"If Madam will leave it to us," said Myfanwy Jones, "we will give her
satisfaction."
She took in all Aura's grace and beauty as she spoke. Full of shrewd
sense, appreciative by virtue of her race, of all that makes for
beauty, knowledgeable in all that enhances beauty, her bold dark eyes
realised that here was some one worth dressing.
"We will--yes! we will make it of white _velours-panne_ and dead white
velvet. It will become Madam, I am sure. I will consult the buyer
regarding the price."
She swept away over the Turkey carpets of Williams and Edwards' shop,
her shiny, undulating black satin train rippling behind her, towards a
tall, most immaculate figure in a long frock coat, who was busy
comparing scraps of silk with another tall, broad-shouldered young
man. Both might have entered a grenadier company and looked all too
big and strong for their task.
"Excuse me, Mr. Morris," said Myfanwy, with the most superb courtesy,
"but I should like to speak to Mr. Pugh for an instant." Having got
him to herself, her manner changed.
"Merve!" she said sharply. "What price order costume, _panne_ and
velvet, my wedding-dress design--you know. I want to make it."
"For that lady?" he said, looking across to where Aura stood, feeling
as she still felt in shops, utterly shy and miserable. In an instant a
hot flush overspread his face, and he turned back to the silk
patterns.
"Thirty guineas."
Myfanwy sniffed scornfully. "You will oblige me, Mervyn Pugh, by
having some sense. Look at her! will she give more than fifteen
guineas for a dress? Never! and I want to make it."
"Five-and-twenty," he said, refraining from the look. He would gladly
have stuck to the thirty, and so have driven Aura from the shop, had
he dared. But he did not dare. He was under Myfanwy's orders, and, so
far, he had had no reason to regret the fact. He had climbed like
Jonah's gourd, and was now Williams and Edwards' first buyer. And next
year when, after his marriage with Myfanwy (who was now head of the
costume department) the additional interest of making money for
himself instead of for others had come in his life, and there could be
no doubt of their success. He had all the Cymric's fine feelings for
feminine fal-lals (which is shown indubitably by the names over the
drapers' shops in London) and Myfanwy had a perfect genius for dress.
Considering, therefore, the crowds of women absolutely without any
taste at all who desire to dress well, the result was assured. He
began to wonder how he had ever thought seriously of being a
pedagogue, a demagogue, or a minister.
"I shall say twenty," remarked Myfanwy reflectively, "it can be made
for fifteen, and she shall have it for that in the end. But I want to
make it. She is lovely--and I want to know how I shall look in my
wedding-dress."
"Twenty!" said Mervyn wavering.
"I hope it may buy her all she desires as my dress will buy me,"
contended Myfanwy, with a challenge of lip and eyes. "I will say
eighteen, Mervyn, to begin with."
With that she swept back to Aura. "It will be eighteen guineas,
Madam," she said sweetly; "but if Madam will give us the Mechlin scarf
she is wearing to utilise, it will be fifteen."
Fifteen! It seemed enormous to Aura's ignorance. Yet Ted had given
twelve, she knew, for the pink satin, and he had bidden her--since he
was too busy to shop--be sure and get something very nice indeed for
Ned Blackborough's dance on New Year's Eve. Fifteen whole sovereign
remedies and fifteen shillings over! What an immense amount to spend
upon herself, she who at best was but a poor maimed thing. Every now
and again this feeling of being, as it were, a castaway, a derelict on
Life's sea, would come to her, though she knew that millions of women,
many from choice, went through the world and left their mark on it
with never a child to call them mother. Still the sense of being, as
it were, out of the fighting-line was at times oppressive. So few
things seemed to matter; certainly not the spending of money.
"It will have to be ready by the 31st," she stipulated, and then she
smiled as she invariably did when she remembered Ned Blackborough.
Myfanwy Jones took in the smile with critical shrewdness. Had she been
asked, she would have said it was not exactly the smile of a married
woman, although Aura had given her name as Mrs. Cruttenden.
What of that? Myfanwy's notions were decidedly broad, and if she could
compass a good time, as she herself counted a good time, for this
lovely girl, the lovely girl should have one.
"Miss Moore! Madam's measure!" she called in queenly fashion, and
searched in her beaded-satchel--pockets would have disturbed the
elegant set of her dress--for a pencil. It had slipped inside a folded
paper, and as Myfanwy removed it, she smiled in her turn. For she had
caught a glimpse of the writing and printing inside the paper.
"Miss Alicia Edwards," "Messrs. Williams and Edward," "per M. Jones."
Only that morning Myfanwy had paid the bill and received her
commission on the sales; so there it was awaiting developments.
"If Madam will come for one fitting," suggested Myfanwy superbly. She
was going to stake her reputation on this dress, and she meant not to
lose it.
The result exceeded even her expectations.
Aura looked at herself in the long glass and then at Myfanwy, who,
with infinite condescension, had insisted on seeing Madam dressed.
"What have you done to me?" she asked, "I don't know myself."
Was it the long, straight, brilliant, moonshiny folds that made her
look so tall and slim? Was it the tiny, scarcely-seen silver threads
outlining the flowing curves of dead-white velvet about the hem which
made one think of moonlit clouds? Was it the cunningly devised drapery
of lace which made the bodice seem a loose sheath to loveliness?
Myfanwy Jones looked at Aura with undisguised pity. "It is only that
Madam is so seldom dressed; she is only clothed; but to-night she will
be the best-dressed person in the rooms." She looked at her doll with
a sphynx-like expression not without some malice in it. "If Madam will
allow me," she said, and her deft fingers were in the bronze hair:
"so--the shape of Madam's head is heavenly--and--and not the diamond
brooch--the dress requires nothing but Madam's self. That is right! I
trust Madam will enjoy herself."
Aura went downstairs to show herself to her husband, with a queer new
feeling of power tingling in every vein. Why at two-and-twenty should
she hold herself derelict? A ship need not always steer straight to
the pole.
Ted had been extremely busy and rather irritable ever since she had
returned; not irritable with her--he never was that--but _distrait_
and careless. In a way it had been a relief, since it had given her
time to try and adjust herself to her new outlook. She had not even
spoken to him regarding that new outlook; she was almost doubting if
she should. Her silence would, no doubt, be a bar to perfect
confidence; but was such a thing as perfect confidence possible
between two people so dissimilar as she and Ted? Perhaps it was better
to drift on. Whither?
The question would come with a pang, sometimes bringing the thought
that it might have been better if she and the little one--the little
daughter they told her--had gone out hand in hand to wander in the
"groves of asphodel." That was Ned's phrase; and with that would come
another pang.
What would she do without Ned? He had been so kind. He had lent her
books to read, he had taken her out in the motor, he had even talked
of the dead baby almost as if he understood how dear a memory it had
to be.
Ted looked at her from head to foot, and a slow smile crept over his
good-looking sensible face.
"That is something like," he said. "By Jove! you look most awfully
fetching! A little ice-bergy," he continued, bending to kiss the white
shoulder above the Mechlin lace: "but--but that's your style. Only I
wish you had more colour. If this 'biz' of mine comes off, we'll take
a holiday somewhere--Monte Carlo, perhaps--the Hirsches are going
there. Now we ought to be starting. You don't mind my dancing, do you
dearest? I do wish you'd learn. It looks so odd your sitting out with
the old fogies."
"I shall sit out with Ned," she replied lightly.
For the first time in her life Ted frowned at her. "It seems to me,"
he said quite nastily, "that you have done a lot of sitting-out with
Ned lately. I don't half like it."
She stared at him, and all the way to New Park sat thinking of what he
had said. Was it possible he was going to be jealous of her? Of her
who had married him to get rid of the very possibility.
A ray of light from a gas-lamp lit up her face, and she found Ted's
eyes fastened on her.
"You are most awfully fetching to-night--you look so jolly mysterious
somehow," he said joyously, putting his cheek against hers. "Give me a
kiss, wifelet."
She gave him one. She would have given him a dozen of the trivial
things had he asked for them! Then she laid her hand on his.
"You weren't serious about Ned, were you?" she asked.
"Not--not altogether," he admitted with a smile; "but you can't be too
careful, my child. People are the devil to talk. And you mustn't
forget that he did want to marry you."
She must not forget! And all her efforts had been to forget it
utterly. What a queer world it was!
"Here we are," said Ted cheerfully. "By Jove! Blackborough is doing it
well!"
For once, indeed, New Park looked habitable. Ned, remembering the
East, had had it illuminated in Indian fashion, and even the
heavy-browed architraves and the stucco columns looked passable
outlined by rows of little lamps. Great cressets blazed following the
ground plan of the huge pile, the balustrades of the formal terraces
shone in lines of light. The wide portico, carefully enclosed, was
full of palms, and festooned with vines from which hung great clusters
of grapes. Within, it was impossible to recognise the formal suites of
rooms. They seemed to have vanished, taking with them all the stiff
furniture, the gorgeous clogging carpets. In their places were airy
pavilions, orange gardens, great groves of tall lilies. Money had been
spent lavishly in getting rid of all traces of money. And in the
centre of it all stood Ned Blackborough with Helen Tressilian, looking
years younger, beside him, as she received congratulations on her
approaching marriage, all the time keeping a watchful eye lest Peter
Ramsay should weary after his recent illness; but he looked alert and
keen as ever.
"A small and early, and you come at a quarter past nine!" said Ned,
then paused, absolutely dazzled by the shiny folds, the moonlit
clouds, the parted sheath of the bodice concealing surely the most
beautiful thing in the world. His vagrant mind reverted on the instant
with a quaint admixture of regret and exultation to the adornment he
had ordered for the select supper-table at which Aura was to be
entertained. This woman was beyond such simplicities as a little
purple iris. For her, white roses, tuberoses, gardenias, stephanotis;
all the deadly sweet white things in the world, even the poisonous
_dhatura!_
"I have put my name down for some dances later on," he said, handing
her a programme; "I shall be busy at first, but--let me see--Lord
Scudamore, I am going to give you the honour of being presented to
Mrs. Cruttenden. Remember, you are engaged to me for supper."
"Is that wise? What will _they_ say?" asked Helen doubtfully, as Aura
and her cavalier--a diplomatic-looking wearer of an immaculate
dress-suit, with some sort of a ribbon across the shirt--moved off.
"_They_, my dear Helen, will by that time be envying me my good luck,
at least all the men will, and I will tell the cavilling women she is
a bride. Did you ever see such a fairly bewildering dress? She is the
whole Dream of Fair Women rolled into one."
"Let us go into the Winter Palace. Have you seen it?" said Aura's
diplomat, and she went with him nothing loth. Ten minutes afterwards,
however, she complained of a draught, and left it somewhat hurriedly,
she with fine flaming cheeks and he somewhat sulkily. That was the
worse of rustics; they could not understand the most ordinary
_persiflage_.
"Where would you like to sit? I am afraid I am engaged for this
dance," he said icily.
"Oh I anywhere, I like to be alone," replied Aura.
It was not long her fate. Mr. Hirsch spied her out and bore down upon
her, white waistcoat and all. His open admiration was almost a relief,
mixed up as it was with still more boundless adoration of his
daughter, who came flitting past in Ted's arms. They were too much
absorbed in their waltz and their enjoyment of it to notice the
sitters out, but Mr. Hirsch waxed enthusiastic over their appearance.
They were a couple to be proud of, and he really _was_ becoming quite
proud of Ted, who promised to be a very rich man. He felt quite like a
father towards him; he had indeed fathered him into the world of
speculation, and--ha--ha--ha--then he waxed exceedingly hilarious--if
Mr. Cruttenden hadn't been in such a terrible hurry to get married,
who knows but what a family arrangement--she must excuse him, but
really if she would look so superlatively beautiful she must expect
the world to go crazy.
"What are you laughing at so loudly, papa?" asked Miss Hirsch, pulled
up in the next round by her parent's laughter. "I'm sure he must be
boring you terribly, Mrs. Cruttenden. And there is Mr. Leveson, papa,
just dying to be introduced--he told me so just now--do go and fetch
him. You'll find him awfully amusing, Mrs. Cruttenden, he has seen so
much life."
He had seen too much for Aura. She came out from the conservatory
white with anger. By this time half the men in the room were looking
at her, and it was no longer any question of being alone. She was
beginning to feel frightened, she looked vainly for Ted, but he having
seen her, as he phrased it self-complacently, "well-started," was
amusing himself. So, in the crush of smiling, flattering faces, she
saw Ned Blackborough's, and caught almost convulsively at his arm, and
his quiet decorous claim.
"Our dance, I think."
"Oh! Ned!" she said hurriedly, "do let us go to some quiet place where
we can get away from everybody."
The suggestion was but too welcome. Free for a time from his duties as
host, he cast all prudence to the winds. The sort of thing that had
been going on was all very well, but it must end in the inevitable
way. When she was happy, he might have been a fool. Now, he would not
be one. It was not as if he would be doing Ted any real harm. If he
was free of her he would be free to marry and have sons to inherit his
money, he could even marry Miss Hirsch!
The library whither they escaped looked snug and comfortable, all
untouched by the babel without. The reading lamp by the blazing fire;
Ned's book as he had left it.
"This is nice," she said with a little shiver of satisfaction, and
taking up the book crouched down in her usual fashion by the fire to
see what it was.
Ned's pulses were bounding. It was all he could do to keep his voice
steady.
"You oughtn't to do Cinderella in that lovely gown!" he said.
Aura looked at him critically. "I feel like Cinderella," she said. "I
believe I want to go home before twelve; and I don't think I like the
gown; it makes me something I never was before."
There was a silence. Ned Blackborough was telling himself he was a
fool.
"I shall put out the light if you insist on trying to read a bad
French novel instead of speaking to me," he said. "There!--" the click
of the electric button sounded clear. "It's much nicer with the
firelight. Give that thing to me."
"Bad French novel," she echoed. "Why do you read it if it is bad? I
wouldn't."
"All people are not perfect," he said recklessly. "Most of us--except
you--have a bad side. I often wonder what you would say if I were to
show you mine?"
"You couldn't," she said softly.
He had literally to harden his heart before he could go on, and then
he had to double back. "It--it isn't a bad book after all," he went on
turning the leaves idly, "it is only real life. I'll tell you the
story if you like. Of course it is about a woman, and a man, and--and
a husband--the old story that is always cropping up in the world, so
the book's no good." He threw it aside in sudden impulse upon the
table, and knelt down beside her. "Aura," he said passionately, "you
and I know the beginning of the story well. Why should we try and
escape from the ending of it? Oh! for God's sake, child, don't look
like that!"
She had sprung up and was glancing down at the white shimmering folds
of her gown in absolute horror.
"It is the dress," she muttered. "It is not me--it is not you, Ned--oh
Ned, it can't be you--it is the dress--I will go home--I must go
home----"
"Aura!" he cried, but she eluded him and was out in the wide lit
corridor ere he could even ask her to be calm--to forgive him--to
forget. He glanced after her for a moment; then with a curse at
himself closed the door and sat down moodily before the fire. What was
the good?
Between the palms, the roses, the endless flowers and curtains of the
corridor were many a cosy corner, many a prepared nook where men and
women in the intervals between the dances sought seclusion and
love-making, more or less casual according to the taste of the
makers--and where passion, doubtless, had gone further than Ned's
brief outburst.
"Hullo, Aura!" came her husband's voice as he issued from one of these
corners with Miss Hirsch on his arm. "All alone! Why, what's up?"
The necessity for calm came to her. "I was looking for you," she
said. "I want you to order the carriage for me. I'm feeling--not very
well--and I shall be better at home--you see, as I don't dance." She
looked helplessly at him wondering if she would be allowed to go.
"I'll take you home, of course, if you want to go," he said
gloomily--"that is, if Miss Hirsch will excuse me." His regret for
three more dances with the jolliest girl he had met for years was in
his voice.
"Then I won't go," she began, "I couldn't spoil----"
"You are not looking a bit well," said Miss Hirsch kindly. "See! I'll
take you to the ladies' room. Mr. Cruttenden, you might send her in a
glass of champagne. Then you can have a quiet rest there, and go home
later if you want to, but I expect you'll be all right by supper
time."
She nodded knowingly to Ted and went off with Aura, bursting over with
friendliness.
But, left alone in charge of a bevy of prim maids, with the untouched
champagne before her, Aura's courage rose. She would do what she
wanted to do. So, on her programme card she wrote a note to her
husband using all the most consoling phrases she could think
of--"Feeling a little bilious," was in itself sufficient to allay any
anxiety--ended up with a cheerful--"I shall be asleep long ere you
come home, please enjoy yourself," and leaving this to be given to him
when he came to inquire, slipped away. The clocks were just striking
half-past eleven when she paid the cabman at the gate. She had
forgotten the latch-key, but, thank heaven, the servants were still
up. It was New Year's Eve. Her thoughts flew back to Cwmfaernog, to
the last New Year's Day when she had learnt so many things.
She was going to learn more now. She could not understand. She did not
know what the world meant. She was going to see for herself once and
for all.
As she thought this she was stripping off Myfanwy's creation.
"Enjoy herself!" She flung it into a corner almost with a cry, and the
next minute stood in her white serge and the brown Tam-o'-Shanter.
Mercifully some faint instinct of self-preservation made her muffle up
the bronze beauty of her hair and hide some of the perfection of her
face under a thick veil. The next instant she had carefully closed the
front door again, and was hurrying away down the road towards the
electric tram. They went till midnight; that would take her quickest
to the heart of the great city. She had Ted's duplicate latch-key with
her; she would try and be back before he returned.
Hitherto she had sought for the uttermost wisdom of nature amongst the
everlasting hills--now she was going to seek the uttermost wisdom of
man in his haunts.
"Hullo! Polly, my dear, ain't you comin' my side?" came a voice from
the shadows over the way, but she was close to the tram lines now, and
a car was coming along. It was full of holiday-makers singing,
shouting, harmless enough, but over hilarious. Here there were more
appeals to Polly (why perpetually Polly rather puzzled her) as she
clung to a strap, until a jovial elderly man pulled her down on his
knee. Whereat the whole car roared as if it were some exquisite joke.
But they meant no harm; they were only just a little convivial.
The car stopped at the Cross, the centre of the great city, and she
got out. It was a fine old Cross, weather-beaten, worn, bearing on its
four sides beneath the soaring quaintly floreated Symbol of Salvation,
four bas-reliefs of the Passion of the Master, the Scourging, the
Mocking, the Cross-carrying, the Crucifying.
Beneath the latter Aura stood looking out with clear eyes at the
conduct of Christendom. The radiating streets were all thronged; the
late music-halls were belching out their crowds, the supper-rooms were
preparing to close by turning out their guests. But the streets were
not ready for bed.
What a crowd! Gaily dressed women of almost all types. Some painted,
bedizened, unmistakable, others apeing them amused, uncertain, even
faintly repelled. Men with every expression on their faces, from evil
passion, through vulgarity, to contemptuous tolerance. Half-grown
girls more outrageous than their elders, half-grown lads jostling,
leering, raiding the pavement-walkers into the very street. The
electric light danced and quivered, the moistened mud of a thousand
footsteps sparkled and shone.
Where in all her midnight walks upon the hills had she seen a sight
like to this?
As she stood, more than one offer of a drink fell on her ears; but she
took no notice.
"If you ain't goin'," said a policeman familiarly, "you must move on.
I can't 'ave you standin' doing nothin'."
So she quitted the shadow of the Crucifixion; but at the corner of the
street also, it was still "move on," when she herself had failed to
move on; so the next time the offer of a drink came she accepted it.
"Bully for you, my girl; come along," said the offerer, and they went
across to a gin shop, the doors of which had never once been still;
the flashing of their backwards and forward swing beating out the
seconds with the regularity of a clock.
How bright it was! How full these last few minutes before twelve.
The offerer appraised his guest critically, "Sherry!" he ordered, "and
the usual--now! my girl, drink it up sharp. The night's young for
pleasure yet, but we shall have to turn out and find some other
place."
Aura looked at him clearly; at the face, not bad in itself, but
overlaid with sensuality.
"I am not going to drink," she said coldly. "I only came in to
see--and I have seen."
She turned to go. Luckily for her, his torrent of obscene abuse was
interrupted by a general exodus; for suddenly the Town Hall clock
boomed, the church bells rang out, the old year passed, the new year
began; began with shouts and curses and kisses and laughter. Some one
struck up "Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot," and a band of perfect
strangers to each other, hand-clasped and feeling wildly at each end
for further friendship, lurched across the street.
A Salvation lass, her face vivid with intent, clutched at Aura's arm.
"Don't go with him, my girl--don't--he is the Devil--he is Sin
incarnate--he is----"
"I am not going," answered Aura in a queer strained voice. "I am in
school. I am learning. I want to see for myself."
"That was Eve's sin--you are lost--come--come with me."
The crowd jostled them apart, jostled Aura into the shadow of a narrow
archway. More than one man's face looked into the shadow, spoke, then
passed on with a jibe. The streets were beginning to empty; the crowd
was dissolving into couples; men and women were hurrying away into the
side streets. She must be going also.
"Hullo! you young devil! I have got you again, have I?" came a hoarse
voice, and a hand clutched at her arm.
She wrenched it away, and looked for escape. Beside the low archway
rose a flight of steps, above the steps a wider archway. A small door
in it stood open. Scarcely thinking what she did, she sprang towards
it, set aside a leathern curtain, and for the first time in her life
found herself in a church. At least the man would not follow her here.
What a quaint little place! It was almost dark, but lights were
burning, small twinkling lights set in the form of a star at the
further end, and she went forward curiously. The chapel, for it was no
more than that, was not quite empty. Here and there among the shadowy
chairs some figure--generally two figures together--showed dimly.
It must be a Roman Catholic chapel, for that gracious woman's figure
crowned with stars uplifted above the sanctuary doors with a child in
her arms, must be the Blessed Mother.
Aura's heart leapt up to her. That she understood. And what was this
at her gracious feet, beneath the five-pointed star of light?
That was the mother again kneeling in adoration before her new-born
child, while the ox and the ass worshipped with wide, soft eyes, and
the shepherds and the wise men thronged the door.
Aura knelt down before the _creche_, her eyes wide, soft as those of
the beasts that perish. Here was peace. Here was perfection! No! not
perfection, but the road to it. This was the solution of the horrors
of human life outside, but beyond human life lay the life that was not
human, the something better of her dreams.
A touch on her shoulder roused her. One of the Sisters of the
Immaculate Conception, engaged in this rescue work, was beside her.
"Courage!" she said. "Courage! my sister! Our Blessed Lady will help
you. Give up your sinful life."
Aura rose and looked at her simply. "I am not a bad woman," she said.
"I--I don't think I ever could have been one. Now I know I couldn't."
Then she flushed up. "I--I should like to give something," she
continued, and thrusting her purse into the sister's hand, she turned
and passed rapidly into the street again.
She had seen enough; she had learnt enough. Now to get home.
She would have taken one of the cabs, of which two or three still
stood by the Cross, but she had no money. There were two pennies, it
is true, in the pocket of her jacket, but the trams had ceased running
for the night. There was nothing for it but to walk, and she had no
idea of the way. Her two first experiences of asking it, one entailing
immediate flight from insult, were not encouraging. So the clocks were
chiming half-past three ere, utterly worn out, draggled beyond belief,
she stood in the hall of her own house again, thankful to find from
the darkness that Ted had not yet returned. He might be back any
moment, however, so she must make haste and remove her garments. She
flung them all soiled and stained with the grime of the city, on the
top of Myfanwy Jones' creation, the beginning and the end together.
Then, as she stood in her white dressing-gown, she paused to listen.
Was that a sound in Ted's study? Could he have come in already? come
in without seeing how she was?
She went downstairs. There was a light beneath the door; she opened
it.
The room seemed to her to be full of smoke, making all things in it
unreal, almost fantastic. And was that her husband looming large,
jovial, content through this new atmosphere? She shrank back from it.
"Hullo, little woman! Aura! I've such news for you. I've turned up
trumps with a vengeance. I'm a hundred thousand pounds richer than I
was yesterday. I found the telegram when I came home half an hour ago,
and I've been dreaming ever since. Such dreams! You shall have the
best time a woman ever had--frocks, jewels, everything--and by and
by----"
"There may be no by and by," she said quickly. "Ted--oh Ted! be good
to me."