WHEN Pamela walked out into the yard at Victoria, the stale stable
smell, the heavy air, and coarse sounds instantly made her feel at
home. The last time she had breathed London was on that hot, stifling
August morning nearly a year ago when she had started for Folly Corner.
Her head had been heavy then, her eyes inflamed with crying, her feet
sore and burning with the ceaseless, hopeless walk of the night
before--backward and forward across the common, keeping the stolid
prison--his shameful casket--in sight.
To-day her mouth curved happily, the blood ran in and out of her face
with the intensity of her emotion. Folly Corner was far behind
her--behind forever; Aunt Sophy, Nancy, Annie--all the kind,
slow-witted women--were mere phantoms; Jethro, clumping his fields
stupidly, his head hanging, his big heart sore, was simply a rustic
figure of no particular interest.
That life at Folly Corner had been a different incarnation. The one
moment when it seemed real was when a ruddy-faced man had brushed by
her on the platform--a pointed Niphetos rosebud in his coat. She
thought then fleetly of her garden, of all the bushes which had been
her choice, which had been planted for her.
She listened joyously to the hoarse voices of the drivers, to the
mellow rattle of the piano-organ playing a tune which she had never
heard. An orderly boy, looking pertly up in her face as she got into
the cab, said:
“Now we _shan’t_ be long.”
That must be the new catchword; once she had been well up in these
things. Edred had taken her to music-halls.
How hot and misty and stuffy it was! And how delicious! She leaned back
in the cab, laughing softly and continuously, like a mad thing. Then
she began to be afraid, not knowing how Edred would receive her. Then
she smiled again, knowing that she knew how to make herself
adorable--at least for a little while. There were certain gestures,
certain airs and words, which always pleased him. She coaxed a finger
under her veil, and pulled a loose bit of hair on the temple over her
brow. He liked loose hair.
It was a misty, gray-gold afternoon. London was empty--for London.
The Green Park was thick and mystic, the white frocks of the little
children standing out solidly in the haze; an occasional white
perambulator moving along slowly, like a fairy boat.
Marquise Mansions. The cab pulled up. The driver called out ironically
to the conductor of a Hammersmith omnibus, “Fancy meeting _you!_”--that
must be another catchword. How she had lost touch of the gay, silly,
witty London life! She had been contemptuous of it, imagined that she
hated it, that she only longed for it because Edred was there. Was it
possible that only yesterday, about this time, she had been watching
Jethro’s cart horses, with their elaboration of brass harness and head
decking? She had thought then that the country was so large, so utterly
satisfying; that towns, with their hotbed air of struggle and scheming,
would choke her. Only yesterday! It had all faded into a sad, tender
dream. She was very glad to be awake again. Marquise Mansions!
It was a leviathan block of latter-day flats; red brick, white paint
already turning smoke-colored, muslin curtains at the windows, little
fragile balconies to the upper stories. A maid in smart black-and-white
livery came daintily out and flicked a duster over one of the
balconies. She looked down into the street and smirked at a man with a
milk cart.
The place was like Edred. It was a typical place for him to choose: all
swagger show, all glitter, very smart and ostentatious, very thin.
She dismissed her cab, went up the tesselated steps, consulted the
names which were displayed on the wall. The hall porter rang the lift
bell. The lift came down. She got in, reclined on the thickly-cushioned
back, and watched the floors skim by, dip down.
Edred was on the third. She knocked with some trepidation at the
extravagantly shaped copper knocker which flaunted itself on a peacock
door. A little pert page, all claret cloth and gilt buttons, opened it.
She caught her breath at the color and depth of the carpets lying on
the stained floor, at great copper bowls and decorative dishes which
were disposed on shelves in a room with a half-opened door.
“Is Mr. Crisp in?”
The little page smiled knowingly; it was a very horrible smile, on such
a chubby, child face. He didn’t seem at all surprised at the advent of
such a visitor--a handsome woman, young and well dressed. It was
evident--her blazing, aching heart told her this--that she was only one
of a type.
“Mr. Crisp is in, miss. What name?”
“Never mind. Tell him an old friend.”
He left her in a little ante-room, dainty, extravagant, luxurious, with
an oriel window looking over the park. She had composure enough to get
up and put her face close to an oval, gilt-framed glass which hung
above the hearth. She had hardly turned away when the door opened. With
lips parted and hands out she advanced, then fell back as a strange man
put his chin and a pair of keen eyes round the lintel. He was a
nondescript. She took an instant dislike to the weak face and reedy
figure. He was dressed in brown tweed of an ugly herring-bone pattern;
he had a thick new watch-chain. She didn’t know who he was, but she
instantly hated--and resented--him.
He came a little farther into the room, looked at her thoughtfully,
critically--as a lady’s-maid might at her lady’s new gown--possibly to
be hers some day. Then he, too, grinned. The glance instantly fired
her; she looked and almost spoke indignant remonstrance. But the
strange man merely grinned again and slipped away. She was left alone.
Edred was a very long time. When at last she heard lagging feet, the
ball in her throat--of frenzied delight, of trepidation and
tumult--nearly choked her.
He was faultlessly dressed. He looked prosperous--a bit bored and
languid--that was part of his mask--but happy and very much plumper.
She fancied that his puffy cheeks detracted from his good looks. He
hadn’t missed her. He had left her at Folly Corner--to die if she
liked, to do worse--without caring.
She struggled up from the extravagantly stuffed divan of figured silk.
“Edred!”
“By Jove! Pam! You?”
She had nervously pulled her gloves off while she waited. His eyes fell
to her hands at once. There wasn’t a ring on them.
“Whew! He hasn’t found out? The wedding isn’t off?”
“Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“My dear little girl--it is such a surprise. Fancy meeting _you!_” he
laughed airily. “Where’s old Jeth? What’s the joke?” His eyes fell to
her hands again. “You’re married? It was to be the sixth--wasn’t it?
No--the sixteenth?” He looked at a calendar.
“The tenth.”
“To-day’s the fourth. Are you playing a trick? How did you know I was
here? I say, Pam, be square. Is he--Jethro, you know--waiting outside?
The old fellow must look odd in a frock-coat. Does he lift each foot
along the pavement, as if he were walking through stubble? If he’s up,
I can give him a good tip. The new company----”
“The ruby mine. I know. I saw your name--that is why I came.”
“Does he want an investment?”
She clasped her hands with an air of hopeless, helpless tragedy.
“You men are all alike. Can’t you see an inch before your nose? Do you
think I should come up here about rubies? Oh! can’t you see it on my
face? Jethro was just as bad; he made me tell him everything.”
“Everything?”
His handsome face became blank.
“Everything.” She threw a hard laugh at him. “Everything--No. 4658 and
all.”
“You didn’t?”
“I did. It is your fault. I couldn’t marry him, Eddie. I had to come.
He wished it. He knows everything. He sent me.”
“He sent you to me?”
“Yes.” She was growing deadly pale. “Don’t you want me? I can go
away--but not to Folly Corner. That is finished.”
He looked troubled, stroking and tugging the coal-black, silky
mustache. He raised his eyes to her, then dropped them to the ground.
She had fallen back, her lids half fallen. It was a hot day; it had
been a long journey. She was very tired, quite faint. She didn’t think
she cared much, now that he evidently didn’t. Yet, never for a moment
did she regret leaving Jethro; never for a moment entertain the idea of
going back. She shut her eyes, listening quite listlessly to the rumble
of life below. Her fate had long ago passed out of her own hands. She
was a chattel in spirit; although free in letter. Let him settle what
he liked.
She was roused by a kiss on her mouth. Edred was on the lounge. His
face was tender--the bold, assured tenderness that always made her
happy.
“Good little girl,” he said, in the half-sneering, half-caressing voice
which was his nearest approach to adoration. “Good little girl to come.
You must stay with me. I’ve missed you, Pam. You had the telegram?”
She let her head stay on his arm; she stretched her dusty feet out
wearily, with a gesture of absolute content.
“Yes. It was dangerous; Jethro might have opened it. I waited by the
yew half the night. Why didn’t you come?”
“Because I had just a shred or so of honor left----”
“The evasive thing that men call honor! I never could understand it.”
“A woman doesn’t. Jethro--poor old man--had been devilish good. The two
‘hun’ put me on my feet, Pam. Like the place?” He nodded his head
comprehensively at the luxury which walled them. “Decentish, isn’t it?”
“It’s very nice. Why didn’t you come, or write? It nearly broke my
heart. If I had not seen your name in the paper yesterday I should have
married Jethro.”
“I’m very glad you didn’t.” He looked sleepily at the beauty of her
flushed cheeks, at the depths of her happy eyes. “You saw the page
advertisement in the _Standard?_ We’re spending thousands in
advertisements--throw a sprat to catch a herring. Does the carrier
still bring the paper? What’s the fellow’s name?”
“Buckman.”
“That’s it. The same slow old horse--Hackty. You see I’ve remembered
that. I suppose they mean it for Hector, or perhaps Active. Gad! what a
sleepy hole! I felt like being in a dentist’s chair the whole time,
half under the gas, you know, just going off. If you went back in fifty
years, they’d be just the same. It’s so precious dull that they’d blow
their brains out--if they had any.”
“Jethro has been so good,” she said, feeling numbly that Jethro was
already very, very far away. She actually laughed, adding: “He insisted
on my bringing up flowers, eggs, some quince jam.”
“That stunning quince jam,” he said boyishly. “Jeth’s a good sort. Was
he very much cut up? It was too bad.” He gave her another kiss, without
any protest on her part, any courtliness on his; quite as a matter of
course.
“He was splendid. Poor, dear old Jethro! You wouldn’t understand.
You’ll only laugh. You always laugh at things that make me want to
cry--it’s the way with a man. He was so simple, so grand. He was like
a Greek god, very calm, but not a bit indifferent. He regarded it so
broadly--talked of Nature. He is all Nature. He is a great, simple,
clean-living ox--slow, reflective, not a bit stupid. He seemed to be
above or past all the small teasing, tearing strings which drag mean
hearts like yours and mine. I’ve been talking a great deal of nonsense
and you are annoyed.”
She looked quite frightened as Edred got up abruptly and rang the bell.
The past ten minutes had been so sweet that she would have accepted
them willingly as eternity.
“Not a bit.” He shrugged. “But it’s rather rough to compare him to one
of his own oxen. Do you remember how proud he was of his
stock--murderous black beasts with tremendous horns? I tell you I
didn’t half like crossing some of those fields in the twilight.”
The page came in. He looked at her boldly as she sat on the couch. She
decided that her first step of authority should be the dismissal of
that boy. Edred ordered tea. Everything was dainty, strangely dainty to
her, because she was fresh from the coarse, lavish hospitality of
Sussex. The sandwiches were evanescent--a suggestion of yellow and
green. Edred tilted the cream into her cup; at Folly Corner they often
had to put up with skim milk because Jethro insisted on having so many
pounds of butter made weekly. He had his stern economies; believed in
making farming thoroughly pay. When eggs fetched more than a shilling a
dozen almost every one was sent to market.
There were French cakes, toast cut in mathematically exact triangles.
The aroma of the tea seemed to fill the room. They sat by the open
window, an inlaid table spread with exquisitely drawn linen between
them. She looked at the road, across the railings into the park, where
an occasional carriage drove through the haze. She looked at Edred. The
prison stain was completely gone. His diamond ring, the pin at his
neck, all his indications of prosperity, pleased her. And yet she
thought the diamonds ostentatious. If he had been a portly man, instead
of a slim and elegant one, he would have been vulgar.
She was always touched by externals--had a painful respect for the
things money gave. In the midst of her intense happiness she paused to
consider discreetly that, love apart, Edred was a more eligible husband
than Jethro. She thought of Jethro--that side of him which had always
jarred on her: his half-sheepish, half-surly air in the presence of
strangers, his shy avoidance of women. Then she thought of his
toilet--the striped tags of his thick boots, which were generally
hanging out, the black suit, which he would speak of as his “best”; his
week-day shirts of galatea; his best white ones, which he did not often
wear because of the difficulty experienced by the old washerwoman in
getting them up. She thought of his ridiculous neckties, of his huge,
snuffy silk pocket-handkerchief, of the turnip-like repeater which had
been his grandfather’s, and which he lugged out of his capacious pocket
laboriously. She poured herself more tea from the Queen Anne silver
pot. She poured another cup for Edred, feeling a delightful sense of
being wifely as she did it.
“We might have had some of Jeth’s jam,” he said, idly smiling at her.
His eyes seemed to contract and glitter unnaturally with undisguised
admiration. She was very flushed and triumphant, a little feverish and
reckless with her mastery of him. Yet, all the same, because she was a
woman of the world, and had been driven to consider her reputation, she
began to wonder, as the gray haze in the park grew black, what
suggestion he was going to make for the night. One could not walk out
into the street, take a hansom, and drive to be married forthwith. He
said, pushing his empty cup away and settling back in the chair:
“I’ve been lucky. Everything I’ve touched has turned up trumps.”
“The ruby mine----”
“Pooh! That is only one thing. I’ve learnt, by very bitter experience,
that it is as well to have plenty of irons in the fire.”
“Is it a genuine concern? You won’t risk anything this time?”
She put the question for his sake--for theirs. She did not wish him to
fail, to suffer again. She wanted to be rich--safe--for the rest of her
life.
“As genuine as anything can be,” he returned evasively. “But don’t
spoil yourself by being serious. The prettiest woman--and you are
looking devilish pretty to-night, darling--can’t afford to be serious:
it brings lines about the mouth.”
She returned his smile, but a moment after she sobered again.
“I’m obliged to be serious,” she told him deprecatingly. “What
arrangement do you propose for to-night? If I go to Bloomsbury too late
they will not be willing to take me in.”
“Bloomsbury!” He looked annoyed at being reminded of that page in his
life. “You don’t want to go there.”
“They know me. I can think of no other place.”
He didn’t answer for a moment. She searched his flushed face anxiously
through the uncertain light.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said at last. “There’s a very fair hotel a few
doors down. Sutton shall send my traps there. I’ll engage a couple of
rooms for myself and him, and you shall have this place. Will that do?
You’ll be very comfortable. They give me service--the cooking’s fair.
One of the chambermaids will unpack your things and help dress you.”
He spoke as if she had all her life been accustomed to such attendance.
He was wonderfully plastic; it was one of his feminine attributes. In a
few weeks he had assimilated the manner, cultivated the brain of a
wealthy man who instinctively measures cost by a five-pound note:
nothing smaller than a “fiver.”
“That would do very well.”
“It won’t be for long. We must marry. I’ll get a license to-morrow.
Sutton shall see about it--he’s a rare fellow for details.”
“Is that the horrid man who looked into the room while I was waiting?”
Edred laughed.
“Yes.”
“Who is he? He mustn’t come here any more. I’m sure he’s hateful.”
“He’s very useful. He lives here--a most superior fellow, much to be
pitied. He was a clerk in a City firm for twenty-five years; went there
when he left school; worked up to a salary of £150. Threw all his
energies into the business; stayed late on Saturday, took papers home
to master on Sunday. Then they chucked him--wanted a younger fellow.
Everybody must be young nowadays. Sutton is invaluable. He knows the
inside of the city. He’s my clerk. I give him a couple of pounds a week
and his grub. He’s perfectly happy--so am I. His tips have put hundreds
into my pocket. Oh! you’ll have to be civil to Sutton.”
“Don’t be in too great a hurry to make money, will you?”
He laughed.
“Too much haste leads to the dock,” he said lightly. “I’m careful
enough. Some day--in a fairly little time, too--I shall be a second
Milligan. Lady Pamela Crisp. It sounds well, doesn’t it?”
“We are going to be married--in my name. Will that be legal?”
“Extraordinary delusions a woman has about the marriage service! Of
course it will be legal.”
“I ought to be going to Victoria to get my luggage. It is in the
cloak-room.”
“Sutton will see to that.”
She never forgot the witchery of that evening. Edred was so adoring, so
recklessly generous, so optimistic. They dined; they had a box at the
theater. No tinge of conscience whipped up her light heart. She never
threw one half-thought back, across the lonely miles of suburb and
common and pasture, to the mellow old house, girt with a great pond,
whose master at that moment might be sitting by the empty hearth with
his whole big faithful heart full of her.
The one disconcerting touch was when they parted at the door of
Marquise Mansions. Edred had been talking of his successes, of the many
clever, shifty schemes he had in prospect.
“We must entertain--in a Bohemian way,” he said. “Only men; jossers I
want to persuade into doing things. You understand? Very often a look
from a pretty, well-dressed woman will do more than hours of
plausibility, of convincing proof, from the woman’s husband. You must
have some Paris frocks; get your hair dressed well.”
“We shall only entertain men?”
“Women are not interesting--the wives and daughters of city men. We
shall only entertain from diplomacy--other women would spoil
everything. You must help me to play my game. It is to your interest,
isn’t it?”
She did not answer. He thought that her expression in the uncertain
light--stars and gas lamps competing--was rebellious. He became
savagely petulant.
“This marrying is a bore,” he said. “Why do you insist on it? Marriage
is only an empty form. It would be all the same--no one would know.
Married people are not branded for all the world to see, after all. We
shall never get tired of each other. It will be just the same, just as
safe, more romantic. What do you think, Pam?”
He stared at her with odd intentness, as she stood in the shadow of the
wide entrance door. She was wrapped from her soft dull hair to her shoe
in a costly evening cloak which they had hurriedly bought on the way to
the theater to cover her dusty traveling dress.
“I think that it has all been said, threshed out,” she returned firmly.
“I don’t want romance--at the expense of respectability.”
The night-rattle of London swung by them as they stood in the shadow of
the door poising their fate in their hands. The warm, misty streets
were festooned with strings of red and yellow light. Pamela was
reminded of those miserable omnibus rides from Portobello Road, when
she had watched the words “OX FORCE--NINON SOAP--DUNN’S NOSTRUM”
glitter and die on the face of a house.
Edred’s eyes, contracted and brilliant, tried to destroy her will. They
were admiring, magnetic. But she was fiercely respectable; she had
struggled, had seen the seamy side of life. She loved him, she was
madly, wickedly infatuated with him, but his smooth claptrap about the
romance of an irregular union did not take her in.
“You are jesting,” she said coldly; “jesting--in very bad taste.”
“Yes. Only a jest,” he returned, gripping her hand.
Three days after that they were married. She started a new,
intoxicating career as mistress of the gorgeously appointed flat at
Marquise Mansions.