It was fine that night, and in the slight stir of wind there was a
faint warmth that hurried the black slush into the gutters. Once out of
the main road, where the bright lamps and the passing cars and buses
were crazily mirrored in the wet stone, Turgis turned into a Maida Vale
that was quite unlike the one he had seen two nights before, when the
snow lay thick on the ground. Now it was close, dark, and dripping.
Carrington Villas was one great gloomy _drip-drip_ and it smelt
slightly of wet grass. Turgis, shivering a little, not with cold, but
from excitement, never gave these things a thought, but nevertheless
he noticed them. He noticed everything that night. The least thing, a
shadow moving on a curtain, a boy’s whistle far down the road, stood
out clearly, rammed itself home. At No. 2 somebody was playing the
piano, and he recognised the very piece; he had heard it many a time at
the pictures.
He stood outside the gate. There was a light up there. She was in, that
was certain. Some one might be with her, but he would have to risk
that. He did not care very much now if there was somebody there, for he
could go up and say something. He waited a moment.
Then, as he waited, he was suddenly visited by an impulse to go away,
to drop it all then and there and never to think about the girl again.
He felt for a second as if he had only to turn on his heel and walk
straight forwards until he reached the top of the street, just the top
of the street, that was all, and he was free and a different kind of
fellow, stronger and happier. It was almost as if a voice whispered
sharply in his ear: “Come on. Have done with it. Come away, _now_.”
There was a cold emptiness somewhere in his stomach. He wasn’t well. He
could easily have cried. If that light up there had suddenly vanished
from the window, he could have turned away without regret. The faint
crimson glow remained, however, and he could not leave it now for a
safe but empty world.
Once again, he passed the broken statue of the little boy playing with
two large fishes, climbed the steps between the two peeling pillars,
and carefully rang the bell marked _4a_. When nobody seemed to hear it,
he remembered what had happened before, and tried the other bell. The
door was opened by the enormous woman in the apron.
“Do you know if Miss Golspie’s in, please?”
“Oh, I’m wearing me feet out for them people!” cried the woman. “Up and
down, and every time our own bell rings, it’s for them. Miss Golspie,
is it? I believe she’s in too, though it’s no business of mine whether
she’s in or out or gone to the devil, young man. Would she be expecting
you coming at all?”
“No, she isn’t. Do you know if she’s by herself--I mean, is there
anybody else there?”
“I’ll see, I’ll see. I’ll give her a shout. Just come inside and close
the door gently behind you, so there’s no draught in the place, and
then I’ll give her a shout.” And the woman went down the hall, climbed
a few stairs, and gave a shout that soon opened the door above. “Miss
Golspie, there’s a young man here, known to you--I’ve seen him before
meself--he wants to know if you’re alone up there and can he come up to
see you.”
“Yes, I’m all on my lonesome to-night,” Turgis heard Lena cry. “Tell
him to come up, please, and I won’t be a minute.” She sounded as if she
was pleased. It was wonderful to hear her like that.
“You’ve to go up and then when you get there, she says she won’t keep
you a minute, meaning you’ll wait while she tidies herself and makes
herself pretty.”
“Thanks very much,” said Turgis fervently, and up he went. The door
was open and he walked forward, straight into the big sitting-room,
which he had revisited so many times in his imagination these last few
weeks that it was quite strange to see waiting quietly there for him,
the very same room, with the very same piles of bright cushions, the
same deep sofa thing, the same gramophone records, books, magazines,
bottles, fancy boxes, fruit, and glasses all over the place, the same
two big shaded lamps. He shook to see it there, solid, real. He did
not sit down, but stood in the middle of the room, holding his hat,
glancing quickly, nervously, at this thing and that.
“Hel-_lo_!” cried Lena gaily in the doorway. Then the sound was cut
short. He turned to face her.
“Oh!” she cried, staring at him. “It’s you.” And her face fell, her
voice dropped.
He tried to say something.
“Do you want to see my father about something?” she demanded.
“No, I don’t. I want to see you--Lena.”
“What do you want to see me about?”
“Oh!--you know, Lena. Everything.”
She came forward a little now. “I don’t know. My father will be coming
back soon--any minute.”
“He won’t,” he told her sullenly.
“How do you know he won’t? You don’t know anything about it!”
“I do. I know where he is, and I know he won’t be back for some time.”
“Yes, you _would_! That’s why you’re here. You’ve been spying and
following me about, haven’t you? Making me look a fool! _You_ look a
fool too, let me tell you that, a nasty fool.”
“Well, what if I have? I wanted to see you.”
“Well, I didn’t want to see you,” she cried, furious now. “And you
ought to have known I didn’t. You can’t take a hint. I told you as
plainly as I could I didn’t want to see you any more.”
“Lena, why don’t you?”
“Because I _don’t_, and that’s why. If I don’t want to see you, why
don’t you go away and stop away? I don’t want you hanging about me and
coming slinking in here, looking like nothing on earth. Just because I
felt sorry for you once and hadn’t anything much to do and was nice to
you, do you think I’ve got to spend all my time trailing round to the
pictures with you?”
“But, Lena, listen----”
“I tell you I won’t listen. I don’t want to hear. If you only _saw_
yourself! Go away. I won’t listen. I didn’t want to be rude to you,
but you’re so _stupid_ and you just make me look silly too.”
“Lena, please, please, just listen a minute----”
“Oh, go away, can’t you! Fool!”
“You’ll have to listen,” he screamed. He sprang forward, dropping his
hat, and seized both her wrists and held them tight. As she struggled
to break loose, he poured it all out in a wild unbroken rush of short
phrases, the whole story of his first distant adoration, his desire and
his passion, all the ecstasies and miseries of his love. As he came
to the end, his grasp suddenly slackened and she was able to free her
wrists. She had not listened to him. She was in a fury.
“You damned rotten rotten----” she gasped, fighting for breath. Then
she flared up into a shriek: “Keep your filthy hands off me,” and she
flung her own hands into his face, pushing him away.
Things were snapping inside him now like taut fiddle-strings. “All
right, I’ll kiss you for that,” he cried, and caught hold of her before
she could get away. He was not a muscular youth, but he was strong
enough now. He pressed her body to his and forced a few brief kisses
upon her before she had a chance to do anything but push and wriggle.
The feel of her body, the soft cheek burning beneath his lips, the
scent of her hair, touched a spring inside him; all tenderness for her
vanished; his blood leaped and sent a murderous cataract roaring in his
ears. He still held her, but hardly noticed her hands on his face.
She gave a violent twist, partly freeing herself. “You dirty, filthy
pig!” she cried. “Let me go. I hate you. If you touch me again, I’ll
scream and scream until somebody comes.”
He looked at her and there came, like a flash of lightning, the
conviction that she was hateful, and something broke, and a great
blinding tide of anger swept over him. Her scream was cut short, for
his hands were round her soft white throat, pressing and pressing it as
he shook her savagely. Her head wobbled like a silly mechanical doll’s.
Her mouth was open and her eyes were bulging, and so she wasn’t even
nice to look at any more, but just silly and ugly, so silly and ugly
that his hands, which had an independent life of their own now and
were strong and masterful, pressed harder than ever. A horrible rusty
noise came from that open mouth. She suddenly went limp, and, as his
hands released their grip, her eyes closed and she slipped backwards,
striking her head against the corner of the divan as she fell and then
rolling over on to the floor, a huddle of clothes and white flesh. She
made no movement at all, not a twitch, not a tremor. He crept forward,
his eyes fixed on what could be seen of her face, purply-white and
still. The whole figure was completely motionless. He waited a minute,
raising his eyes in a slow strained fashion until they took in nothing
but the shape and colour of a fancy box of cigarettes on the little
table by the divan. There was a gay picture of a Turkish woman on the
box. He had had some cigarettes from that box; they were very good;
they were foreign cigarettes; Turkish, of course, but not sold in
England; foreign words just above the picture of the Turkish woman,
foreign words. Very slowly his eyes left the box and returned to the
figure on the floor. Lena. Not a movement. No, that wasn’t Lena any
more; that was a body. You couldn’t lie there like that unless you were
dead. Lena was dead.
He stopped thinking then; no more thoughts came, not one. He picked up
his hat and shambled quickly out of the room, out of the flat, leaving
the door wide open behind him. When he reached the hall below, somebody
came out from somewhere, perhaps spoke to him, but he took no notice.
He left the house. It was better outside, in the dark.