CHAPTER XLIV

ERNIE LEAVES THE HOTEL

The winter came and began to go.

In February the celandine peeped in the beech-woods in the coombe, and the Lords and Ladies began to unfurl their leaves, while in the little garden in Rectory Walk daffodils made a brave show.

All through the dark months Ernie had only caught an occasional glimpse of Ruth. Now he lost sight of her entirely.

One afternoon Céleste stopped him on the Third Floor.

She looked at him curiously, with a touch of gauche diffidence he had never marked in her before.

"Was you very fond of her then, Ernie?" she asked quietly.

"Who?" he inquired, surprised.

"Ruth."

Ernie stared at her.

"What's happened?"

"She's gone."

"When?"

"Some time since. Afore Christmas."

He saw that Céleste, the kindest of creatures, was genuinely moved. She turned her back, and moved to the window, biting her handkerchief to restrain her tears.

"Of course she'd no business here at all," she sobbed. "She was an innocent. She didn't know nothing. If she'd mixed with us girls we could anyway have learned her enough to keep her out of trouble. But she was that proud. Kept herself to herself."

Ernie devoured her with dark eyes.

"Where's she gone?" he asked.

"London, I expect," Céleste answered. "They always do."

The flighty little creature dried her eyes and spread her wings in the sun once more. "Poor old Ern!" she cried. "But there's better fish in the sea than ever came out of it, as the sayin is.... I'm not aimin at meself, mind!" she added coquettishly.

Ernie, if he heard her badinage, ignored it. As always, where his heart was concerned, he struck instantly and without fear.

He walked along the corridor and knocked at Madame's door.

She was, as usual, smoking.

"What is it, Caspar?" she asked kindly.

Ernie came to the point with almost brutal directness.

"Ruth Boam, 'm."

Madame studied her rings.

"She has left--while I was gone away," she said after a pause. "I am sorry. She was nice gurl."

Madame had only just returned from her annual visit to the sister-hotel at Brussels.

"Could you tell me where she's gone, 'm?"

Quite suddenly her large fair face wrought. She rose out of the cloud of her own smoke, and just as Céleste had done a few minutes before, went to the window and looked out. Her great shoulders heaved.

"I don't know," she said. "She has not gone home to Aldwoldston. I haf written." Then with an astonishing display of emotion:

"That man!" she cried. "I will never haf that man in my Hotels any mores."

Ernie retired, seeking and dissatisfied.

The news of his search soon spread.

In the boot-room next day, when the men were at their "Elevens," Don John met him with a jeer as he entered.

"Don't he know then?" mocked the Austrian.

"Know what?" asked Ernie.

"Where she's gone?"

Ernie put down his bread and cheese.

"Where has she gone, then?"

"Queen Charlotte's, Marylebone."

"What's Queen Charlotte's?" asked Ernie, the simple.

A rumble of cruel laughter went round the room.

"Layin-in hospital," said Don John, "for English gurls the Chairman Jews have sported with."

Ernie rose. Very deliberately he took off his apron.

"Shut the door, will you?" he said in a curious white calm. "Thank you, Bill. Now take his knife from him, some of you. You know these bloody aliens."

A silence had fallen on all.

"What's it all about?" tittered Don John, trying to brave it out.

"Arf a mo," said Ernie, rolling up his sleeves leisurely, "and then I'll show you. Now chuck him out into the ring. I thank you, Bert."

In the Hotel the feeling between the aliens and the Englishmen ran high; and the latter obeyed Ernie's injunction with a will all the more because the fame of Ernie's left-handed punch had reached the Hotel from Old Town long since.

Don John didn't like it, and he liked it less when Ernie began on him in all seriousness.

One of the foreigners slipped out.

Two minutes later Salvation Joe, magnificent in his red jersey, shouldered into the room.

"What's all this then?" he growled in his voice of a drum-major. "Thought you was a Christian, Caspar?"

Don John was spitting blood over the sink.

Ernie stood in the middle of the floor, his head a little forward, ignoring the head-porter, his fists still milling the air with a rhythmic purposefulness that was almost dreadful.

"Yes, I'm a Christian all right," he replied in musing voice. "It is more blesseder to give than to receive. I've give your friend a middlin bunt, and there's more where the same come from. He's only got to arst for it."

Salvation Joe marched away to report to the Manager.

"And went on after I'd spoken," he said. "Saucy with it too."

Christmas was over; Easter some weeks away; things were very slack.

The Manager was a thick young German with wavy black hair parted in the middle. He now sent for Ernie.

"You can go at the end of your month," he said. "I'm sick of it."

"You ain't the only one," retorted Ernie. "I'll go now."

"Then you'll go without your wages," replied the Manager.

Ernie went upstairs to his dormitory, dressed, gathered his few belongings, and came downstairs deliberately and with dignity.

He felt exalted.

Salvation Joe met him with a sardonic smile.

"What, reelly goin?" he asked.

Ernie experienced quite suddenly an immeasurable superiority to the head-porter.

"I am, Mr. Conklin."

"Without your wages?"

"I'll leave them to you, Mr. Conklin," said Ernie quietly. "They're the wages of sin. This place is a brothel. And your Christ is my Devil."

Leisurely, with a certain joy in his heart, and his bundle in his hand, he crossed the road to the Redoubt and climbed the motor-bus for Old Town.

As he did so the memory of a like journey with a companion at his side was strong upon him.

Somehow he had a feeling that Ruth would be on the top, awaiting him.

Standing on the steps he peeped warily.

She was not there; and his heart, that had been soaring, crashed to earth.

Then he climbed up into the bleak unsympathetic sky. All around him were benches empty, ugly, comfortless. And looking back, he was aware of Salvation Joe standing with arms folded across his scarlet paunch, eructating on the steps of the Hotel.