_Wherein it is suspected that the Garden of Eden was Well Lost_
Noll, restless, his brain teeming with the things that had befallen him
this day, fretted with the baffling dilemma of finding Betty, and alone
with his conflicting moods, paced his little room until long after the
darkness came into it, when he roused, famished but unhungry, flung
out of the hotel, and turned aimlessly northwards, pacing beside the
sounding traffic into the darkness of the night, that hung upon the
more quiet ways where law students have their dingy habitations.
He wandered towards the old quarters where he had strolled the
pavements gaily, a handsome youth, with a handsome girl by his
side--every flagstone was familiar to him--every dingiest street-corner
held a wan smile beneath its soot.
As he turned into the quaint old street where Betty had lodged, he was
startled to see her figure flitting in front of him.
He thought for a moment that he must be suffering from faintness--it
came to him that he had not broken his fast since morning. But the
sound of her well-known step, the light poise of her lithe figure,
left no doubt; and he cautiously followed her, hanging back, afraid to
startle her.
She turned of a sudden, with that forthright aimful intent that
directed all her acts; ran up some steps; set a key in the lock of the
door-latch; and, the door yawning open, she stepped into the blackness
and passed out of the night.
The thud of the slammed door came muffled on the night; and Noll,
striding out, crossed the street and arrived opposite the house
where he had spent many a happy tryst. It was the last place in the
world whither he would have expected Betty to go into hiding--and he
realized, with a whimsical smile, Betty’s keen sense of humour and her
shrewd capacity, in boldly deciding to hide herself away in her old
haunts.
The house was wholly in darkness. Not a soul was astir.
Noll brooded upon it....
At last came a light into a window.
Betty had mounted to her room.
It was the topmost attic of the house--where servants sleep.
Suddenly the singing at his heart ceased, Noll bent brooding wits on
the question as to what grinding toil kept Betty’s dainty fingers at
work at midnight to the winning of bread.
He crossed the road, walked up the steps, and rang the bell; and, as he
did so, a light came into the fan-shaped window over the door where he
stood.
There was a drawing of bolts, a key grated in the lock, and the door
swung open.
Before him, lit by the candle that she held high above her head, stood
a pretty little woman, much overdressed above the extreme height of the
fashion with the curious picturesque exaggeration that is the pretty
habit of London theatrical folk--yet, for all her charming attire, a
daughter of the people. She was in her hat still, as though not long
come in.
“Victoria May Alice!” he exclaimed.
She nodded pertly:
“God forgive me, that’s me,” she said.
She shaded the light from her eyes with one hand, and stared at the
youth:
“Well, translate me to uttermost leading parts at the West End Theatres
if it ain’t Mister Noll!... You ain’t forgotten Victoria May Alice,
anyhow--there’s no error in _that_ contract.”
Noll stepped into the house, shut the door behind him with his heel,
and took her hand:
“Victoria May Alice, I could almost kiss you,” said he, wringing her
fingers. “I’m so glad to know you are staying here--with her.”
She laughed:
“Stayin’, Mr. Noll?... I own the whole bloomin’ palace,” said she.
“When I’m not at the theatre I am running _this_ show. I go behind the
scenes for sordid tragedy; and I listen to lodgers’ complaints for
roaring comedy--see? And when you’ve done that often enough, one week
with another, you’ve eaten a pretty thick slice of life, I can warn
you.... But, you know, you ain’t listenin’ to a word I’m sayin’.”
He laughed embarrassedly:
“Betty is upstairs,” he said.
She nodded:
“H’m, h’m--yes,” she said. “You know such a lot you’d almost think you
were her husband, Mr. Noll.”
He let the thrust pass him.
“Victoria,” said he--“why does she work so late?”
“Work?”
“Yes--there’s a light in her room.”
Victoria May Alice looked at him whimsically:
“Lord,” said she, “you men are mostly only fit for comic opera....
Well, if you want to know within an acre or two of the truth, call
again when the cats are coming home.”
“What? Till daylight?” he gasped.
“So help me Henery Irving,” she nodded. “You’d see that light burning
still when the cockydoos are crowing in the lemon of the morning.”
“Good God!” said Noll hoarsely.
“That’s right. Put it on to God,” she said. “It’s so like a man.”
She looked at him, and added drily:
“But, of course, Mr. Noll, you don’t know.... How should you? You’re
her husband.... I think you’d better go up and pull her nut-brown
hair about the waste of candles, myself, eh! What’s the good of being
married to a woman if you can’t order her about?”
Noll nodded, smiling sadly:
“Yes, I must see her--at once.”
“Come along then,” said she, leading the way upstairs. She put her
fingers on her lips as sign for silence, and after that she spoke never
a word until she reached the topmost landing, knocked at the attic
door, flung it open; and, as Noll stepped into the room, shut it again
softly, and crept gently down the stairs....
Before the snowy bed stood Betty in her white night-gown and in her
arms she held a little child, crooning to it a low-voiced lullaby.
She looked up as the door opened:
“Noll!”
Noll strode over to her, dumb with an overwhelming passion for her, his
heart leaping with a great surprise, walked as in a dream, knelt down
at her feet, put his arms about her limbs and buried his face in the
thin fabric of her nightdress.
“Betty,” he said hoarsely--“why did you not tell me this?”
She laughed sadly:
“I tried to tell you--so many times, Noll--but--you would not
listen----”
“Ah me,” said he, holding her close (how he loved the musical
voice!)--“I have been such a fool--such--a fool! But I have found you,
dear heart, at last--and in finding you I have found all.” And he
added: “I have suffered, Betty.”
She laid her slender fingers upon his head.
He was shaken with a sob.
She stroked his hair:
“I have so longed for you, Noll--it has been very lonely. The little
one----”
Noll was sobbing like a child.
She bent down with the babe, lifted Noll’s face in her hand and kissed
him:
“Hush, Noll, dear heart,” she said--“you mustn’t do that. This is no
time for tears. We have come into our kingdom.” She laughed with tears
in the laugh. “And it is so near the stars.”
“I am glad to be home,” he said. And he added with a sad laugh: “It
does not make me giddy being near the stars, sweetheart--I have lived
up there before--with you.”
She stroked his hair:
“Come,” she said--“she is fast asleep.”
She led him to a small bed. She bent over it to turn down the blankets
and sheets and tucked the little one away, her red-brown hair falling
about the sleeping child.
He knelt down by the little white cot, a strange singing at his heart,
his limbs all a-tremble, and, putting out his hand, touched the tiny
hand of the sleeping child, who opened small warm fingers and clasped
his thumb.
His eyes watched the little one hungrily.
Betty sat down sideways on the cot and gazed at them.
“I wonder what you think of her, Noll,” she said.
“She is very beautiful,” he said.
Betty laughed gently:
“You wouldn’t think it, Noll; but she has her faults,” she said. “It’s
no use disguising these things, you are bound to discover them--she is
self-willed, tyrannical, unscrupulous--ah, how she tramples one’s heart
under her woolly little shoes!--she is greedy, frets under opposition,
is ridiculously conceited about her mother, I am afraid will be as
arrogant about her father as he is about himself, and altogether
displays a lack of modesty and of ladylike reserve that causes me the
gravest anxiety about her moral attributes.... You would never be able
to disown her, Noll--she has all your vices.”
Noll smiled as the tears trickled down his face:
“I am afraid, Betty,” said he--“that a mother’s disparagements are but
veiled praise.”
He held her hand in his.
They sat so for a long while.
As he gazed down upon the little one, it came to him that his mother
had so looked down upon him, with a mighty hunger at her heart--that
his every pain had been a pain to her--his every smile a smile in her
heart. And what had he given in return? He felt now the desolation
it must have wrought in the silent mother’s heart when he eagerly
left the house and sallied forth to his cubhood, unrealizing that his
empty place echoed with the sound of a dead child’s laughter and the
merriment of the days of his innocence.
Would this little one so discard him--and Betty?
Thus, in this cradle was the beginning of that open confidence between
him and his mother that lit their love from that time. The grandchild
leads the wandering feet home again.
The tears welled into Noll’s eyes, and his lip trembled.
Betty stroked his hand:
“Hush, Noll--I have wanted you. That is enough, isn’t it?” He bowed his
head.
“Noll,” said Betty--“thou wilt be kind to her.... If she lose me she
has only you.” And she added after awhile: “The child whose spirit is
broken cannot be of the Masterfolk.”
Noll lifted her fingers to his lips.
Betty bent forward and kissed him; she laughed happily:
“Noll,” said she--“Eve did well when she flung away Paradise to know
the love of a little child.”
THE END
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.