Chapter 6

During the interval before the ballet he took her out of the circle, strolled with her up and down the promenade, and gave her an American drink in a refreshment saloon. It was appallingly hot, and they were both longing to quench their thirst with something big and cold. A magnificent waiter brought them bigness and coldness in tall tumblers with straws, and they sat on a velvet divan and sucked rapturously.

Standing or seated at tables, there were young bloods with white waistcoats and cigarettes, and young ladies with rich gowns and made-up faces; through a gilded doorway one had a vista of the thronged promenade; the air was hot, exhausted, pungent with tobacco smoke; and amid the chatter of voices, the clink of glasses, the rustle of petticoats, one could only just hear the great orchestra playing chords of some fantastic march.

Suddenly Mavis felt a vaguely pleasant confusion of mind, as though the icily cold liquid, as she slowly absorbed it through the straw, was freezing her intelligence. She could not for a few moments understand what Dale was whispering at her ear.

"Between you and me and the post, Mav"--And he told her that, according to his opinion, all these women parading up and down were no better than they ought to be. They were of course, socially, much higher than the common women of the streets, but he considered them to be, morally, on the same level: although they did not accost strangers, they were all willing to scrape acquaintance with any one who looked as if he had money in his pocket. "Yes, London's a bit of an eye-opener, old girl." Then he laughed behind his hand, and said that she was probably the only respectable woman and virtuous wife in the whole of the theater.

Mavis, although trying to listen, answered at random.

"Will, I do believe there's spirits in this stuff--yes, and strong spirits too."

"Oh, bosh. It's just a refresher. Mostly crushed ice, and a few drops of sirup."

Mavis, however, was quite correct. At the bottom of the glass, and below the light sirupy mixture, there lurked liqueurs of which the potency was only rendered doubtful because of their low temperature. The beginning of the long drink was absolutely delicious, so soothing and so cooling; but at the end of it was as if one had filled one's self with insidious quick-running flame.

Mavis put down her empty tumbler, and looked at it reproachfully.

"Will, it has made me come over all funny. My head's swimming."

When they got back to their seats and were watching the ballet, he too felt the consequences of guileless straw-sucking; but with him the after effects were entirely pleasurable. He felt invigorated, peaceful, massively grand.

He sat placidly enjoying the beauty of the scene, the grace of the dancers, the vibrations of the music. The stage was dark at first, and one could merely make out that it pictured a wildly-imagined grove in the land of dreams; then it grew brighter, and one saw preposterous giant-flowers--foxgloves so big that when they opened there was a human face in each quivering bell. And the flowers came out of the earth and danced; children dressed up as birds, brown boys like beetles, slim girls like butterflies, all came dancing, dancing; with more light every moment, till the dazzle and the blaze seemed to drive away the little people;--and then quite glorious forms appeared, pirouetting, almost flying--pink-limbed houris, fairies, nymphs--"call 'em what you please--a fair knock-out."

"It makes me go round and round," whispered Mavis.

He sat grave and silent--just nodding his head in approval of all he saw, not troubling to applaud any further, impassive as some Eastern sultan for whom slaves and courtiers had made a mask.

Then gradually his mind seemed half to detach itself from the thraldom of external objects. These novel sense impressions, pouring into him, joined themselves to old memories, and, mingling, made up a fuller stream of joy. He seemed to be able to think of five or six things at once; but, as the undercurrent of every thought, there was the same deep-flowing comfort, of which the source lay in his relief at the escape from danger. Those fairies flashing about under the branches of sham trees momentarily evoked the ancient haunting distress of his youth, and out of this thought came the lofty conception of Mavis as his guardian angel. How persistently the first of those fancies lingered--after so many years! Bother the fairies or nymphs, or whatever they were. Household angels are what a man wants to bring him contentment; and keep him straight, day by day, and week by week.

Before the ballet was over, he became bored with it. Too long! Enough is as good as a feast. They were singing now as well as dancing.

The massive, voluminously quiescent sensation induced by the liqueurs had passed away, and in its place came increased weariness of the spectacular entertainment. The light, and the music, and the half-naked women, who still danced and pranced, were affecting his nerves unpleasantly now. He looked away from the stage, and stared at the audience. Behind him, as he knew, there were all those hussies with painted faces offering themselves for hire. And wherever he looked, he seemed to see evidences of amorous traffic. When you examined it attentively, the entire audience seemed to resolve itself into an endless repetition of the same small group of two persons of two sexes, each soliciting the other's favor; a man and a woman sitting close together, the couple, the factorial two--everywhere, all round the circle, along the three visible rows of stalls, and again in the private boxes. Those wealthy men in the boxes were unquestionably accompanied by their mistresses and not by their wives or sisters. Through the vibrating music and the super-heated atmosphere, on a river of vivid light, they were all drifting fast toward the night of love that each pair had arranged for itself.

And they too would have their night of love. He looked at his wife, and felt his pulses stirred as much now as in the far-off days of courtship--more, because then there was no experience of facts to strengthen his imagination. He gently pressed her arm, and thrilled at the mere contact. She was leaning back, fanning herself with her program, and he observed the roundness and whiteness of her neck, the flesh of her shoulder showing through the transparent sleeve of her blouse, the moistness and warmth of her open lips.

Yet she had told him at Rodchurch Road Station that she was attractive only to his eyes, and that she could never again arouse desire in other men. What utter nonsense! She was simply adorable.

VII

They took a cab to drive back in, and he almost carried her up to their bedroom. It was on the same floor as the other room, with the same marvelous bird's-eye view of the starlit sky and the lamplit town. He had got her to himself at last--here, high above the world, half-way to heaven. There seemed to him something poetical, almost sublime in their situation: they two alone, isolated, millions of people surrounding them and no living creature able to interfere with them.

As he knew, they were the only lodgers on this top floor; and so one need not even trouble to avoid making a noise. He gave full voice to his exultation.

"There, old lady." He had opened the window as wide as it would go, and he told her to look out. "The air--what there is of it--will do you good."

"Oh, I couldn't," and she recoiled.

"Giddy?"

"_Giddy_ isn't the word. Oh, Will, why did you let me drink that stuff--after drinking the wine?"

"I thought you'd got a better head-piece. Look at _me_. I could 'a' stood two or three more goes at it, and bin none the worse." And he chaffed her merrily. "Here's a tale--if it ever leaks out Rodchurch way. Have you heard how Mrs. Dale behaved up in London? Went to the theater, and drunk more'n was good for her. Came out fair squiffy--so's poor Mr. Dale, he felt quite disgraced."

She was not intoxicated in an ugly way; her speech, her movements were unaffected, and yet the alcohol was troubling her brain. She looked like a child who has been overexercised at a children's party, and who comes home with eyebrows raised, eyes glowing and yet dull, and cheeks very pale.

"Oh, dear, I _am_ tired," and she sat down on a chair by the chest of drawers, and slowly took off her hat.

But she got up again and pushed Dale away, when he offered to help her in undressing.

"No, certainly not. What are you thinking of?" and she began to hum one of the pretty airs they had heard at the theater. "But, my word, Will," and she stopped humming, and laughed foolishly, "I shan't be sorry to get out of my things. It _is_ hot. This is the hottest night we've had."

"Ah, you feel it. I've got acclim'tized."

He undressed rapidly, and lighting the briar pipe which he had not cared to smoke in the genteel society at the theater, he lay on the outside of the bed.

"Better now, old girl?"

"Yes. I'm all right, Will. Dear old boy--I'm all right."

Lying on the bed and immensely enjoying his delayed pipe, he watched her. She wandered about the room, moved one of the two candles from the mantel-shelf to the chest of drawers, put her blouse on the seat of a chair and her skirt across the back of it. Then with slow graceful movements she began to uncoil her hair, and as her smooth white arms went up and down, the candlelight sent gigantic wavering shadows across the wall-paper to the ceiling. Beneath one of her elbows he could see right out through the open window into a dark void. From his position on the bed nothing was visible out there, but he could fill it if he cared to do so--the scattered dust of street lamps below and the scattered dust of solar systems above.

Soon he puffed lazily, drowsily; then he nodded, and then the pipe fell from his mouth.

"Hullo!" And muttering, he roused himself. "I must 'a' dropped off. Might 'a' set the bed on fire."

Mavis, in her chemise and stockings now, with her hair down, was still at the dressing-table. She did not turn when he spoke to her. While he dozed she had fetched the other candle, and in the double light she was staring intently at the reflection of her face in the looking-glass.

Dale slipped softly off the bed, moved across to the dressing-table, and with explosive vigor clasped her in his arms.

"Oh, how you frightened me!" She had given a little squeal, and she tried to release herself. "Let me go--please."

"Rot!" And he lifted her from the ground, and carried her across to the bed.

"Will--let me go. I--I'm tired;" and she began to cry. "Be kind to me, Will." The words came in feeble entreaty, between weak sobs. "Be kind to me--my husband--not only now--but always."

She sobbed and shivered; and he, holding her in his arms, soothed her with gentle murmurs. "My pretty Mav! My poor little bird. Go to sleepy-by, then. Tuck her up, and send her to sleep, a dear little Mav." At the touch of her coldly trembling limbs, at the sight of her tears, all the sensual desire lessened its throb, and the purer side of his love began to subjugate him. That was the greatest of her powers--to tame the beast in him, to lift him from the depths to the heights, to make him feel as though he was her father instead of her lover, because she herself was pure and good as a child. "There--there, don't cry, my pretty Mav."

And she, melting beneath the gentleness and tenderness of his caresses, wept in pity of herself. "Yes, I'm tired--dead-tired." And the tears flowed unchecked, blotting out emotion, reason, instinct, swamping her in floods of self-pity. "Let me sleep--and let me forget. Oh, let me forget what I've gone through these last two days."

"Anyways, it's over now."

"Yes, it's over. Oh, thank God in Heaven, it's over and done with."

"Just so." And there was a change in the tone of his voice that she might have noticed, but did not. "Just so--but you're talking rather strange, come to think of it."

His arms slowly relaxed, and he let her slide out of his embrace. She sank down wearily upon the pillow, closed her eyes, and for a little while went on talking drowsily and inconsecutively.

"Shut up," he said suddenly. "Hold your tongue. I'm thinking."

Then almost immediately he turned, and, with his hands upon her shoulders, looked down into her face.

"Why didn't you go to church yesterday?"

"What did you say, Will?"

"I said, why didn't you go to church yesterday?"

"Oh--I really didn't care to go."

"That wasn't like you--you so fond of the Abbey Church. Did your Aunt go?"

"Yes."

"You said this afternoon she didn't go."

"She did go. I remember now."

"Ah! Another thing! That actor-feller--what d'yer call 'im--him that you counted on and didn't find--Chugwun!"

"Yes."

"You see the name in the paper?"

"Yes."

"You didn't aarpen t'see it on the boards outside the theater?"

"No."

She was wide awake and quite sober now. But her limbs were trembling again, and her eyes seemed preposterously large as they stared up at him from the white face. "Will!" And she spoke fast and piteously; "don't look at me like this. What's come to you? Why do you ask me such a pack of questions?" And she tried to laugh. "At such a time of night!"

"Bide a bit, my lass. I'm just thinking."

Where had the thoughts come from?--out of blank space?--from nowhere? Yet here they were, filling his head, multiplying, expanding, making his blood rattle like boiling water in a tube as it rushed up to nourish their monstrous growth.

"Will, let go my shoulders. You hurt. Get into the bed--and be sensible. I'll answer all questions in the morning."

"No, I think I'll have the answers now."

He went on questioning her, and his hands growing heavier crushed her shoulders so that she thought he would break the bones and joints.

"What train did you come up by this morning?"

"The nine o'clock."

"What! D'you mean you went right across from North Ride to Rodchurch Road?"

"Oh, no. I caught it at Manninglea Cross."

"Did you, then? An' s'pose I was to tell you the nine o'clock don't stop at Manninglea Cross!"

"Will! Loosen your hands. It does stop--it did stop there this morning."

"Yes, it did stop--and so it does all mornings. But a fat lot you know about it. And for why? You weren't in it."

"I was--I really was. Will--don't go on so cruel."

"Oh, but I _am_ going on." He had lowered his face close to hers, and his hot breath beat upon her cold cheeks. "Now, give me the explanation of what you let slip about going through so much these last two days. What was the precise sense o' _that_?"

"I only meant I've been so anxious."

"Yes, but yer bin anxious best part o' four weeks. What was the mighty difference in yesterday or day before?"

"I didn't mean any difference. I scarce knew what I was saying--or what I'm saying now."

"Oh! Just a remark let fall without a scrap o' sense in it!"

Staring up at him, it was as if she saw the face of a stranger. His eyes were half closed and glittering fiercely; his lips protruded as if grotesquely pouting to express scorn, and on each side of the distended nostrils a deep vertical wrinkle showed like the blackened gash of a knife wound.

"Will, dear, I meant nothing at all."

"You're lying."

Abruptly he took his hands from her shoulders, got off the bed, and went to the chest of drawers. Her handbag was on the drawers; and when she saw him pick it up she sprang after him, clutching at his hands and imploring.

"You'll find nothing there. Nothing that I can't explain;" and she made a desperate gurgling laugh. "Why, Will, old man, it is you that's drunk, yourself, after chaffing me? No, you shan't. No, Will, you shan't."

He gave her a back-hander that sent her reeling. It was the first time he had struck her, and he delivered the blow quite automatically, the thought that she was preventing him from opening the bag and the action that got rid of her interference being all one process. His hand had remained open, but he swung it with unhesitating force; and now, as he plunged it into the bag, he saw that there was blood on it.

Before he had extracted all the contents of the bag she was back again, once more clinging, clutching, and impeding. He did not strike her again--merely shook her off so violently that she fell to the floor, where she lay for a moment.

In the inner pockets of the bag there were three five-pound notes, together with a tooth-brush and several small articles wrapped up in paper. These he laid on one side, while he carefully examined all the odds and ends that had been packed loose in the bag. Three or four pocket-handkerchiefs, a new piece of scented soap, a pair of nail-scissors--as he looked at each innocent article, he gave a snort.

She had come back, but she had not risen from the ground; while he slowly pursued his investigations she kept quite still, crouching close to his legs, silently waiting.

She could not see what he was doing, but presently she knew that he had begun to unfold the paper from the things she had hidden in the pocket.

"Ah," and he snorted. One of the bits of paper held hairpins; another a side-comb; and another, a bit of trebly folded paper, proved to be an envelope--the envelope of one of the letters that he had sent to her at North Ride Cottage. He looked at the postmark. The postmark told him that the envelope belonged to a letter he had written four days ago.

Then he found what she had put in the envelope before she folded it. It was the return half of a railway ticket, from London to Rodchurch Road--he turned it in his fingers and examined the date on the back of it.

"Last Friday, my lady. Not to-day by any means--and not Manninglea Cross. Issued at Rodchurch Road o' Friday last--the day you come up to London."

"Yes, Will, I won't pretend any more."

She had put her arms round his legs and lifted herself to a kneeling position. "I _did_ come Friday. But don't be angry with me. Don't fly out at me, and I--I'll explain everything."

"May I make so bold 's t'a' ask _why_ you come, without my permission begged for nor given?"

His voice was terrible to hear, so deep and yet so harsh, and vibrating with such implacable wrath.

"Will, I did it for your sake. I thought if I asked permission, you'd say no. So I dared to do it myself--feeling certain as life that you were done for if no help came--and I thought it was my duty to bring you the help if I could."

"Go on. I'm listening, an' I'm thinking all the time."

"I thought--Auntie thought so too--she advised it--that Mr. Barradine knowing me so long, ever since I was a girl, if I went direct to him--"

"Ah!" And he made a loud guttural noise, as if on the point of choking. "Ah--so's I supposed. Then I got a bull's-eye with my first thought to-night. So you went to him. Where?"

"At his house."

"Yes, right into his house. By yourself?"

"Yes."

"You didn't think to bring your aunt with you. Two was to be comp'ny at Mr. Barradine's. So in you go--alone--without my leave--behind my back."

"Will--remember yourself, my dear one. You won't blame, you can't blame me. But for him, you were done for. All could see it, except you. I asked for his help, and I got it."

"But your next move! We're talking about Friday, aren't we? Well, after you'd bin to Mr. Barradine, what next?"

"Then I hoped he'd help us."

"Yes, but Friday, Saturday, Sunday? Had yer forgotten my address--or didn' 'aarpen to remember that _I_ was in London, too?"

"I was afraid of your being angry. I thought I'd better wait."

"_Where_?"

She looked up at him, but did not answer.

"You've played me false. You've sold yourself to that fornicating old devil. You--"

And with a roar he burst into imprecations, blasphemies and obscenities. It was the string of foul words that, under a sufficient impetus, infallibly comes rolling from the peasant's tongue--an explosion as natural as when a thunderbolt scatters a muck-heap at the roadside.

Then, snarling and growling like an animal, he stooped and cuffed her.

"Will!" "Will!" She repeated his name between the blows. She did not utter a word of complaint, or make an effort to escape. Brave and unflinching, though almost stunned, she raised her white blood-stained face for him to strike again each time that he buffed it from him. "Will!" "Will!"

But her courage and submissiveness were driving him mad, had changed suspicion to certainty. Only guilt could make her take her punishment this way. Nevertheless she must confess the guilt herself. Even in his fury, he remembered to hold his hand open and not clench it--like a cruelly strong animal, tormenting its prey before killing, careful to keep it alive.

"Answer me. Go on with your tale."

"Then stop beating me, and I'll tell you."

He stayed his hand, poised it, and she seized it and clung to it.

"Will--as God sees me--I did it for your sake--only to help you. I couldn't get the help unless I sacrificed myself to save you."

Wrenching his hand away he knocked her to the ground, and she lay face downward. But this blow was nothing, purely automatic, like his first blow, not bringing with it that faint sense of something refreshing, the momentary appeasement of his agony. For in truth the torture that he himself suffered was almost unendurable. Yet up to now his pain, though so tremendous, was unlocalized; it came from a fusion of all his thoughts, and perhaps each separate thought, when it became clear, would bring more pain than all the thoughts together.

The world had tumbled about his ears; his glorious life had shriveled to nothing; his pride was gone, his love was gone, his trust in man and his belief in man's creator; and for a few moments one thought grew a little clearer than the rest. The end of all this must be death--nothing less. He was really dead already, and he would not pretend to go on living. He would finish her, and then finish himself.

Turning his head, he looked at the window; and the open space out there seemed to whisper to him, to beg to him, and to command him. Yes, that way would be as good as another--strangle her, pitch her out, and jump out after her.

"Will!" She had once more scrambled to her knees. "I've loved you faithfully. I've never loved any one but you."

He did not hit her. Grasping the arm that she was stretching toward him, he dragged her upward, seized her round the body, and carried her to the bed.

"Now we'll go to work, you and I." He had thrown her down on her back, and he held her with both his hands about her throat. "Now"--and the sudden pressure of his hands made her gasp and cough--"we'll begin at the beginning."

"Do you mean to murder me?"

"Prob'ly. But not till I've 'ad the truth--and I'll 'aarve it to the last word, if I tear it out o' yer boosum."

"You'll kill me if I tell you."

"See that winder! That's yer road--head first--if you try to lie to me."

Then she told him the whole sickening story of her relations with Mr. Barradine. He had debauched her innocence when she was quite a young girl; she had continued to be one of his many mistresses for several years; then he grew tired of her, and, his attentions gradually ceasing, he had left her quite free to do what she pleased. She had never liked him, had always feared him. The long intermittent thraldom to his power had been an abomination to her, and it was martyrdom to return to him.

"Only to save you, Will. And he wouldn't help unless I done it. It was as much a sacrifice for you as if I'd been hung, drawn, and quartered for your sake."

"And why did you sacrifice yourself in the beginning, before ever you'd seen my face?"

"Auntie made me. It was Auntie's fault, not mine. I told her I was afraid of him."

"Your aunt had been that gait with him herself, in her time?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Yes, I twigged that--and then the mealy-mouthed, filthy hag came over me. I on'y guessed, but _you_ knew. Answer me;" and his grip tightened on her throat, and he shook her. "Answer."

"Oh, I suppose so."