murmurous with +the first rustle of autumn. Jenny began to work herself up into a state +of nervous apprehension, brooding over childbirth, its pain and secrecy +of purpose and ultimate responsibilities. She could no longer tolerate +the comments passed upon her by Mrs. Trewhella nor the furtive +inquisitiveness of Zachary. She gave up sitting at dinner with the rest +of the household, and was humored in this fad more perhaps from policy +than any consideration of affection. The only pleasure of these hot +insufferable days of waiting was the knowledge that Zachary was banished +from her room, that once more, as of old, May would sleep beside her. +There was a new experience from the revival of the partnership because +now, unlike the old theater days, Jenny would often be the first in bed +and able to lie there watching in the candlelight May's shadow glance +hugely about the irregular ceiling, like Valérie's shadow long since in +the Glasgow bedroom. Where was Valérie now? But where was anybody in her +history? Ghosts, every one of them, where she was concerned.<a name="page_367" id="page_367"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XL" id="XL"></a>Chapter XL: <i>Harvest Home</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">A</span>LL day long the whirr of the reaper and binder had rattled from distant +fields in a monotone of sound broken at regular intervals by guttural +cries when the horses at a corner turned on their tracks, and later in +the afternoon by desultory gunshots, when from the golden triangle of +wheat rabbits darted over the fresh stubble. All day long Jenny, obeying +some deep instinct, prepared for the ordeal. The sun blazed over the +spread harvest; the fields crackled with heat; the blue sky seemed to +close upon the earth, and not even from the whole length of Trewinnard +Sands was heard a solitary ripple of the tide. In the garden the +claret-colored dahlias hung down their tight, uncomfortable flowers; +geraniums, portulacas, nasturtiums, sunflowers and red-hot pokers burned +in one furnace of bloom. Red admiral butterflies soared lazily up and +down against the gray walls crumbling with heat, and from flower to +flower of the scarlet salvias zigzagged the hummingbird hawkmoths. +Granfa Champion, wiping with gaudy bandana his forehead, came out to +plant daffodil bulbs stored in the green shadows of a cool potting shed.</p> + +<p>"Now, you know you mustn't go digging in this sun, Mr. Champion," said +reproving May.</p> + +<p>"My cheeks are so hot as pies," declared Granfa.</p> + +<p>"Do come and sit down with us," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"I believe I mustn't start tealing yet awhile," said the old man, +regretfully plunging his long Cornish spade into the baked earth, from +which insufficient stability the instrument fell with a thump on to the +path.<a name="page_368" id="page_368"></a></p> + +<p>"Well, how are 'ee feeling, my dear?" asked Granfa, standing before +Jenny and mopping his splendid forehead. "None so frail, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"She isn't feeling at all well. Not to-day," said May.</p> + +<p>"That's bad," said Granfa. "That's poor news, that is."</p> + +<p>"I feel frightened, Mr. Champion," said Jenny suddenly. Somehow this old +man recalled Mr. Vergoe, rousing old impulses of childish confidence and +revelation.</p> + +<p>"Feeling frightened, are 'ee? That's bad."</p> + +<p>"Supposing it wasn't a person at all?" said Jenny desperately. "You +know, like us?"</p> + +<p>The old man considered for a moment this morbid fancy.</p> + +<p>"That's a wisht old thought," he said at last, "and I don't see no call +for it at all. When I do teal a lily root, I don't expect to see a +broccolo come bursting up and annoying me."</p> + +<p>"But it might," argued Jenny, determined not to be convinced out of all +misgiving.</p> + +<p>"Don't encourage her, Mr. Champion," said May severely. "Tell her you +think she's silly."</p> + +<p>Jenny buried her face in her hands and began to cry. Granfa looked at +her for a moment; then, advocating silence with his right forefinger, +with his left thumb he indicated to May by jabbing it rapidly backwards +over his shoulder that inside and upstairs to her bedroom was the best +place for Jenny.</p> + +<p>So presently she was lying on the tapestried bed in the tempered +sunlight of her room, while through the house in whispers ran the news +that it might be any time now. Up from downstairs sounded the +restlessness of making ready. The sinking sun glowed in the heart of +every vivid Brussels rose and bathed the dusty floor with orange lights. +Jenny's great thought was that never again would she endure this agony, +if but this once she were able to survive it. She vowed, tearing in +savage emphasis the patchwork counterpane, that nothing should induce +her to suffer like this a second time.</p> + +<p>The afternoon faded tranquilly into dusk. No wind agitated<a name="page_369" id="page_369"></a> a single +dewy petal, and only the blackbirds with intermittent alarums broke the +silence. The ripe round moon of harvest, floating mild and yellow and +faintly luminous along the sky, was not yet above the hills. Mrs. +Trewhella was not yet willing to despatch a summons to the doctor. Two +more hours sank away. Out in the fields, marching full in the moon's +face, the reapers went slowly homewards. Out in the fields they sang old +songs of the earth and the grain; out in the waste the fox pricked his +ears and the badger turned to listen. Down in the reeds the +sedge-warbler lisped through the low ground vapors his little melody. +The voices of the harvesters died away in purple glooms, and now, as if +in a shell, the sea was heard lapping the sand. Through the open lattice +rose the scent of the tobacco plants. There was a murmur of voices in +consultation. Jenny heard a shout for Thomas, and presently horses' +hoofs trotting down the farm road.</p> + +<p>High and small and silver was the moon before she heard them coming +back. The dewdrops were all diamonds, the wreathed vapors were +damascened by moonlight, before she heard the grate of wheels and the +click of the gate and another murmur of voices. Then the room was filled +with black figures; entering lamplight seemed to magnify her pain, and +Jenny knew little more until, recovering from chloroform, she perceived +a candle, large as a column, burning with giant spearhead of flame and, +beyond the blue and silver lattice, apprehended a fuss of movement.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she asked in momentary perplexity.</p> + +<p>"’Tis a boy," said Mrs. Trewhella. "A grand lill chap."</p> + +<p>"What's all that noise?" she murmured petulantly.</p> + +<p>"’Tis me, my dear soul," said Mrs. Trewhella, "putting all straight as +we belong."</p> + +<p>May leaned over her sister, squeezing her hand.</p> + +<p>"I think I shall like having a baby," said Jenny, "when we can take him +out for walks. You know, just you and me, young May."<a name="page_370" id="page_370"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XLI" id="XLI"></a>Chapter XLI: <i>Columbine Happy</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">J</span>ENNY was ivory now: the baby had stolen all the coral from her cheeks. +Outside, the treetops shook tremulous black lace across the silver deeps +of the sky and jigged with ebony boughs upon the circle of the moon. +Clear as bells sounded the slow breakers on Trewinnard beach, and in the +tall room a white moth circled round the candle-flame interminably. A +rat squeaked in the wall.</p> + +<p>"Fancy," said Jenny to May, who sat in the shadow by the foot of the +bed. "I thought I shouldn't like nursing a baby, but I think it's +glorious."</p> + +<p>A curlew cried through the October night and was answered far down the +valley.</p> + +<p>"I wish mother could have seen my baby," sighed Jenny. "It's my birthday +next week. Funny if we'd both been born the same day."</p> + +<p>The candle spat with the moth's death, then burned with renewed +brightness.</p> + +<p>"Time the rogue went to sleep," said May authoritatively.</p> + +<p>"Feel his hands," said Jenny. "They're like velvet bows."</p> + +<p>"They are lovely and soft, aren't they?" May agreed.</p> + +<p>"Won't the girls talk when they hear about my baby?"</p> + +<p>"Rather," said May reassuringly.</p> + +<p>"I expect they'll wonder if he's like me."</p> + +<p>Remote winds muttered over the hill-side, and the curlews set up a +chorus of chattering.</p> + +<p>"Night's lovely with a baby," said Jenny, and very soon fell asleep.<a name="page_371" id="page_371"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XLII" id="XLII"></a>Chapter XLII: <i>Shaded Sunlight</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>HE naming of the boy caused considerable discussion in Bochyn. Indeed, +at one stage of the argument a battle seemed imminent. Jenny herself +went outright for Eric.</p> + +<p>"Never heard no such a name in all my life," affirmed Trewhella.</p> + +<p>"You must have been about a lot," said Jenny sarcastically.</p> + +<p>"I think Eric's nice," urged May, in support of her sister's choice.</p> + +<p>"I never heard the name spoken so far as I do remember," Mr. Champion +put in, "but that's nothing against it as a name. As a name I do like it +very well. To be sure 'tis a bit after Hayrick, but again that's nothing +against a farmer's son."</p> + +<p>"I don't like the name at all," said old Mrs. Trewhella. "To me it do +sound a loose sort of a name."</p> + +<p>"Oh, 'tis no name at all," Zachary decided. "How do 'ee like it, my +dear?" he asked, turning to Jenny.</p> + +<p>"I don't know why I like it," she answered, "but I do."</p> + +<p>"There's a grand old name down Church," said Granfa meditatively. "A +grand, old, rolling, cut-a-piece-off-and-come-again sort of a name, but +darn 'ee if I can remember it. Ess I can now. Athanacious! Now that's a +name as will make your Jack or your Tom look very hungry. That's a name, +that is!"</p> + +<p>Impressive as sounded Granfa's trumpeting of it, everybody felt that +nowadays such a mouthful would hamper rather than benefit the owner. As +for Jenny, she declared frankly against it.<a name="page_372" id="page_372"></a></p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Granfa, not in these! Why, it would drive anyone silly to say +it, let alone write it. I wish it was a girl and then she could have +been called Eileen, which is nice."</p> + +<p>Trewhella looked anxiously at the subject of the discussion as if he +feared his wife could by some alchemy transmute the sex of the baby.</p> + +<p>"I should dearly love to call the lill chap Matthew or Mark or Luke," he +said. "John I don't take no account of. I do call that a poor ornary +unreligious sort of a name for an Evangelist."</p> + +<p>"I don't like John at all," said Jenny emphatically.</p> + +<p>"Then there's Abraham and Jacob," Zachary continued. "And Abel and +Adam."</p> + +<p>"And Ikey and Moses," Jenny scoffingly contributed.</p> + +<p>"How not Philip?" suggested old Mrs. Trewhella.</p> + +<p>"Or Nicholas?" said May.</p> + +<p>"Call him Satan straight away at once!" commented the father bitterly.</p> + +<p>"I like a surname sometimes," said Jenny thoughtfully. "I once knew a +boy called Presland. Only we used to call him Bill Hair. Still Eric's +the nicest of all, <i>I</i> think," she added, returning to her first choice.</p> + +<p>The argument went on for a long while. At times it would verge +perilously on a dispute, and in the end, in accordance with Jenny's new +development of character, a compromise was affected between Eric and +Adam by the substitution of Frank for both and, lest the advantage +should seem to incline to Jenny's side too far, with Abel as a second +name, where its extravagance would pass unnoticed.</p> + +<p>Winter passed away uneventfully except as regards the daily growth of +young Frank. There was no particularly violent storm, nor any wreck +within ten miles of the lonely farmhouse. When the warm days of spring +recurred frequently, it became necessary to find a pleasant place for +idle hours in the sun. Crickabella was too far away for a baby to be +taken there, and Jenny did not like the publicity of the front garden,<a name="page_373" id="page_373"></a> +exposed equally to Zachary's periodical inspections and Mrs. Trewhella's +grandmotherly limps away from housekeeping. Mr. Champion, when informed +of all this, cordially agreed with Jenny that the front garden was no +place at all under the circumstances and promised to go into the matter +of a secure retreat.</p> + +<p>So presently, on one of those lazy mornings when April pauses to survey +her handiwork, assuming in the contemplation of the proud pied earth the +warmth and maturity of midsummer, Granfa beckoned to Jenny and May and +young Frank to follow his lead. He took them out at the back, past the +plashy town-place, past a commotion of chickens, and up a rocky lane, +whose high, mossy banks were blue with dog-violets and twinkling white +with adders' eyes. The perambulator bumped over the loose stones, but +young Frank, sleeping admirably, never stirred; while his rosy cheeks +danced with ripples of light shaken down through the young-leafed elms. +Not too far up they came to a rickety gate, which Granfa dragged open to +admit his guests; and almost before they knew where they were, they +stood buried in the apple-blossoms of a small secluded orchard cut off +from the fields around by thick hedges of hawthorn.</p> + +<p>"What a glorious place!" Jenny cried enthusiastically. "Oh, I do think +this is nice."</p> + +<p>Mr. Champion, his hair looking snowy white in the rosy flush of blossom, +explained the fairylike existence of the close.</p> + +<p>"This old orchard was never scat up with the others. They burnt they up +in a frizz of repenitence. The Band of Hope come and scat them all +abroad with great axes, shouting Hallelujah and screaming and roaring so +as anyone was ashamed to be a human creature. Darn 'ee, I was so mad +when I heard tell of it, I lived on nothing but cider almost for weeks, +though 'tis a drink as do turn me sour all over."</p> + +<p>"Idiots," said Jenny. "But why didn't they pull this to pieces? There +must be lots of apples here."</p> + +<p>"It got avoided somehow, and Zachary he just left it go;<a name="page_374" id="page_374"></a> but 'tis a +handsome place, sure enough. You'll dearly love sitting here come +summertime."</p> + +<p>"Rather!" Jenny and May agreed.</p> + +<p>Already in isolated petals the blossom was beginning to flutter down; +but still the deserted orchard was in the perfection of its beauty. Down +in the cool grass, fortified against insects and dampness by many rugs, +Jenny and May and young Frank used to lie outstretched. They could see +through the pink and white lace of blossom deep, distant skies, where +for unknown landscapes the cuckoos struck their notes on space like +dulcimers; they could hear the goldfinch whistle to his nest in the +lichened fork above and wind-blown in treetops the copperfinch's burst +of song. They could listen to the greenfinch calling sweetly from the +hawthorn hedge, while tree-creepers ran like mice up the gray bark and +woodpeckers flirted in the grass. The narcissus bloomed here very +fragrant, contending wild-eyed with daisies and buttercups. There was +mistletoe—marvelous in the reality of its growth, but at the same time +to Jenny rather unnatural. And later, when the apple-blossom had fallen, +eglantine and honeysuckle and travelers' joy flung themselves prodigally +over the trees, and when the birds no longer sang, it did not matter, +such an enchanted silence of infinitely minute country sounds took their +place.</p> + +<p>As for young Frank, he was to his mother and aunt a wonder. He opened +his eyes very often, and very often he shut them. He kicked his legs and +uncurled his fingers like a kitten and twitched ecstatically to baby +visions. He cried very seldom and laughed very often, and crooned and +dribbled like many other babies; but whether or not the intoxication of +the sweet close urged him to unparagoned agilities and precocities, +there was no doubt at all that, in the companionship of elves, he +enjoyed life very much indeed.</p> + +<p>"He looks like an apple lying there," said Jenny. "A great round, fat, +rosy apple. Bless his heart."</p> + +<p>"He is a rogue," said May.</p> + +<p>"Oh, May, he is a darling! Oh, I do think he's lovely.<a name="page_375" id="page_375"></a> Look at his +feet, just like raspberries. He isn't much like <i>him</i>, is he?"</p> + +<p>"No, he's not," said May emphatically. "Not at all like."</p> + +<p>"I don't think he's much like anybody, I don't," said Jenny, +contemplating her son.</p> + +<p>It might have seemed to the casual onlooker that Arcadia had recompensed +Jenny for all that had gone before; and, indeed, could the whole of +existence have been set in that inclosure of dappled hours, she might +have attained sheer contentment. Even Jenny, with all she had longed +for, all she had possessed and all she had lost, might have been +permanently happy. But she was no sundial marking only the bright hours; +life had to go on when twilight came and night fell. Young Frank, asleep +in golden candlelight, could not mitigate the injury of her husband's +presence. Even young Frank, best and most satisfying of babies, was the +son of Zachary; would, when he grew out of babyhood, contain alien +blood. There might then be riddles of character which his mother would +never solve. Strange features would show themselves, foreign eyes, +perhaps, or a mouth which knew no curve of her own. Now he was adorably +complete, Jenny's own against the world; and yet he was a symbol of her +subjugation. Already Zachary was beginning to use their boy to +consolidate his possession of herself. Already he was talking about the +child's education and obviously making ready for an opportunity to +thrust him into religious avarice and gloom. The arrival of young Frank +had apparently increased the father's tendency to brood over the darker +problems of his barbarous creed. He talked of young Frank, who would +surely inherit some of the Raeburn joy of life, as if he would grow up +in suspicion, demon-haunted, oppressed with the fear of God's wrath, a +sour and melancholy dreamer of damnable dreams.</p> + +<p>Zachary took to groaning aloud over the sins of his fellow-men, would +groan and sweat horribly in the imagination of the unappeasable cruelty +of God. These outbreaks of despair for mankind were the more obnoxious +to Jenny because they<a name="page_376" id="page_376"></a> were always followed by a monstrous excess of his +privileges, by an utterly abhorred affectionateness. Mr. Champion, the +outspoken, clear-headed old man, would often remonstrate with his +nephew. Once, while Trewhella was in a spasm of misery groaning for his +own sins and the sins of the world, a sick cow died in audible agony on +account of his neglect.</p> + +<p>"You ought to be ashamed, you foolish man," said Granfa. "You ought to +be ashamed to leave the poor animal die. Darn 'ee, I believe the devil +<i>will</i> have 'ee!"</p> + +<p>"What's a cow," said Trewhella somberly, "beside my own scarlet sins?"</p> + +<p>"’Tis one of the worst of 'em," said Granfa positively. "’Tis so scarlet +as wool. Get up, and leave be all your praying and sweating, you foolish +man. You do drive me plum mad with your foolishness. How don't 'ee do +your own work fittee and leave the dear Lord mind his own business? He +don't want to be told at his time of life what to do. Oh, you do drive +me mad."</p> + +<p>"Another lost lamb," groaned Trewhella. "Another soul in the pit. Oh, I +do pray wi' all my heart that my poor lill son may find favor in the +Lord's eyes and become a child of grace to preach the Word and confound +the Gentiles."</p> + +<p>"Did ever a man hark to such nonsense in his life?" exclaimed Granfa.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't argue with him in one of his moods," advised Jenny, looking +at her husband coldly and distastefully.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear Lord, give me strength to heal the blindness of my family and +make my poor lill son a sword in the side of unbelievers."</p> + +<p>Then presently the gloom would pass; he would go out silently to the +fields, and after a day's work come back in a fever of earthly desires +to his wife.</p> + +<p>There were shadows in Bochyn, for all the sunlight and birdsong and +sweetpeas blossom.<a name="page_377" id="page_377"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XLIII" id="XLIII"></a>Chapter XLIII: <i>Bow Bells</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">S</span>UMMER went by very quickly in the deserted orchard, and in fine +September weather young Frank's first birthday was celebrated with much +goodwill by everybody. Zachary, with the successful carrying of a rich +harvest, ceased to brood so much on the failure of humanity. He became +his own diligent self, amassing grain and gold and zealously expurgating +for reproduction in bleak chapels that winter a volume of sermons by an +Anglican bishop. Young Frank began to show distinct similarities of +feature to Jenny, similarities that not even the most critical observer +could demolish. He showed, too, some of her individuality, had a temper +and will of his own, and seemed like his mother born to inherit life's +intenser emotions. Jenny was not yet inclined to sink herself in him, to +transfer to the boy her own activity of sensation. Mrs. Raeburn was +thirty-three when Jenny was born: young Frank arrived when his mother +was ten years younger than that. It was not expected that she should +feel the gates of youth were closed against her. Moreover, Jenny, with +all the fullness of her experience, was strangely young on the eve of +her twenty-fourth birthday, still seeming, indeed, no more than eighteen +or nineteen. There was a divine youthfulness about her which was proof +against the Furies, and, since the diverting absurdities of young Frank, +laughter had come back. Those deep eyes danced again for one who from +altitudes of baby ecstasies would gloriously respond. May was another +triumph for affection. There was joy in regarding that little sister, +once wan with Islington airs, now happy<a name="page_378" id="page_378"></a> and healthy and almost as +rose-pink as Jenny herself. How pleased her mother would have been, and, +in retrospect, how skeptical must she have felt of Jenny's ability to +keep that promise always to look after May.</p> + +<p>Life was not so bad on her birthday morning, as, with one eye kept +continuously on young Frank, Jenny dressed herself to defy the +blusterous jolly October weather. She thought how red the apples were in +the orchard and with what a plump they fell and how she and May had +laughed when one fell on young Frank, who had also laughed, deeming +against the evidence of his surprise that it must be matter for +merriment.</p> + +<p>The postman came that morning, and Granfa, waving his arms, brought the +letters up to the orchard—two letters, both for Jenny. He watched for a +minute her excitement before he departed to a pleasant job of digging in +the champagne of October sunlight.</p> + +<p>"Hullo," cried Jenny, "here's a letter from Maudie Chapman."</p> + +<div class="blockd"><p class="r"><span class="smcap">26 Alverton Street</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Pimlico.</span></p> + +<p class="nind">Dear old Jenny,</p> + +<p>Suddenly remembered it was your birthday, old girl. Many Happy +Returns of The Day, and hope you're in the best of pink and going +on fine the same as I am. We have got a new stage manager who you +would laugh to see all the girls think. We have been rehearsing for +months and I'm sick of it—You're well out of the Orient I give you +my word. Its a dogs' Island now and no mistake. Walter sends his +love. I have got a little girl called Ivy. She is a love. Have you?</p> + +<p class="r"><span style="margin-right: 8em;">With heaps of love</span><br /> +from your old chum, Maudie.</p> + +<p>Irene's gone off with that fellow Danbie and Elsie had <a name="page_379" id="page_379"></a>twins. Her Artie +was very annoyed about it. Madge Wilson has got a most glorious set of +furs. No more from Maudie—Write us a letter old girl.</p> +</div> + +<p>"Fancy," said Jenny. "Elsie Crauford's had twins."</p> + +<p>This letter, read in the open air, with a sea wind traveling through the +apple trees, with three hundred miles of country between the sender and +the receiver, was charged with London sorcery. It must have been posted +on the way to the theater. Incredible thought! Jenny visualized the red +pillar-box into which it might have slipped, a pillar-box station by a +crowded corner, splashed by traffic and jostled by the town. On the flap +was a round spot of London rain, and pervading all the paper was a faint +theater scent. The very ink was like eye-black, and Maudie must have +written every word laboriously between two glittering ballets.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if I could do a single beat now?" said Jenny. "I wish I hadn't +given my new ballet shoes to Gladys West."</p> + +<p>Then as once she danced under the tall plane tree of Hagworth Street to +a sugared melody of "Cavalleria," so now she danced in an apple orchard, +keeping time to the wind and the waving boughs. Young Frank quivered and +kicked with joy to see the twirling of his mother's skirts. May cried, +"You great tomboy!" but with robin's eyes and slanting head watched her +sister.</p> + +<p>Had she been a poet, Jenny would have sung of London, of the thunder and +grayness, of the lamps and rain, of long irresistible rides on the top +of swaying tramcars, of wild roars through the depth of the earth past +the green lamps flashing to red. She danced instead about the sea-girt +orchard-close all that once her heart had found in London. She danced +the hopes of many children of Apollo, who work so long for so little. +She danced their disillusions, their dreams of immortality, their lives, +their marriages, their little houses. She danced their fears of poverty +and starvation, their work and effort and strife, their hurrying home in +the darkness. She danced their middle age of growing families and all +their renewed<a name="page_380" id="page_380"></a> hopes and disappointments and contentments. She danced a +little of the sorrow and all the joy of life. She danced old age and the +breathing night of London and the sparrow-haunted dawn. She danced the +silly little shillings which the children of Apollo earn. Fifteen +pirouettes for fifteen shillings, fifteen pirouettes for long rehearsals +and long performances, fifteen pirouettes for a week, fifteen pirouettes +for no fame, fifteen pirouettes for fifteen shillings, and one high beat +for the funeral of a marionette.</p> + +<p>And all the time the gay October leaves danced with her in the grass.</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope you've enjoyed yourself," said May. Jenny threw herself +breathless on the outspread rug and kissed young Frank.</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose I shall ever dance again."</p> + +<p>"What about the other letter?" asked May.</p> + +<p>"There, if I didn't forget all about it," cried Jenny. "But who's it +from? What unnatural writing! Like music."</p> + +<p>She broke the seal.</p> + +<div class="blockd"><p class="r"><span class="smcap">Pump Court, Temple.</span></p> + +<p class="nind">My dear Jenny,</p> + +<p>I think I've been very good not to worry you long before this; but +I do want to write and wish you many happy returns. Will you accept +my thoughts? I got your address and history from Maudie Chapman +whom I met last week. I wonder if I came down to Cornwall for a few +days, if you would let me call on you. If you're annoyed by this +letter, just don't answer. I shall perfectly understand.</p> + +<p class="r"><span style="margin-right: 4em;">Yours ever,</span><br /> +Frank Castleton.</p> +</div> + +<p>"Fancy," said Jenny. "I never knew his name was Frank. How funny!"</p> + +<p>"Who is this Frank?" May inquired.</p> + +<p>"A friend of mine I knew once—getting on for nearly four years ago now. +Where could anyone stay here?"<a name="page_381" id="page_381"></a></p> + +<p>"There's an hotel in Trewinnard," said May.</p> + +<p>Jenny looked at young Frank.</p> + +<p>"I don't see why I shouldn't," she said.</p> + +<p>"Shouldn't what?"</p> + +<p>"Have a friend come and see me," Jenny answered.<a name="page_382" id="page_382"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XLIV" id="XLIV"></a>Chapter XLIV: <i>Picking Up Threads</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">C</span>ASTLETON arrived at Bochyn under a November sunset, whose lemon glow, +barred with indigo banks of cloud, was reflected with added brightness +in the flooded meadows and widening stream. Jenny in the firelight was +singing and rocking her baby to sleep. She jumped up to open the door to +his knock.</p> + +<p>"Why, Fuz," she said simply.</p> + +<p>He stood enormous against the last gleams of day, and Jenny realized +with what small people she had been living so long.</p> + +<p>"Jane," he said, "this is a big moment."</p> + +<p>He followed her into the room and waited while she lit the lamp and +pointed with warning finger to the child asleep in a silence of ticking +clocks.</p> + +<p>"There's a surprise, or isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Rather," said Castleton. "It looks very well."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Fuz. It! You are dreadful. He's called Frank, and fancy, I never +knew you were called Frank till you wrote to me last month."</p> + +<p>"Another disappointment," sighed Castleton.</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Why, of course I thought you altered his name to celebrate my visit."</p> + +<p>"You never didn't?" said Jenny, already under slow rustic influences not +perfectly sure of a remark's intention. Then suddenly getting back to +older and lighter forms of conversation, she laughed.</p> + +<p>"Well, how are you, Jenny?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm feeling grand. Where are you staying?"<a name="page_383" id="page_383"></a></p> + +<p>"The One and All Inn."</p> + +<p>"Comfortable?"</p> + +<p>"I fancy very, from a quick glance."</p> + +<p>"You'll stay and have tea with us and meet my husband," Jenny invited.</p> + +<p>"I shall be proud."</p> + +<p>A silence fell on these two friends.</p> + +<p>"Well, what about dear old London?" said Jenny at last.</p> + +<p>"It's extraordinarily the same. Let me see, had tubes and taxis been +invented before you went away?" Castleton asked.</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly. Of course," she exclaimed, outraged by such an +implication of antediluvian exile.</p> + +<p>"Then flatly there is nothing to tell you about London. I was at the +Orient the other night. I need not say the ballet was precisely the same +as a dozen others I have seen, and you have helped at."</p> + +<p>"Any pretty new girls?" Jenny asked.</p> + +<p>"I believe there are one or two."</p> + +<p>"How's Ronnie Walker?"</p> + +<p>"He still lives more for painting than by painting, and has grown a +cream-colored beard."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he never hasn't. Then he ought to get the bird."</p> + +<p>"So that he could say: 'Four owls and a hen, two larks and a wren, have +all built their nests in my beard'? It isn't big enough, Jane."</p> + +<p>"And Cunningham, how's he?"</p> + +<p>"Cunningham is married. I don't know his wife, but I'm told she plays +the piano a great deal better than he does. As for myself," said +Castleton quickly, "I have chambers in the Temple, but live at home with +my people, who have moved to Kensington. There, you see what alarming +cataclysms have shaken the society you deserted. Now tell me about +yourself."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I jog along," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>Further reminiscence was interrupted by the entrance of Trewhella, who +saluted Castleton suspiciously and from shyness somewhat brusquely.<a name="page_384" id="page_384"></a></p> + +<p>"How do you do sir?" said the guest, conspicuously agreeable.</p> + +<p>"I'm very well, thank 'ee. Come far, have 'ee?"</p> + +<p>"London."</p> + +<p>"That's a poor sort of place. I was there once. But I didn't take much +account of it," said Trewhella.</p> + +<p>"You found it disappointing?"</p> + +<p>"Ess, ess, too many Cockneys for a Cornishman. But I wasn't robbed +over-much. I believe I was too sharp for them."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad of that," said the representative of cities.</p> + +<p>"You do talk a lot of rot about London," said Jenny contemptuously. "As +if you could know <i>any</i>thing about it!"</p> + +<p>"I found all I wanted, my dear," said Trewhella winking. He seemed in a +mind to impress the foreigner.</p> + +<p>"By carrying off Je—Mrs. Trewhella, eh?" said Castleton. "Come, after +that, I don't think you ought to grumble at London."</p> + +<p>Trewhella darted a suspicious glance as if to demand by what right this +intruder dared to comment on his behavior.</p> + +<p>The presence of a stranger at tea threw a munching silence over all the +lower end of the table; but Castleton made a great impression on Granfa, +who asked him a number of questions and sighed admiration for each new +and surprising answer.</p> + +<p>"But there's one thing I believe you can't tell me," said Granfa. "Or if +you can, you're a marvel."</p> + +<p>"And what is that?" inquired Castleton.</p> + +<p>"I've asked scores of men this question," said Granfa proudly. +"Hundreds, I suppose, and there wasn't one of them could give me an +answer."</p> + +<p>"You really alarm me this time," said Castleton.</p> + +<p>Granfa braced himself by swallowing a large mouthful of pasty and +delivered his poser almost reverently.</p> + +<p>"Can you tell me, mister, in what county o' Scotland is John o' Groats?"</p> + +<p>"Caithness, I think," said Castleton.<a name="page_385" id="page_385"></a></p> + +<p>Granfa coughed violent appreciation and thumped on the table in +amazement.</p> + +<p>"Hark, all you men and maidens down to the end of the table! I've asked +that question in Cornwall, and I've asked that question in Australia. +I've asked Scotchmen even, and I'm a brae old man now. But there wasn't +one who could speak the answer till—till——" he paused, before the +Cornish title of affection and respect—"Cap'n Castleton here spoke it +straight away at once. Wish you well, my dear son," he added in a voice +rich with emotion, as he thrust an open hand over a bowl of cream for +Castleton's grip.</p> + +<p>Then Granfa told his old intimate tales of wrecks and famous seines of +fish, and even went so far as to offer to show Castleton on the very +next morning the corner of a field where with two legs and a stick he +could stand in the three parishes of Trenoweth, Nancepean and +Trewinnard. In fact he monopolized the guest throughout the meal, and +expressed very great regret when Castleton had to return to the One and +All Inn.</p> + +<p>Trewhella questioned Jenny sharply that night about the stranger, tried +with all the fox in his nature to find out what part he had played in +her life.</p> + +<p>"He's a friend of mine," she said.</p> + +<p>"Did he ever come courting 'ee?"</p> + +<p>"No, of course not. You don't think all men's like you?"</p> + +<p>"What's he want to come down here along, if he's just a friend? Look, +missus, don't you go giving the village tongues a start by kicking up a +rig with yon great Cockney."</p> + +<p>"Shut up," said Jenny. "Who cares about the village?"</p> + +<p>"I do," said Trewhella. "I care a brae lot about it. Me and my folk have +lived here some long time and we've always been looked up to for clean, +decent souls."</p> + +<p>"Get out!" scoffed Jenny. "And don't put ideas in your own head. +Village! Talking shop, I should say."</p> + +<p>The next morning was fine, and when Castleton called at Bochyn, Jenny +intrusted May with young Frank and suggested<a name="page_386" id="page_386"></a> a walk. Granfa, who was +present during the discussion of the itinerary, declared the towans must +be visited first of all. Jenny was rather averse from such a direction, +thinking of the watchers who lay all day in the rushes. However, when +she thought how deeply it would infuriate her husband to know that she +was walking over that solitude in the company of Castleton, she accepted +Granfa's suggestion with a deliberate audacity.</p> + +<p>It was pleasant to walk with Fuz, to laugh at his excitement over +various birds and flowers unnoticed by her. It was pleasant to watch him +trip in a rabbit's hole and roll right down to the bottom of a +sand-drift. But best of all were the rests in deep dry hollows above +whose edges the rushes met the sky in wind-waved, sharply cut lines. +Down there, making idle patterns with snail-shells, she could listen to +gossip of dear old London. She could smell in the sea air wood pavement +and hear in the scurry of rabbits passengers by the Piccadilly Tube.</p> + +<p>And yet there was a gulf not to be spanned so readily as in the +tentative conversations of a single walk. Often in the middle of +Castleton's chronicles, she would wish desperately to talk of events +long buried, to set out before him her life, to argue openly the rights +and wrongs of deeds that so far she had only disputed with herself. In a +way it was unsatisfactory to pick up a few broken threads of a +friendship, leaving the reel untouched. Perhaps it was better to let the +past and the present alone. Gradually London dropped out of the +conversation. She wondered if, seeing London again, she would be as much +disappointed as by the tale and rumor of it borne down here by an old +friend. Gradually the conversation veered to the main occupations of +Jenny's mind—May and young Frank. May's future was easy to forecast. +She must in these fresh airs grow stronger and healthier, and supply +with the passing of every day a more complete justification of the +marriage. But what of young Frank's future? Jenny could not bear the +notion of him tied to the soil. She wanted his life<a name="page_387" id="page_387"></a> to hold experience +before he retreated here to store up the grain and the gold. There must +be a great deal of her in young Frank. He could not, should not be +contented with bullocks and pigs and straight furrows.</p> + +<p>Castleton listened sympathetically to her ambitions for the baby, and +promised faithfully that when the time came, he would do his best to +help Jenny achieve for her son at least one prospect of humanity, one +flashing opportunity to examine life.</p> + +<p>"You see, I knew what I wanted when I was quite tiny. Of course nothing +was what I thought it would be. Nothing. Only I wanted to go on the +stage and I went. I shouldn't like for young Frank to want to do +something and have to stick here."</p> + +<p>"You've a fine notion of things, Jane," said Castleton. "By gad, if +every mother were like you, what a race we should have."</p> + +<p>"I'm not in a hurry for him to do anything."</p> + +<p>"I meant what a race of Englishmen, not bicycles," Castleton explained.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see," said Jenny vaguely. He was taking her aspirations out of +their depth.</p> + +<p>"No, but I do think it's dreadful," she went on, "to see kids moping +just because their mothers and fathers want them to stick at home. My +mother wasn't like that. Yes, she used to go on at me, but she always +wanted me to enjoy myself so long as she knew there was no harm in it."</p> + +<p>"Your mother, Jane, must have been a great woman."</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that, but she was a darling, and always very +smart—you know, dressed very nice and had a good figure. But look at my +father. He sends us a postcard sometimes with a picture of a bed or a +bottle of Bass on it which is all he thinks about. And yet he's alive, +and she's dead."</p> + +<p>Finally Castleton promised that should young Frank display a spark of +ambition, he would do his best to help him achieve it.<a name="page_388" id="page_388"></a></p> + +<p>"Whatever it is," said Jenny. "Of course not if he wants to be a +dustman, but anything that's all right."</p> + +<p>Then, the morning being nearly spent, they turned back towards Bochyn. +Castleton mounted on a slope at a run to pull Jenny up from above.</p> + +<p>"Hullo," he cried, "somebody's been watching us."</p> + +<p>"They always do on these towans," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"I'll soon haul the scoundrel into daylight," and with a shout he +charged down through the rushes, almost falling over the prostrate body +of Old Man Veal. Castleton set him on his feet with a jerk and demanded +his business, while Jenny with curling lips stood by. The old man would +not say a word, and his captor, balked of chastisement by his evident +senility, let him shamble off into the waste.</p> + +<p>"That's one of the men on the farm," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"I suppose he'll get the sack."</p> + +<p>"I don't think so, then. I think he's edged on by someone else to follow +me round."<a name="page_389" id="page_389"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XLV" id="XLV"></a>Chapter XLV: <i>London Pride</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">J</span>ENNY and Castleton followed the course of the stream along the valley +towards Bochyn. The bracken was a vivid brown upon the hillsides; the +gorse was splashed with unusual gold even for Cornwall; lapwings cried, +wheeling over the head of the ploughman ploughing the moist rich earth; +a flight of wild duck came unerringly down the valley, settling with a +great splash in the blue and green marsh.</p> + +<p>Trewhella met them, stepping suddenly out from a grove of arbutus trees, +a thunderous figure.</p> + +<p>"What do 'ee mean?" he roared. "What do 'ee mean by carrying my missus +off for wagging tongues? Damn ye, you great overgrown Cockney, damn ye, +what do 'ee mean to come sparking here along?"</p> + +<p>By Trewhella's side stood his dog, a coarse-coated, wall-eyed brute, +half bobtail, half collie. Much alike seemed the pair of them, snarling +together in the path.</p> + +<p>Jenny whitened. She had not yet seen so much of the wolf in her husband. +Castleton looked at her, asking mutely whether he should knock Trewhella +backwards or whether, as the world must be truckled to, he should keep +quiet.</p> + +<p>"Shut up," said Jenny to her husband. "You ought to be ashamed of +yourself. What do you think I am? Your servant? Mind, or I shall tell +you off as you've never been told off yet. Let me pass, please, and +what's more let my friend pass. Come on, Fuz. Take no notice of him. +He's potty. He's soft. Him! Pooh!"</p> + +<p>She gathered her skirts round her as if to negotiate mud<a name="page_390" id="page_390"></a> and swept past +Zachary, who, all wolf now, recoiled for his spring. Castleton, however, +seized his wrist, saying tranquilly:</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid, Mr. Trewhella, you're not very well. Good-bye, Mrs. +Trewhella. I'll come round this afternoon, then."</p> + +<p>Jenny passed on towards Bochyn and Trewhella turned to follow her at +once; but Castleton still held him, and whenever Jenny looked round he +was still holding him. She waited, however, at the bottom of the garden +for Zachary's return, strewing the ground by her feet with spikes of +veronica blooms. Presently he appeared, his dog running before him, and +at the sight of Jenny shook wildly his fists.</p> + +<p>"You witch," he cried. "How have 'ee the heart to make me so mad? But I +deserve it. Oh, God Almighty, I deserve it. I that went a-whoring away +from my own country."</p> + +<p>"Shut up," Jenny commanded. "And talk decently in front of me, even if I +am your wife."</p> + +<p>"I took a bride from the Moabites," he moaned. "I forsook Thy paths, O +Lord, and went lusting after the heathen."</p> + +<p>He fell on his knees in the shining November mud; Jenny regarded him as +people regard a man in a fit.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, O God, for I am a sinful man. I have gone fornicketing +after lilywhite doves that turned to serpents. I have coveted the love +of woman and I have forsaken Thy paths, O Lord. I ran to gaze at loose +women dancing in their nakedness, and——"</p> + +<p>"Kindly shut up," Jenny interrupted. "And don't kneel there like a +lunatic talking about me as if I hadn't got nothing on when you saw me. +Don't do it, I say, because I don't like it."</p> + +<p>Trewhella rose and faced his wife. The drops of sweat stood on his +forehead big as pebbles. His eyes were mad. She had seen eyes like them +in Ashgate Asylum.</p> + +<p>"Why were 'ee sent to tempt me? Don't 'ee know I do love 'ee more than I +do love the Kingdom of Heaven?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I wish you wouldn't. It doesn't interest me, this love of yours +as you call it. And you needn't carry on about<a name="page_391" id="page_391"></a> Mr. Castleton, because +he's only a friend, <i>which</i> you can't understand."</p> + +<p>Trewhella began to weep.</p> + +<p>"I thought you were safe down here," he said. "I thought I held 'ee safe +as carried corn, and when I brought 'ee to Bochyn, I was so happy as a +piece of gold. All the time I've been preaching, I've wished to be home +along, thinking of 'ee and wishing I held 'ee in my arms right through +the black old night, as I belong."</p> + +<p>Jenny shuddered.</p> + +<p>"And 'tis a lawful thought," he cried defiantly. "You're my wife, you're +mine by the power of the Lord; you're mine by the right of the flesh."</p> + +<p>"I'm going indoors," said Jenny coldly, and she left him raging at +temptation. Then she sat down and wrote to Castleton.</p> + +<div class="blockd"><p class="nind">Dear Fuz,</p> + +<p>Perhaps you hadn't better come and see me again—I expect you'll +think I'm mad, but it isn't any good to have rows because I've got +to live here any old way.</p> + +<p>I liked seeing you, dear Fuz, and I'm sorry he made a fool of +himself and I'll write some day about young Frank. No more now from +your little friend,</p> + +<p class="r">Jenny.</p> + +<p>Who cares?</p> +</div> + +<p>She gave the letter to Thomas, who took it down to the One and All. It +was Jenny's inherent breeding that made her send it. All her pride bade +her insist on Castleton's company, begged her to defy Trewhella, and, +notwithstanding scenes the most outrageous, to establish her own will. +But there was Fuz to be considered. It would not be fair to implicate +him in the miserable muddle which she had created for herself. He +belonged to another life where farmers did not grovel in the mud before +Heaven's wrath, where husbands did not swear foully at wives, asking +forgiveness from above before the filthy<a name="page_392" id="page_392"></a> echo had died away. Fuz was +better out of it. Yet she wished she could see him again. There were +many questions not yet asked.</p> + +<p>Trewhella was foxy when next he discussed Castleton with Jenny.</p> + +<p>"He wasn't too careful about calling of 'ee Mrs. Trewhella," he began.</p> + +<p>"Don't be silly. He always knew me as Jenny in the old days."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I do hate to hear 'ee tell of they old days. I do hate every day +before I took 'ee for my own."</p> + +<p>"I can't help your troubles that way," said Jenny. "Perhaps you'd like +to have married me in the cradle?"</p> + +<p>"I'd like to have kept 'ee locked up from the time you were a frothy +maiden," he admitted. "I do sweat when I think of men's eyes staring at +your lovely lill body."</p> + +<p>Jenny stamped her rage at the allusion.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you ought to have known my mother's aunts," she said. "They'd have +suited you, I think. They wanted to shut me up and make me religious."</p> + +<p>The emphasis with which she armed her reminiscence gave the verbs an +undue value, as if the aunts had intended actually to lock her in a +larder of hymn-books.</p> + +<p>"I wish with all my heart they had done so," said Trewhella. "Better +that than the devil's palace of light where you belonged to dance. Oh, I +wish that Cockney were in Hell."</p> + +<p>"I can't do more than ask him to go away, so don't keep on being rude +about my friends," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Ess, and I wish now I'd never kicked up such a rig and frightened the +pair of 'ee. He was too quick. That's where it's to."</p> + +<p>"What are you talking about?"</p> + +<p>"Why, if I hadn't been so straight out, I might have trapped you both +fitty. If I'd waited and watched awhile."</p> + +<p>Trewhella sighed regretfully.</p> + +<p>"You are a sneak," said Jenny.<a name="page_393" id="page_393"></a></p> + +<p>"Oh, I wish I could see your heart, missus. Look, I've never asked 'ee +this before. How many men have loved 'ee before I did?"</p> + +<p>"Hundreds," said Jenny mockingly.</p> + +<p>"Kissed 'ee?" shrieked Trewhella.</p> + +<p>"Of course. Why not?"</p> + +<p>Veins wrote themselves across his forehead, veins livid as the vipers of +Medusa.</p> + +<p>"Witch," he groaned. "’Tis well I'm a saved man or I might murder 'ee. +Hark! hark! Murder 'ee, you Jezebel! I do know now what Jehu did feel +when he cried, 'Throw her down and call up they dogs and tear the whore +to pieces.'"</p> + +<p>He ran from the room, raving.</p> + +<p>After this new fit when the wolf drove out the fox, Trewhella settled +down to steady cunning. Jenny became conscious of being watched more +closely. Not even the orchard was safe. There was no tree trunk that +might not conceal a wormlike form, no white mound of sand that was not +alive with curiosity, no wind even that was not fraught with whispered +commentaries upon her simplest actions.</p> + +<p>Bochyn could no longer have been endured without young Frank and May and +Granfa. These three could strip the most secretive landscape of terrors, +could heal the wildest imaginations. All the winter through, Trewhella +never relaxed his efforts to trip her up over her relations with +Castleton, and compel an admission of the bygone love-affair that would +not necessarily, as he pointed out, involve her in a present intrigue.</p> + +<p>"How did 'ee send him away, if there was nothing at all?"</p> + +<p>"Because I'm ashamed for any of my friends to see what sort of a man +I've married. That's why."</p> + +<p>"I'll catch 'ee out one day," vowed Trewhella. "You do think I'm just a +fool, but I'm more, missus; I'm brae cunning. I can snare a wild thing +wi' any man in Cornwall."</p> + +<p>"Fancy," Jenny mocked.</p> + +<p>And round the dark farmhouse the winter storms howled and roared, +beating against the windows and ravening by the latches.<a name="page_394" id="page_394"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XLVI" id="XLVI"></a>Chapter XLVI: <i>May Morning</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">Y</span>OUNG Frank had always been from his birth an excitement; but as he +neared, reached and passed his eighteenth month, the geometrical +progression of his personality far exceeded the mere arithmetical +progression of his age. He could now salute with smiles those whom he +loved, was empurpled by rage at any repression, and was able to crawl +about with a blusterous energy that seemed inspired by the equinoctial +gales of March. Jenny's fingers would dive into his mouth to discover +teeth that were indeed pearls in their whiteness and rarity. Exquisite +adumbrations of herself were traceable in his countenance, and so far, +at any rate, his hair was curled and silvery as hers was once famed to +be. His cheeks were rose-fired; his eyes were deep and gay. Only his +ears seemed, whatever way they were judged, to follow his father's +shape; but even they at present merely gave him a pleasant elfin look. +Jenny was very proud of young Frank.</p> + +<p>Trewhella, with the lapse of time, and after another violent outbreak on +account of the arrival of a letter from Castleton, ceased to importune +his wife with jealous denunciations of the old glittering days before +they met. The farm prospered: he took to counting his money more than +ever since an heir had given him a pledge for the commemoration of his +thrift. During the winter Jenny drove once or twice in the high cart to +Camston, and, with May to help her, scornfully turned out the contents +of the drapery shops. On these occasions Granfa was made responsible for +young Frank, and when they came back he had to give a very full account +of his regency. Other winter events included a visit from Mr. Corin, who +had<a name="page_395" id="page_395"></a> opened a dairy away up in the east of the Duchy. He annoyed Jenny +by his exaggerated congratulations, embracing as they did himself as +much as Zachary and her. Mrs. Trewhella would from time to time announce +her surrender of the household keys; but Jenny was not anxious to +control anything except her son, and the old woman, manifestly pleased, +continued to superintend with blink and cackle maid Emily. Jenny lost +her fear of bullocks, dreaded insects no longer, and might have been a +Cornish maid all her life, save for her clear-cut Cockney, to which not +a single western burr adhered. She no longer pined for London; was never +sentimental towards eight o'clock; and certainly could not be supposed +to exist in an atmosphere of regret. At the same time, she could not be +said to have settled down, because her husband was perpetually an +intrusion on any final serenity. She could not bear the way he ate, the +grit and soil and raggedness of his face; she loathed the grimy scars +upon his hands, his smell of corduroy. She hated his mental outlook, his +pre-occupation with hell, his narrow pride, and lack of humor, his +pricking avarice and mean vanity, his moral cowardice and religious +bravery, his grossness and cunning and boastfulness and cruelty to +animals. She feared the storms that would one day arise between him and +his son. She felt even now the clashing of the two hostile temperaments: +already there were signs of future struggles, and it was not just a +fancy that young Frank was always peevish at his father's approach.</p> + +<p>The equinox sank asleep to an April lullaby. Lambs bleated on the +storm-washed air. The ocean plumed itself like a mating bird. Then +followed three weeks of gray weather and much restlessness on the part +of young Frank, who cried and fumed and was very naughty indeed. What +with Frank and the southeast wind and the cold rain, Jenny's nerves +suffered, and when May morning broke in a dazzle, she thought it would +be a good plan to leave young Frank with Granfa, and in May's company to +go for a long walk. May was delighted and together they set out.<a name="page_396" id="page_396"></a></p> + +<p>They followed the path of the valley past the groves of arbutus, past +the emerald meadows down into the sandy waste over which the stream +carried little pebbles to the sea, flowing over the wide shallows like a +diamonded lattice. They plunged in the towans that never seemed to +change with the seasons. They rested in the warm hollows under larksong. +They climbed precipices and ran along ridges, until at last they raced +gloriously down a virgin drift out on to the virgin sands on which, a +long way off, the waves were breaking in slow curves, above them a film +of spray tossed backwards by the breeze blowing from the shore.</p> + +<p>Jenny sat in the solitude, making a necklace of wine-stained shells. She +was dressed in some shade of fawn that seemed to be absorbed by these +wide flat sands, so that she became smaller and slighter. She wore a +silver-gray bonnet set closely round her cheeks in a ruching of ivory. +May was in scarlet and looked, as she lay there in the castness, not +much bigger than Jenny's cap of scarlet stockinette, left long ago on +the beach at Clacton.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, there's somebody coming along the sands. Can you see them?" +asked Jenny.</p> + +<p>"A long way off?" inquired May, peering.</p> + +<p>"Yes, just a speck—now—where those rocks are. No, you're looking in +the wrong place. Much further along," directed Jenny.</p> + +<p>"You <i>can</i> see a way," said May.</p> + +<p>The figure drew nearer, but was still too far off for them to determine +the quality or sex, as they watched the sea-swallows keep ever their +distance ahead, swift-circling companies.</p> + +<p>"I wonder who it is?" said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"I can't ever remember seeing anyone on the beach before," said May.</p> + +<p>"Nor can I. It's a man."</p> + +<p>"Is it?"</p> + +<p>"Or I think so," Jenny added.<a name="page_397" id="page_397"></a></p> + +<p>"What a line of footmarks there'll be when he's gone past," said May.</p> + +<p>"It is a man," Jenny asserted.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she went dead white, flushed crimson, whitened again and +dropped the half-strung necklace of shells.</p> + +<p>"I believe I know him, too," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"Shut up," scoffed May. "Unless it's Fuz?"</p> + +<p>"No, it's not him. May, I'd like to be alone when he comes along. Or I +don't think I'll stay. Yes, I will. And no, don't go. You stay, too. It +<i>is</i> him. It is."</p> + +<p>Maurice approached them. He gave much the same impression as on the +first night of the ballet of Cupid, when at the end of the court he +raised his hat to Jenny and Irene.</p> + +<p>"I—I wondered if I should meet you," he said.</p> + +<p>His presence was less disturbing to Jenny than his slow advance. She +greeted him casually as if she were saluting an acquaintance passed +every morning:</p> + +<p>"Hullo."</p> + +<p>Maurice was silent.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it a lovely morning?" said Jenny. "This is my sister May."</p> + +<p>Maurice raised his cap a second time.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," he said, looking intently at Jenny, "I wonder if—if——" he +plunged into the rest of the sentence. "Can I speak to you alone a +minute?"</p> + +<p>"Whatever for?" asked Jenny.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wanted to ask you something."</p> + +<p>Jenny debated with herself a moment. Why not? He had no power to move +her now. She was able coldly to regard him standing there on the +seashore, a stranger, no more to her than a piece of driftwood left by +the tide.</p> + +<p>"I'll catch you up in a minute," she said to May.</p> + +<p>"All right, I'll go on. Pleased to have met you," said May, shaking +hands shyly with Maurice.</p> + +<p>He and Jenny watched her going towards the towans. When she was out of +earshot, Maurice burst forth:<a name="page_398" id="page_398"></a></p> + +<p>"Jenny, Jenny, I've longed for this moment."</p> + +<p>"You must have treated yourself very badly then," she answered.</p> + +<p>"I did. I——"</p> + +<p>"Look," said Jenny sharply. "It's no good for you to start off, because +I don't want to listen to <i>any</i>thing you say. I don't <i>want</i> to."</p> + +<p>"I don't deserve you should," Maurice humbly agreed. "All the same I +wish you would."</p> + +<p>It may have been that in his voice some vibrant echo of past pleading +touched her, so that across a gulf of four years the old Jenny asked:</p> + +<p>"Why should I?"</p> + +<p>He seemed on fire to seize the chance of explanation and would no doubt +have forthwith plunged into a wilderness of emotions, had not Jenny seen +May signaling from the towans.</p> + +<p>"She wants me to go over to her."</p> + +<p>"But you'll come out here again?"</p> + +<p>"I might—I might come out on the cliffs over there." She pointed +towards Crickabella. "I don't know. I don't think I shall. But don't try +and see me at home, because I wouldn't know you there."</p> + +<p>She ran from him suddenly across the sands back to May.</p> + +<p>"Why did you wave like that?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I think there's been somebody watching you," said May, looking pale and +anxious.<a name="page_399" id="page_399"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XLVII" id="XLVII"></a>Chapter XLVII: <i>Nightlight Time</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">T</span>REWHELLA gave no sign that he knew anything of the event on the sands; +yet Jenny's instinct was to avoid a meeting with Maurice. Once or twice, +indeed, she was on the point of starting out; but she never brought +herself to the actual effort, and the May days went by without her +leaving the precincts of Bochyn. Maurice had made but a small impression +upon her emotion; had raised not a single heartbeat after the first +shock of his approach over the long sands. She had no curiosity to +discover why he had come down here, with what end in view, with what +impulse. She cared not to know what his life had been in those four +years, what seas or shores he had adventured, what women he had known. +Yet somehow she felt, through a kind of belated sympathy, that every +morning he was out on the cliffs by Crickabella watching for a sight of +her coming up the hill. Should she go? Should she finally dismiss him, +speaking coldly, contemptuously, lashing him with her scorn and wounded +pride and dead love? June was in view, and still she paused. June came +in, royally azure. Yet she hesitated; while young Frank waved to the +butterflies and grew daily in the sun like a peach.</p> + +<p>"He do look so happy as the King of Spain," said old Mr. Champion. +"Grand lill chap, he is sure enough. Do 'ee hear what I'm speaking, my +young handsome?"</p> + +<p>Granfa bent down and tickled the boy.</p> + +<p>"Bless his heart," said Jenny.<a name="page_400" id="page_400"></a></p> + +<p>"I were down to Trewinnard yesterday," said Granfa, "and I were talking +about him to a gentleman, or I should say an artist, who belongs +painting down along. Says he's in a mind to bide here all the +summertime. He do like it very well, I believe."</p> + +<p>"What's he like?" Jenny asked.</p> + +<p>"This artist? Oh, he's a decent-looking young chap. Nothing anyone could +dislike about him. Very quiet, they're telling, and a bit melan-choly. +But I believe that's a common case with artists. And I'm not surprised, +for it must be a brim melancholy job painting an old cliff that any +ornary man wouldn't want to look at twice, leave alone days at a +stretch. But he told me he didn't properly belong to paint at all. He +said his own trade was writing."</p> + +<p>Unquestionably this was Maurice. All day Jenny thought of him out on the +cliffs. The idea began to oppress her, and she felt haunted by his +presence; it would be better to meet him and forbid his longer stay. +To-morrow would offer a fine opportunity, because Zachary was going to +Plymouth to arrange about the purchase of some farm implements and would +not only be away to-night, but was unlikely to be back till late the +next day. Not that it mattered whether he went away or not; yet somehow +she would like to lie awake thinking of what she would say to Maurice, +and to lie awake beside her husband was inconceivable to Jenny. How much +better to be alone with young Frank. She would certainly go to-morrow. +Maurice might not be there: if he were not, she would be glad, and there +would be an end of the dismay caused by his presence, for she would not +move a step from Bochyn till she heard of his departure.</p> + +<p>Trewhella now came out into the garden where they were sitting. He was +equipped for Plymouth, and looked just the same as on the afternoon +Jenny met him at Hagworth Street. He was wearing the same ill-fitting +suit of broadcloth and the same gleaming tie of red satin.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm going Plymouth," he announced.<a name="page_401" id="page_401"></a></p> + +<p>"You're staying the night?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Ess, I think."</p> + +<p>"Well, are you?"</p> + +<p>"Ess, I believe."</p> + +<p>He never would commit himself to a definite statement.</p> + +<p>"What time are you coming back to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"In the afternoon, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"In the afternoon?" she repeated.</p> + +<p>Trewhella looked at her quickly.</p> + +<p>"Kiss me good-bye, my dear."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't want to," said Jenny, freezing.</p> + +<p>He looked harder at her and pulled his mustache; then he leaned down to +prod a farewell into his son's ribs. Young Frank immediately began to +yell. The father chuckled sardonically and strode off to the cart, +calling loudly as he went for Old Man Veal. He paused, with his foot on +the step, to impress something on the stealthy old man. Then he told +Thomas to get down and Veal to take his place. There was a sound of +wheels, and everybody sighed with relief.</p> + +<p>The long drowsy June day buzzed on. They all lay about in the shade, +wishing they could splash through the stream like the cattle.</p> + +<p>"I can't think why we don't all go paddling, I can't," said May.</p> + +<p>"Oh, why ever not—not with young Frank?" cried Jenny, clapping her +hands.</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"And Granfa must come," Jenny insisted.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no, no," declared Granfa, smiling very proudly at the +suggestion. "No, no, no! But I might go along with 'ee and pick a few +wrinkles off the rocks."</p> + +<p>Jenny thought how imperative it was for Maurice to be out of these +planned allurements of summer. She would never enjoy herself, if all the +time she felt he were close by, liable to appear suddenly. Certainly she +would see him to-morrow.</p> + +<p>"We might even bathe," said May dauntlessly.<a name="page_402" id="page_402"></a></p> + +<p>"Well, don't 'ee tell Zack, then," Granfa advised. "For I suppose he can +see the devil in the deep sea so clear as anywhere else. That man's got +a nose for evil, I believe."</p> + +<p>The sun was now hanging over the marsh in a dazzling haze of gold in +which the midges danced innumerable. Long shadows threw themselves +across the hills. The stream of light dried up as the sun went down into +the sea. Cool scented airs, heralds of night, traveled up the valley; +traveled swiftly like the spray of fountains.</p> + +<p>Jenny went to bed soon after half-past nine. It was scarcely dark. Along +her sill were great crimson roses like cups of cool wine, and from every +ghostly white border of the garden came up the delicious odor of pinks +in full June bloom. Moths were dancing, fluttering, hovering: a large +white owl swept past in a soundless curve. And while she brooded upon +this perfumed silence, away in London the girls were trooping down for +the second ballet, were giving the last touch with a haresfoot to their +carmine beauty, were dabbing the last powder on their cheeks or rubbing +the liquid white upon their wrists and hands. How hot it must be in the +theater. She heard quite plainly the tinkle of the sequins and spangles +as the girls came trooping down the stone stairs into the wings to wait +there for the curtain's rise. Then she perceived in the dim light Old +Man Veal diligently cleaning his master's gun. Wishing he would not sit +there underneath her window, she turned back into the tall, shadowy room +and lit the candle. Soon she heard his retreating footsteps, and watched +him go down the garden path with the slim and wicked gun beneath his +arm. Young Frank, rose-misted with dreams of butterflies and painted +rubber balls, lay in his hooded cot. Shading him with her hand, which +the candlelight made lucent as a shell, she watched him lying there, his +fingers clasped tightly round a coral hung with silver bells, his woolly +lamb beside his cheek. Jenny wondered, if she had been a boy, whether +she would have looked exactly like young Frank. Then she fell to +speculating whether, had he belonged to her and Maurice, he would<a name="page_403" id="page_403"></a> have +been the same dear rogue as now. Oh, he was hers, hers only, and +whatever man were his father, he would be nothing more than hers!</p> + +<p>She went to see how May was getting on, and in company they undressed, +as they used to undress before Jenny went on the stage. Soon both of +them in long white nightgowns, each with a golden candle, pattered in +once more to marvel at young Frank.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I must have him in bed with me, May."</p> + +<p>"Well, why don't you?"</p> + +<p>Carefully they lifted him, and, warm with sun-dyed sleep, laid him in +Jenny's cool bed.</p> + +<p>"Light the nightlight, there's a love," said Jenny. "Good night."</p> + +<p>"Good night," whispered May, fading like a ghost through the black +doorway, leaving the tall room to Jenny and Frank. Tree shadows, +conjured by the moon, waved on the walls, but very faintly, for the +nightlight burned with steady flame in the opalescent saucer. Jenny +settled herself to think what she should say to Maurice next morning. +But soon she forgot all about Maurice, and "I'd rather like to have a +little girl," was her last thought before she went dreaming.<a name="page_404" id="page_404"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="XLVIII" id="XLVIII"></a>Chapter XLVIII: <i>Carni Vale</i></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letter">J</span>ENNY woke up the next morning in a gray land of mist. A sea-fog had +come in to obliterate Trewinnard and even the sparkling month of June, +creating a new and impalpable world, a strange undated season. Above the +elm trees and the hill-tops the fog floated and swayed in vaporous +eddies. Jenny's first impulse was to postpone the meeting on the cliffs, +and yet the day somehow suited the enterprise. Shrouded fittingly, she +would face whatever ghosts Maurice had power to raise.</p> + +<p>"I'm going for a walk," she told May, "by myself. I want to tell Maurice +not to hang about here any more because it gets on my nerves."</p> + +<p>"I'll look after Frank when you're gone," said May.</p> + +<p>"Don't let him eat any more wool off that lamb of his, will you?"</p> + +<p>"All right."</p> + +<p>"I sha'n't be long. Or I don't expect so."</p> + +<p>"If he comes back from Plymouth before you come in, where shall I say +you've gone?" May asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, tell him 'Rats!' I can't help his troubles. So long," said Jenny +emphatically.</p> + +<p>"Say 'ta—ta' nicely to your mother, young Frank," commanded Aunt May.</p> + +<p>As Jenny faded into the mist, the boy hammered his farewells upon the +window-pane; and for awhile in the colorless air she saw his rosy cheeks +burning like lamps, or like the love for him in her own heart. Before +she turned up the drive,<a name="page_405" id="page_405"></a> she waited to listen for the click and tinkle +of Granfa's horticulture, but there was no sound of his spade. Farther +along she met Thomas.</p> + +<p>"Morning! Mrs. Trewhella!"</p> + +<p>"Morning, young Thomas."</p> + +<p>"Going for a walk, are 'ee?"</p> + +<p>"On the cliffs," Jenny nodded.</p> + +<p>"You be careful how you do walk there. I wouldn't like for 'ee to fall +over."</p> + +<p>"Don't you worry. I'll take jolly good care I don't do that."</p> + +<p>"Well, anybody ought to be careful on they cliffs. Nasty old place that +is on a foggy morning." Then as she became in a few steps a wraith, he +chanted in farewell courtesy, "Mrs. Trewhella!"</p> + +<p>Along the farm road Jenny found herself continually turning round to +detect in her wake an unseen follower. She had a feeling of pursuit +through the shifting vagueness all around, and stopped to listen. There +was no footstep: only the drip-drip, drip-drip of the fog from the elm +boughs. Before she knew that she had gone so far, the noise of the sea +sounded from the grayness ahead, and beyond there was the groan of a +siren from some uncertain ship. Again she paused for footsteps, and +there was nothing but the drip-drip, drip-drip of the fog in the +quickset hedge. On the steep road that ran up towards Crickabella, the +fog lifted from her immediate neighborhood, and she could see the +washed-out sky and silver sun with vapors curling across the strange +luminousness. On either side, thicker by contrast, the mist hung in +curtains dreary and impenetrable. Very soon the transparency in which +she walked was veiled again, and through an annihilation of shape and +color and scent and sound, she pressed forward to the summit.</p> + +<p>On the plateau, although the fog was dense enough to mask the edge of +the cliff at a distance of fifty yards and to merge in a gray confusion +sky and sea beyond, the fresher atmosphere<a name="page_406" id="page_406"></a> lightened the general +effect. She could watch the fog sweeping up and down in diaphanous forms +and winged nonentities. The silence in the hedgeless, treeless country +was profound. The sea, oily calm in such weather, gave very seldom a low +sob in some cavern beneath the cliff. Far out a solitary gull cried +occasionally.</p> + +<p>How absurd, thought Jenny suddenly, to expect Maurice on such a day. +What painting was possible in so elusive a landscape, so immaterial a +scene? He was not at all likely to be there. She stood for a moment +listening, and was violently startled by the sight of some animal richly +hued even in such a negation of color. The fox slipped by her with +lowered brush and ears laid back, vanishing presently over the side of +the cliff. She had thought for a second that it was Trewhella's dog, and +her heart beat very quickly in the eerie imagination of herself and his +master alone in this grayness. She walked on over the cushions of +heather, pricking her ankles in the low bushes of gorse. Burnet roses +were in bloom, lying like shells on the ground. Ahead of her she saw a +lonely flower tremulous in the damp mist. It was a blue columbine, a +solitary plant full blown. She thought how beautiful it looked and +stooped to pluck it. On second thoughts she decided that it would be a +shame not to let it live, this lovely deep-blue flower, nodding faintly.</p> + +<p>Jenny stood once more fronting the vapors on each side in turn, and was +on the point of going home, when she perceived a shadow upon the mist +that with approach acquired the outlines of a man and very soon proved +to be Maurice. She noticed how pale he was and anxious, very unlike the +old Maurice, even unlike himself of five or six weeks ago.</p> + +<p>"You've come at last," he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've come to say you mustn't stay here no more. It worries me."</p> + +<p>"Jenny," he said, "I knew I'd been a fool before I saw you again last +first of May. I've known for four years what a fool and knave I'd been; +but, oh, God, I never knew so clearly till<a name="page_407" id="page_407"></a> the other day, till I'd hung +about these cliffs waiting for you to come."</p> + +<p>"Where was the good?" she asked. "It's years too late now."</p> + +<p>"When I heard from Castleton where you were, I tried not to come. He +told me I should make things worse. He said it would be a crime. And I +tried not to all this winter. But you haunted me. I could not rest, and +in April the desire to see you became a madness. I had to come."</p> + +<p>"I think you acted very silly. It isn't as if you could do anything by +coming. I never used to think about you."</p> + +<p>"You didn't?" he repeated, agonized.</p> + +<p>"Never. Never once," she stabbed. "I'd forgotten you."</p> + +<p>"I deserve it."</p> + +<p>"Of course you do. You can't mess up a girl's life and then come and say +you're sorry the same as if you'd trod on her toe."</p> + +<p>They were walking along involuntarily, and through the mist Jenny's +words of sense, hardened to adamantine sharpness by suffering, cut clear +and cruel and true. She did not like, however, to prosecute the close +encounter in such a profusion of space. She fancied her words were lost +in the great fog, and sought for some familiar outline that should point +the way to Crickabella. Presently a narrow serpentine path gave her the +direction.</p> + +<p>"Along here," she said. "I can't talk up here. I feel as if there must +be listeners in this fog. I wish it would get bright."</p> + +<p>"It's like my life has been without you," said Maurice.</p> + +<p>"Shut up," she stabbed again, "and don't talk silly. Your life's been +quite all right till you took a sudden fancy to see me again."</p> + +<p>"Walk carefully," said Maurice humbly. "We're very near the cliff's +edge."</p> + +<p>Land and air met in a wreathed obscurity.</p> + +<p>"Down here," said Jenny.<a name="page_408" id="page_408"></a></p> + +<p>They scrambled down into Crickabella, slipping on the pulpy leaves of +withered bluebells, stumbling over clumps of fern and drenching +themselves in the foxgloves, whose woolly leaves held the dripping fog.</p> + +<p>"This is where I often used to sit," said Jenny. "Only it's too wet in +the grass now. There's a rock here that's fairly dry, though it does +look rather like a gravestone sticking up out of the ground."</p> + +<p>They were now about half-way down the escarpment from the top of which +the rampart of black cliff, sheer on either side of the path, ran up for +twenty feet, so far as could be judged in the deceptive atmosphere. +Jenny leaned against the stone outcrop and faced Maurice.</p> + +<p>"Jenny," he began, "when I didn't turn up at Waterloo that first of May, +I must have been mad. I don't want to make excuses, but I must have been +mad."</p> + +<p>"Yes, we can all say that, when we've done something we shouldn't have."</p> + +<p>"I know it's not an excuse. But I went away in a jangle of nerves. I set +my heart on you coming out to Spain, and when you wouldn't and I was +there and thought of the strain of a passionate love that seemed never +likely to come to anything vital, I gave up all of a sudden. I can't +explain. It was like that statue. I had to break it, and I broke my +heart in the same way."</p> + +<p>"If you'd come back," said Jenny, determined he should know all his +folly, "I'd have done anything, anything you asked. I'd have come to +live with you forever."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't torture me with the irony of it all. Why were you so +uncertain, then?"</p> + +<p>"That's my business," she said coolly.</p> + +<p>"But I never really was out of love with you. I was always madly in +love," Maurice cried. "I traveled all over Europe, thinking I'd finished +with love. I tried to be happy without you and couldn't because I hadn't +got you. I adored you the first moment I saw you. I adore you now and +forever.<a name="page_409" id="page_409"></a> Oh, believe me, my heart of hearts, my life, my soul, I love +you now more, more than ever."</p> + +<p>"Only because I'm someone else's," said Jenny.</p> + +<p>"No," he cried. "No! no! The passion and impetuousness and unrestraint +is all gone. I love you now—it sounds like cant—for yourself, for your +character, your invincible joyousness, your glory in life, your +perfection of form. Words! What are they? See how this fog destroys the +world, making it ghostly. My mere passion for you is gone like the +world. It's there, it must be there always, but your spirit, your +personality can destroy it in a moment. Oh, what a tangle of nonsense. +Forgive me. I want forgiveness, and once you said 'Bless you.' I want +that."</p> + +<p>"I don't hate you now," Jenny said. "I did for a time. But not now. Now +you're nothing. You just aren't at all. I've got a boy who I love—such +a rogue, bless him—and what are you any more?"</p> + +<p>"I deserve all this. But once you were sorry when I—when I——"</p> + +<p>"Ah, once," she said. "Once <i>I</i> was mad, too. I nearly died. I didn't +care for nothing, not for <i>any</i>thing. You was the first man that made me +feel things like love. You! And I gave you more than I'd ever given +anyone, even my mother. And you threw it all back in my face—because +you are a man, I suppose, and can't understand. And when I was mad to do +something that would change me from ever, ever being soppy again, from +ever loving anyone again, ever, ever, I went and gave myself to a +rotter—a real, dirty rotter. Just nothing but that—if you know what I +mean. And that was your fault. You started me off by teaching me love. I +wanted to be loved. Yes. But I gave too much of myself to you as it was, +and I gave nothing to him really. Only anyone would say I did. And then +my mother went mad, because she thought I was gone gay; and she died; +and I got married to what's nothing more than an animal. But they're all +animals. All men. Some are nicer sorts of animals than others, but +they're all the<a name="page_410" id="page_410"></a> same. And that's me since you left me. Only now I've +got a boy, and he's like <i>me</i>. He's got my eyes, and I'm going to teach +him, so as he isn't an animal, see? And I've got my little sister May, +who I promised I'd look after, and I have.... Go away, Maurice, leave +me. I don't want you. I can't forgive you. I can only just not care +whether you're there or not. But go away, because I don't want to be +worried by other people."</p> + +<p>Maurice bowed his head.</p> + +<p>"I see, I see that I have suffered nothing," he said. "Superficial fool +that I am. Shallow, shallow ass, incompetent, dull and unimaginative +block! I'm glad I've seen you. I'm glad I've heard you say all that. +You've taught me something—perhaps in time. I'm only twenty-eight +now—and fancy, you're only twenty-four—so I can go and think what +might have been and, better, what I may be through you, what I will be. +I won't say I'm sorry. That would be an impertinence ... as you said, I +simply am not at all."</p> + +<p>The mist closed round them thicker for a moment; then seemed to lighten +very slowly. Jenny was staring at the cliff's top.</p> + +<p>"Is that a bush blowing up and down or a man's head bobbing?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see any man," he answered.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," Jenny said.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye."</p> + +<p>She turned to the upward path, pulling herself up the quicker by +grasping handfuls of fern fronds. Suddenly there was a shout through the +fog.</p> + +<p>"Snared, my lill wild thing!"</p> + +<p>There came a report. Jenny fell backwards into the ferns and foxgloves +and withered bluebells.</p> + +<p>"Good God!" cried Maurice. "You're hurt."</p> + +<p>"Something funny's happened. Oh! Oh! It's burning," she shrieked. "Oh, +my throat! my throat!... my throat!"</p> + +<p>The sea-birds wheeled about the mist, screaming dismay.</p> + +<hr /> + +<table summary="transcriber note" style="text-align: center;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> +<tbody><tr><td>Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:</td></tr> +<tr><td>techinque=>technique</td></tr> +<tr><td>assimiliated form=>assimilated form</td></tr> +<tr><td>later's opinion=latter's opinion</td></tr> +<tr><td>nose is high=>nose as high</td></tr> +<tr><td>baseles=>baseless</td></tr> +<tr><td>afternon=>afternoon</td></tr> +<tr><td>biabolic strangeness=>diabolic strangeness</td></tr> +<tr><td>yet you know=>let you know</td></tr> +<tr><td>as got a most=>has got a most</td></tr> +<tr><td>than oy=>than by</td></tr> +<tr><td>unseeen follower=>unseen follower</td></tr> +<tr><td>Bochym=>Bochyn</td></tr> +<tr><td>Terpsichore=>Terpischore</td></tr> +<tr><td>faintiest=>faintest</td></tr> +<tr><td>shooked her head=>shook her head</td></tr> +<tr><td>beanfast at Clacton=>beanfeast at Clacton</td></tr> +<tr><td>you'm a marvel=>you're a marvel</td></tr> +</tbody></table> + +<hr /> + + + + + + +<pre> + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Carnival, by Compton Mackenzie + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CARNIVAL *** + +***** This file should be named 33012-h.htm or 33012-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/0/1/33012/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available by The Internet Archive.) + +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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