Mrs Monnerie had paid for elbow room. It was the last "Private View" in
this world we were to share together. The sight of her capacious figure
with its great bonnet and the broad, dark face beneath, now suddenly
become strange and hostile, filled me with a vague sense of desolation.
Yet I know she has forgiven me. Had I not pocketed my "pretty little
fastidiousness"?
What Fanny had planned to do if Miss M., plain and simple, had occupied
the Signorina's table I cannot even guess. For the spectacle of the
squat, black, gloating guy she actually found there, she was utterly
unprepared. It seemed, as I looked at her, that myself had fainted--had
withdrawn out of my body--like the spirit in sleep. Or, maybe, not to be
too nice about it, I merely "became" my disguise. With mind emptied of
every thought, I sank into an almost lifeless stagnancy, and with a
heavy settled stare out of my black and yellow, from under the coarse
fringe that brushed my brows, I met her eyes. Out of time and place, in
a lightless, vacant solitude, we wrestled for mastery. At length the
sneering, incredulous smile slowly faded from the pale, lovely face,
leaving it twisted up as if after a nauseous draught of physic. Her gaze
faltered, and fell. Her bosom rose; she coughed and turned away.
"Hideous! monstrous!" murmured Mrs Monnerie to the tall, expressionless
figure that stood beside her. "The abject evil of the creature!"
Her dark, appraising glance travelled over me--feet, hands, body,
lace-draped head. It swept across my eyes as if they were less
significant than bits of china stuck in a cocoanut.
"No, Miss Bowater," she turned massively round on her, "you were
perfectly right, it seems. As usual--but a dangerous habit, my dear. My
little ransoming scheme must wait a bit. Just as well, perhaps, that our
patient's dainty nerves should have been spared this particular little
initiation----. Could one have imagined it?"
Mr Padgwick-Steggall merely raised his eyebrows. "I shouldn't have cared
to try," he drawled. And the lady beside him made a little mouth and
laid her gloved hand on his arm.
"But, Madame is forgetting," whined the Signorina in a broken nosy
English over her outspread fan, "Madame is forgetting. It's alive! Oh,
truly!" and I clasped my arms even tighter across my padded chest, my
body involuntarily rocking to and fro, though not with amusement.
"Madame is forgetting nothing of the kind," retorted Mrs Monnerie
heartily. "The princess is an angel--Angelique--adorable." She turned to
the gipsy woman and slipped a coin into the claw-like fingers. "Well,
good-night," she nodded at me. "We are perfectly satisfied."
"La, la, Madame," my stuttering voice called after her, the words
leaping out from some old hiding-place in my mind. "_Je vous remercie,
madame. Rien ne va plus.... Noir gagne!_"
Her ebony stick shook beneath her hand. "Unspeakable," she angrily
ejaculated, stumping her way out. "A positive outrage against humanity."
I shut my eyes, but the silent laughter that had once overtaken me in my
bedroom at Mrs Bowater's scarcely sounded in my head. And Mrs Monnerie
could more easily survive the little exchange than I. My body was dull
and aching as if after a severe fall. The booth was filling for the last
time.
Little life was left in the inert figure that faced this new assortment
of her fellow-creatures: how strangely dissimilar one from another; how
horrifyingly alike. A faint premonition bade me be on my guard. Under
the wavering flame of the lamp, my glance moved slowly on from face to
face, eye on to eye; and behind every one a watcher whom now I dared not
wait to challenge. Empty or cynical, disgusted, malevolent, or blankly
curious, they met me: none pitiful; none saddened or afflicted. On
former nights---- Why had they grown so hostile? This, then, was to
smother in the bog.
But one face there was known to me, and that known well. Hoping,
perhaps, to take me unaware, or may it have been to snatch a secret word
with me; Fanny had slipped back into the tent again, and was now
steadily regarding me from behind the throng. A throng so densely packed
together that the canvas walls bulged behind them, and the tent-pole
bent beneath the strain. Yet so much alone were she and I in that last
infinite moment that we might have been whispering together after death.
And this time, suddenly overwhelmed with self-loathing, it was I who
turned away.
When, stretching my cramped limbs, I drew back, exhausted and shivering,
from the empty tent, I thought for an instant that the figure which sat
crouching in the corner of the recess was asleep. But no: with head
averted, sweat gleaming on his forehead, he rose to his feet. His
consciousness had been my theatre in a degree past even my realization.
"Then, that is over," was all he said. "Now it is my turn."
The voice was flat and indifferent, but he could not conceal his disgust
of what had passed, nor his dread of what was to come. Why, I thought
angrily once more as I looked at him, why did he exaggerate things like
this? Even a drowning man can sink three times, and still cheat the
water. What cared I?--the night was nearly over. We should have won
release. Why consider it so deeply? But even while I pleaded with him to
let me finish the wretched business--every savour of adventure and
daring and romance gone from it now--I was conscious of the trussed-up
monstrosity that confronted him. He could not endure even a glance at my
painted face. I stepped back from him with a hidden grimace. Past even
praying for, then. So be it.
I heard the nimble stepping of the pony's hoofs on the worn turf. A
sullen malice smouldered in its reddish, luminous eyes. When I clutched
at its bridle it jerked back its sensitive head as if teased with a
gadfly. The gipsy daubed vermilion on my friend's sallow cheeks. She
shook out the tarnished finery she had brought with her and hung it
round the stooping shoulders. She plastered down his black hair above
his eyes, and thrust a riding-whip into his hand.
"There, my fine pretty gentleman," she smirked at him. "King of the
Carrots! I lay even your own mammie wouldn't know you now, not even if
you tried it straddle-legs. Tug at the knot, lovey; it's fast, but it
won't strangle you. As for you, you----!" she suddenly flamed at me,
"all very fly and cunning, but if I'd had the fixing of it, you
wouldn't have diddled me: not you. I know _your_ shop. Slick off double
quick, I warn you, or you'll have the mob at your heels. Now then,
master!"
She grasped at the bridle, slapped the tooth-bared sensitive muzzle with
her hand. I drew back, cowed and speechless. The sour thought died in my
mind--Better, perhaps, if we had missed each other on the road. The pony
jerked and snatched back its head.
He was gone, and now I was quite alone. What was there to fear? Only his
contempt, his loathing of this last humiliation? But that, too, would
soon be nothing but a memory. As always, the present would glide into
the past. Yet a dreadful foreboding daunted me. Coarse canvas, walls and
roof, table, beaten grass, my very hands and clothes had become menacing
and unreal. The lamp hissed and bubbled as if at any moment it would
burst asunder. Alone, afraid, ashamed, in the foulness of the tent, I
looked around me in the silence; and beyond, above--the Universe of
night and space. All my life but the feeble rustlings of a mouse in
straw.
As I stripped off my miserable gewgaws I discovered myself talking into
my solitude; weeping, beseeching, though eyes were dry and tongue
silent. I scoured away the chalk and paint: and cleansed as far as
possible my travel-stained clothes. From my bit of looking-glass a
scared and shining face looked out. "Oh, my dear," I whispered, but not
to its reflection, "it is as clean now and for ever as I can make it." I
tied up my bundle.
It was impossible to cheat away the moments any longer. I sat down and
listened. A distant roar of welcome, like that of a wave breaking over a
wreck, had been borne across as the band broke into its welcoming tune.
I saw the ring, its tall, lank-cheeked "master" in his white shirt and
coat-tails, the lights, the sidling, squalling clown, and the slim,
exquisite creature with its ungainly rider ambling on and on. Where sat
Fanny amidst that rabble? What were her thoughts? Was Mrs Monnerie
already yawning over the low, beggarly scene? A few minutes now. I began
to count. A scream, human or animal, rose faint and awful in the
distance, and died away.
I climbed down the ladder and looked out of the tent. Far-spread the
fields and wooded hills lay, as if in a swoon beneath the blazing
moonlight. The scattered lamps on the slope shone dim as glow-worms.
Only a few figures loitered in the gleam of the side-shows, and so
engrossed and still sat the watching multitude beneath the enormous
mushroom of the tent, so thinly floated out its strains of music, that
the hollow clucking of the stream over its pebbles beneath the
wan-stoned bridge was audible. A few isolated stars glittered faintly in
the heights of the sky. What was happening now? Why did he not hasten? I
was ready: my life prepared. I could bear no more waiting. A whip
cracked. The music ceased: silence. One moment now.
Again the whip cracked. And then, as if at a signal, a vast, protracted,
unanimous bawl poured up into space, a spout of sound, like a gigantic,
invisible flower. "That wasn't applause. But, you know, that wasn't
applause," I heard myself muttering. There can be no mistaking the sound
of human mockery. There can be no mistaking that brutal wrench at the
heart, under one's very ribs. I leapt round where I stood, in a kind of
giddiness.
The shout died away. An indiscriminate clamour broke out--clapping of
hands, beating of feet, whistling, hootings, booings, catcalls, and
these all but drowned by cymbal, drum, trombone: "Good-bye, Sweetheart,
Good-bye." It was over. Unlike Mrs Monnerie, the mob was imperfectly
satisfied. But all was well. The elephant, massive, imperturbable--the
sagacious elephant with the hurdy-gurdy, must now be swinging into the
ring.
I ran out over the trampled grass to meet the approaching
group--showman, gipsy, trembling, sweating pony. Its rider stooped
forward on the saddle, clutching its pommel, as if afraid of falling. He
pushed himself off, lurched unsteadily, lifted and let fall his arm in
an attempt to stroke the milk-white snapping muzzle. The strings of his
cloak were already broken. He edged from beneath it, and with his left
hand clumsily brushed the dust and damp from his face.
"He hadn't quite the knack of it," the showman was explaining. "Stirrup
a morsel too short, maybe. All the strength, lady, and the ginger, by
God, but not the knack, you understand. And we offered him a quieter
little animal too. But what I say is, a bargain's a bargain, that's what
I say. A bit dazed-like, sir, eh? My, you did come a cropper."
"Sst! are you hurt?" I whispered.
The head shook; his moon-washed face smiled at me.
"Come now, come _now_," I implored him, tugging at his arm, "before the
crowd...."
He recoiled as if my touch had scalded him.
"We go----" I turned to the showman.
Hands thrust under his leathern belt, he looked fixedly at me, and then
at the woman. Her eyes glittered glassily back at him.
"That's it. The young lady knows best. He's twisted his shoulder, lady;
wrenched it; more weight than size, as you might say. She'll know where
to make her friend comfortable. Trust the ladies. Never you be afraid of
that. Now, then, Mary, fetch up the gentleman's cart."
The woman, with one wolfish glance into his face, obeyed.
"There, sir! Is that easier? Push the rags in there behind his back.
It'll save the jolts. Lord love you, I wouldn't split on the pair of
you, not me. I know the old, old story. There, that's it! Now, then,
your ladyship. No more weight in the hand than a mushroom! All serene,
Mary. Home sweet home; that's the tune, sir, ain't it? Drive easy now:
and off we go."