i
After leaving the house Emmy and Alf pressed along in the darkness,
Alf's arm still surrounding and supporting Emmy, Emmy still half
jubilantly and half sorrowfully continuing to recognise her happiness
and the smothered chagrin of her emotions. She was not able to feel
either happy or miserable; but happiness was uppermost. Dislike of Jenny
had its place, also; for she could account for every weakness of Alf's
by reference to Jenny's baseness. But indeed Emmy could not think, and
could only passively and excitedly endure the conflicting emotions of
the moment. And Alf did not speak, but hurried her along as fast as his
strong arm could secure her compliance with his own pace; and they
walked through the night-ridden streets and full into the blaze of the
theatre entrance without any words at all. Then, when the staring
vehemence of the electric lights whitened and shadowed her face, Emmy
drew away, casting down her eyes, alarmed at the disclosures which the
brilliance might devastatingly make. She slipped from his arm, and stood
rather forlornly while Alf fished in his pockets for the tickets. With
docility she followed him, thrilled when he stepped aside in passing the
commissionaire and took her arm. Together they went up the stairs, the
heavy carpets with their drugget covers silencing every step, the gilded
mirrors throwing their reflections backwards and forwards until the
stairs seemed peopled with hosts of Emmys and Alfs. As they drew near
the closed doors of the circle the hush filling the staircases and
vestibules of the theatre was intensified. An aproned attendant seemed
to Emmy's sensitiveness to look them up and down and superciliously to
disapprove them. She moved with indignation. A dull murmur, as of single
voices, disturbed the air somewhere behind the rustling attendant: and
when the doors were quickly opened Emmy saw beyond the darkness and the
intrusive flash of light caused by the opening doors a square of
brilliance and a dashing figure upon the stage talking staccato. Those
of the audience who were sitting near the doors turned angrily and with
curiosity to view the new-comers; and the voice that Emmy had
distinguished went more stridently on, with a strong American accent. In
a flurry she found and crept into her seat, trying to understand the
play, to touch Alf, to remove her hat, to discipline her excitements.
And the staccato voice went on and on, detailing a plan of some sort
which she could not understand because they had missed the first five
minutes of the play. Emmy could not tell that the actor was only
pretending to be an American; she could not understand why, having
spoken twenty words, he must take six paces farther from the footlights
until he had spoken thirteen more; but she could and did feel most
overwhelmingly exuberant at being as it were alone in that half-silent
multitude, sitting beside Alf, their arms touching, her head whirling,
her heart beating, and a wholly exquisite warmth flushing her cheeks.
ii
The first interval found the play well advanced. A robbery had been
planned--for it was a "crook" play--and the heroine had already received
wild-eyed the advances of a fur-coated millionaire. When the lights of
the theatre popped up, and members of the orchestra began once more
unmercifully to tune their instruments, it was possible to look round at
the not especially large audience. But in whichever direction Emmy
looked she was always brought back as by a magnet to Alf, who sat
ruminantly beside her. To Alf's sidelong eye Emmy was looking
surprisingly lovely. The tired air and the slightly peevish mouth to
which he was accustomed had given place to the flush and sparkle of an
excited girl. Alf was aware of surprise. He blinked. He saw the lines
smoothed away from round her mouth--the lines of weariness and
dissatisfaction,--and was tempted by the softness of her cheek. As he
looked quickly off again he thought how full Jenny would have been of
comment upon the play, how he would have sat grinning with precious
enjoyment at her merciless gibes during the whole of the interval. He
had the sense of Jenny as all movement, as flashing and drawing him into
quagmires of sensation, like a will-o'-the-wisp. Emmy was not like that.
She sat tremulously smiling, humble before him, diffident, flattering.
She was intelligent: that was it. Intelligent was the word. Not lively,
but restful. Critically he regarded her. Rather a nice girl, Emmy....
Alf roused himself, and looked around.
"Here, miss!" he called; and "S-s-s-s" when she did not hear him. It was
his way of summoning an attendant or a waitress. "S-s-s-s." The
attendant brought chocolates, which Alf handed rather magnificently to
his companion. He plunged into his pockets--in his rough-and-ready,
muscular way--for the money, leaning far over the next seat, which was
unoccupied. "Like some lemon?" he said to Emmy. Together they inspected
the box of chocolates, which contained much imitation-lace paper and a
few sweets. "Not half a sell," grumbled Alf to himself, thinking of the
shilling he had paid; but he looked with gratification at Emmy's face
as she enjoyingly ate the chocolates. As her excitement a little
strained her nervous endurance Emmy began to pale under the eyes; her
eyes seemed to grow larger; she lost the first air of sparkle, but she
became more pathetic. "Poor little thing," thought Alf, feeling
masculine. "Poor little thing: she's tired. Poor little thing."
iii
In the middle of this hot, excitedly-talking audience, they seemed to
bask as in a warm pool of brilliant light. The brilliants in the dome of
the theatre intensified all the shadows, heightened all the smiles,
illumined all the silken blouses and silver bangles, the flashing eyes,
the general air of fête.
"All right?" Alf inquired protectively. Emmy looked in gratitude towards
him.
"Lovely," she said. "Have another?"
"I meant _you_," he persisted. "Yourself, I mean." Emmy smiled, so
happily that nobody could have been unmoved at the knowledge of having
given such pleasure.
"Oh, grand!" Emmy said. Then her eyes contracted. Memory came to her.
The angry scene that had passed earlier returned to her mind, hurting
her, and injuring her happiness. Alf hurried to engage her attention, to
distract her from thoughts that had in them such discomfort as she so
quickly showed.
"Like the play? I didn't quite follow what it was this old general had
done to him. Did you?"
"Hadn't he kept him from marrying ..." Emmy looked conscious for a
moment. "Marrying the right girl? I didn't understand it either. It's
only a play."
"Of course," Alf agreed. "See how that girl's eyes shone when old
fur-coat went after her? Fair shone, they did. Like lamps. They'd got
the limes on her... You couldn't see them. My--er--my friend's the
electrician here. He says it drives him nearly crazy, the way he has to
follow her about in the third act. She... she's got some pluck, he says;
the way she fights three of them single-handed. They've all got
revolvers. She's got one; but it's not loaded. Lights a cigarette, too,
with them all watching her, ready to rush at her."
"There!" said Emmy, admiringly. She was thinking: "It's only a play."
"She gets hold of his fur coat, and puts it on.... Imitates his
voice.... You can see it's her all the time, you know. So could they, if
they looked a bit nearer. However, they don't.... I suppose there
wouldn't be any play if they did...."
Emmy was not listening to him: she was dreaming. She was as gauche and
simple in his company as a young girl would have been; but her mind was
different. It was practical in its dreams, and they had their disturbing
unhappiness, as well, from the greater poignancy of her desire. She was
not a young girl, to be agreeably fluttered and to pass on to the next
admirer without a qualm. She loved him, blindly but painfully; without
the ease of young love, but with all the sickness of first love. And she
had jealousy, the feeling that she was not his first object, to poison
her feelings. She could not think of Jenny without tremors of anger. And
still, for pain, her thoughts went throbbing on about Jenny whenever, in
happiness, she had seen a home and Alf and a baby and the other plain
clear consequences of earning his love--of taking him from Jenny.
And then the curtain rose, the darkness fell, and the orchestra's tune
slithered into nothing. The play went on, about the crook and the
general and the millionaire and the heroine and all their curiously
simple-minded friends. And every moment something happened upon the
stage, from fights to thefts, from kisses (which those in the gallery,
not wholly absorbed by the play, generously augmented) to telephone
calls, plots, speeches (many speeches, of irreproachable moral tone),
shoutings, and sudden wild appeals to the delighted occupants of the
gallery. And Emmy sat through it hardly heeding the uncommon events,
aware of them as she would have been aware of distant shouting. Her
attention was preoccupied with other matters. She had her own thoughts,
serious enough in themselves. Above all, she was enjoying the thought
that she was with Alf, and that their arms were touching; and she was
wondering if he knew that.
iv
Through another interval they sat with silent embarrassment, the
irreplaceable chocolates, which had earlier been consumed, having served
their turn as a means of devouring attention. Alf was tempted to fly to
the bar for a drink and composure, but he did not like to leave Emmy;
and he could not think of anything which could safely be said to her in
the middle of this gathering of hot and radiant persons. "To speak" in
such uproar meant "to shout." He felt that every word he uttered would
go echoing in rolls and rolls of sound out among the multitude. They
were not familiar enough to make that a matter of indifference to him.
He was in the stage of secretiveness. And Emmy, after trying once or
twice to open various small topics, had fallen back upon her own
thoughts, and could invent nothing to talk about until the difficulties
that lay between them had been removed. Her brow contracted. She moved
her shoulders, or sat pressed reservedly against the back of her seat.
Her voice, whenever she did not immediately hear some word fall from
Alf, became sharp and self-conscious--almost "managing."
It was a relief to both of them, and in both the tension of sincere
feeling had perceptibly slackened, when the ignored orchestra gave way
before the rising curtain. Again the two drew together in the darkness,
as all other couples were doing, comforted by proximity, and even by the
unacknowledged mutual pleasure of it; again they watched the
extraordinary happenings upon the stage. The fur coat was much used,
cigarettes were lighted and flung away with prodigal recklessness,
pistols were revealed--one of them was even fired into the air;--and
jumping, trickling music heightened the effects of a number of strong
speeches about love, and incorruptibility, and womanhood.... The climax
was reached. In the middle of the climax, while yet the lover wooed and
the villain died, the audience began to rustle, preparatory to going
home. Even Emmy was influenced to the extent of discovering and
beginning to adjust her hat. It was while she was pinning it, with her
elbows raised, that the curtain fell. Both Emmy and Alf rose in the
immediately successive re-illumination of the theatre; and Emmy looked
so pretty with her arms up, and with the new hat so coquettishly askew
upon her head, and with a long hatpin between her teeth, that Alf could
not resist the impulse to put his arm affectionately round her in
leading the way out.
v
And then, once in the street, he made no scruple about taking Emmy's arm
within the crook of his as they moved from the staring whiteness of the
theatre lamps out into the calmer moonshine. It was eleven o'clock. The
night was fine, and the moon rode high above amid the twinkling stars.
When Alf looked at Emmy's face it was transfigured in this beautiful
light, and he drew her gently from the direct way back to the little
house.
"Don't let's go straight back," he said. "Stroll u'll do us good."
Very readily Emmy obeyed his guidance. Her heart was throbbing; but her
brain was clear. He wanted to be with her; and the knowledge of that
made Emmy happier than she had been since early childhood.
"It's been lovely," she said, with real warmth of gratitude, looking
away from him with shyness.
"Hm," growled Alf, in a voice of some confusion. "Er...you don't go much
to the theatre, do you?"
"Not much," Emmy agreed. "See, there's Pa. He always looks to me..."
"Yes." Alf could not add anything to that for a long time. "Fine night,"
he presently recorded. "D'you like a walk? I mean ... I'm very fond of
it, a night like this. Mr. Blanchard's all right, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes. _She's_ there." Emmy could not bring herself to name Jenny to
him. Yet her mind was busy thinking of the earlier jar, recomposing the
details, recalling the words that had passed. Memory brought tears into
her eyes; but she would not allow Alf to see them, and soon she
recovered her self-control. It had to be spoken of: the evening could
not pass without reference to it; or it would spoil everything. Alf
would think of her--he was bound to think of her--as a crying, petulant,
jealous woman, to whom he had been merely kind. Patronising, even!
Perhaps, even, the remembrance of it would prevent him from coming again
to the house. Men like Alf were so funny in that respect. It took so
little to displease them, to drive them away altogether. At last she
ventured: "It was nice of you to take me."
Alf fidgeted, jerking his head, and looking recklessly about him.
"Not at all," he grumbled. "Not tired, are you?" Emmy reassured him.
"What I mean, I'm very glad.... Now, look here, Em. May as well have
it out...." Emmy's heart gave a bound: she walked mechanically beside
him, her head as stiffly held as though the muscles of her neck had
been paralysed. "May as well, er...have it out," repeated Alf. "That's
how I am--I like to be all shipshape from the start. When I came along
this evening I _did_ mean to ask young Jen to go with me. That was
quite as you thought. I never thought you'd, you know, _care_ to come
with me. I don't know why; but there it is. I never meant to put it like
I did ... in that way... to have a fuss and upset anybody. I've ... I
mean, she's been out with me half-a-dozen times; and so I sort of
naturally thought of her."
"Of course," agreed Emmy. "Of course."
"But I 'm glad you came," Alf said. Something in his honesty, and the
brusqueness of his rejoicing, touched Emmy, and healed her first
wound--the thought that she might have been unwelcome to him. They went
on a little way, more at ease; both ready for the next step in intimacy
which was bound to be taken by one of them.
"I thought she might have said something to you--about me not _wanting_
to come," Emmy proceeded, tentatively. "Made you think I never wanted
to go out."
Alf shook his head. Emmy had there no opening for her resentment.
"No," he said, with stubborn loyalty. "She's always talked very nice
about you."
"What does she say?" swiftly demanded Emmy.
"I forget.... Saying you had a rough time at home. Saying it was rough
on you. That you're one of the best...."
_"She_ said that?" gasped Emmy. "It's not like her to say that. Did she
really? She's so touchy about me, generally. Sometimes, the way she goes
on, anybody'd think I was the miserablest creature in the world, and
always on at her about something. I'm not, you know; only she thinks it.
Well, I can't help it, can I? If you knew how I have to work in that
house, you'd be... surprised. I'm always at it. The way the dirt comes
in--you'd wonder where it all came from! And see, there's Pa and all.
She doesn't take that into account. She gets on all right with him; but
she isn't there all day, like I am. That makes a difference, you know.
He's used to me. She's more of a change for him."
Alf was cordial in agreement. He was seeing all the difference between
the sisters. In his heart there still lingered a sort of cherished
enjoyment of Jenny's greater spirit. Secretly it delighted him, like a
forbidden joke. He felt that Jenny--for all that he must not, at this
moment, mention her name--kept him on the alert all the time, so that he
was ever in hazardous pursuit. There was something fascinating in such
excitement as she caused him. He never knew what she would do or say
next; and while that disturbed and distressed him it also lacerated his
vanity and provoked his admiration. He admired Jenny more than he could
ever admire Emmy. But he also saw Emmy as different from his old idea of
her. He had seen her trembling defiance early in the evening, and that
had moved him and made him a little afraid of her; he had also seen her
flushed cheeks at the theatre, and Emmy had grown in his eyes suddenly
younger. He could not have imagined her so cordial, so youthful, so
interested in everything that met her gaze. Finally, he found her
quieter, more amenable, more truly wifely than her sister. It was an
important point in Alf's eyes. You had to take into account--if you were
a man of common sense--relative circumstances. Devil was all very well
in courtship; but mischief in a girl became contrariness in a domestic
termagant. That was an idea that was very much in Alf's thoughts during
this walk, and it lingered there like acquired wisdom.
"Say she's going with a sailor!" he suddenly demanded.
"So she told me. I've never seen him. She doesn't tell lies, though."
"I thought you said she did!"
Emmy flinched: she had forgotten the words spoken in her wild anger, and
would have been ashamed to account for them in a moment of greater
coolness.
"I mean, if she says he's a sailor, that's true. She told me he was on a
ship. I suppose she met him when she was away that time. She's been very
funny ever since. Not funny--restless. Anything I've done for her she's
made a fuss. I give her a thorough good meal; and oh! there's such a
fuss about it. 'Why don't we have ice creams, and merangs, and wine, and
grouse, and sturgeon--'"
"Ph! Silly talk!" said Alf, in contemptuous wonder. "I mean to say..."
"Oh, well: you know what flighty girls are. He's probably a swank-pot. A
steward, or something of that sort. I expect he has what's left over,
and talks big about it. But she's got ideas like that in her head, and
she thinks she's too good for the likes of us. It's too much trouble to
her to be pelite these days. I've got the fair sick of it, I can tell
you. And then she's always out..._Somebody's_ got to be at home, just to
look after Pa and keep the fire in. But Jenny--oh dear no! She's no
sooner home than she's out again. Can't rest. Says it's stuffy indoors,
and off she goes. I don't see her for hours. Well, I don't know ... but
if she doesn't quiet down a bit she'll only be making trouble for
herself later on. She can't keep house, you know! She can scrub; but she
can't cook so very well, or keep the place nice. She hasn't got the
patience. You think she's doing the dusting; and you find her groaning
about what she'd do if she was rich. 'Yes,' I tell her; 'it's all very
well to do that; but you'd far better be doing something _useful_,' I
say. 'Instead of wasting your time on idle fancies.'"
"Very sensible," agreed Alf, completely absorbed in such a discourse.
"She's trying, you know. You can't leave her for a minute. She says I'm
stodgy; but I say it's better to be practical than flighty. Don't you
think so, Alf?"
"Exackly!" said Alf, in a tone of the gravest assent. "Exackly."
vi
"I mean," pursued Emmy, "you must have a _little_ common-sense. But
she's been spoilt--she's the youngest. I'm a little older than she
is ... _wiser_, I say; but she won't have it.... And Pa's always made a
fuss of her. Really, sometimes, you'd have thought she was a boy.
Racing about! My word, such a commotion! And then going out to the
millinery, and getting among a lot of other girls. You don't know _who_
they are--if they're ladies or not. It's not a good influence for
her...."
"She ought to get out of it," Alf said. To Emmy it was a ghastly moment.
"She'll never give it up," she hurriedly said. "You know, it's in her
blood. Off she goes! And they make a fuss of her. She mimics everybody,
and they laugh at it--they think it's funny to mimic people who can't
help themselves--if they _are_ a bit comic. So she goes; and when she
does come home Pa's so glad to see a fresh face that he makes a fuss of
her, too. And she stuffs him up with all sorts of tales--things that
never happened--to keep him quiet. She says it gives him something to
think about.... Well, I suppose it does. I expect you think I'm very
unkind to say such things about my own sister; but really I can't help
seeing what's under my nose; and I sometimes get so--you know, worked
up, that I don't know how to hold myself. She doesn't understand what it
is to be cooped up indoors all day long, like I am; and it never occurs
to her to say 'Go along, Em; you run out for a bit.' I have to say to
her: 'You be in for a bit, Jen?' and then she p'tends she's always in.
And then there's a rumpus...."
Alf was altogether subdued by this account: it had that degree of
intimacy which, when one is in a sentimental mood, will always be
absorbing. He felt that he really was getting to the bottom of the
mystery known to him as Jenny Blanchard. The picture had verisimilitude.
He could see Jenny as he listened. He was seeing her with the close and
searching eye of a sister, as nearly true, he thought, as any vision
could be. Once the thought, "I expect there's another story" came
sidling into his head; but it was quickly drowned in further
reminiscence from Emmy, so that it was clearly a dying desire that he
left for Jenny. Had Jenny been there, to fling her gage into the field,
Alf might gapingly have followed her, lost again in admiration of her
more sparkling tongue and equipments. But in such circumstances the
arraigned party is never present. If Jenny had been there the tale could
not have been told. Emmy's virtuous and destructive monologue would not
merely have been interrupted: it would have been impossible. Jenny would
have done all the talking. The others, all amaze, would have listened
with feelings appropriate to each, though with feelings in common
unpleasant to be borne.
"I bet there's a rumpus," Alf agreed. "Old Jen's not one to take a blow.
She ups and gets in the first one." He couldn't help admiring Jenny,
even yet. So he hastened to pretend that he did not admire her; out of a
kind of tact. "But of course ... that's all very well for a bit of
sport, but it gets a bit wearisome after a time. I know what you
mean...."
"Don't think I've been complaining about her," Emmy said. "I wouldn't.
Really, I wouldn't. Only I do think sometimes it's not quite fair that
she should have all the fun, and me none of it. I don't want a lot. My
tastes are very simple. But when it comes to none at all--well, Alf,
what do _you_ think?"
"It's a bit thick," admitted Alf. "And that's a fact."
"See, she's always having her own way. Does just what she likes. There's
no holding her."
"Wants a man to do that," ruminated Alf, with a half chuckle. "Eh?"
"Well," said Emmy, a little brusquely. "I pity the man who tries it on."
vii
Emmy was not deliberately trying to secure from Alf a proposal of
marriage. She was trying to show him the contrast between Jenny and
herself, and to readjust the balances as he appeared to have been
holding them. She wanted to impress him. She was as innocent of any
other intention as any girl could have been. It was jealousy that
spoke; not scheme. And she was perfectly sincere in her depreciation of
Jenny. She could not understand what it was that made the admiring look
come into the faces of those who spoke to Jenny, nor why the unwilling
admiration that started into her own heart should ever find a place
there. She was baffled by character, and she was engaged in the common
task of rearranging life to suit her own temperament.
They had been walking for some little distance now along deserted
streets, the moon shining upon them, their steps softly echoing, and
Emmy's arm as warm as toast. It was like a real lover's walk, she could
not help thinking, half in the shadow and wholly in the stillness of the
quiet streets. She felt very contented; and with her long account of
Jenny already uttered, and her tough body already reanimated by the
walk, Emmy was at leisure to let her mind wander among sweeter things.
There was love, for example, to think about; and when she glanced
sideways Alf's shoulder seemed such a little distance from her cheek.
And his hand was lightly clasping her wrist. A strong hand, was Alf's,
with a broad thumb and big capable fingers. She could see it in the
moonlight, and she had suddenly an extraordinary longing to press her
cheek against the back of Alf's hand. She did not want any silly
nonsense, she told herself; and the tears came into her eyes, and her
nose seemed pinched and tickling with the cold at the mere idea of any
nonsense; but she could not help longing with the most intense longing
to press her cheek against the back of Alf's hand. That was all. She
wanted nothing more. But that desire thrilled her. She felt that if it
might be granted she would be content, altogether happy. She wanted so
little!
And as if Alf too had been thinking of somebody nearer to him than
Jenny, he began:
"I don't know if you've ever thought at all about me, Em. But your
saying what you've done ... about yourself ... it's made me think a bit.
I'm all on my own now--have been for years; but the way I live isn't
good for anyone. It's a fact it's not. I mean to say, my rooms that I've
got ... they're not big enough to swing a cat in; and the way the old
girl at my place serves up the meals is a fair knock-out, if you notice
things like I do. If I think of her, and then about the way you do
things, it gives me the hump. Everything you do's so nice. But with
her--the plates have still got bits of yesterday's mustard on them, and
all fluffy from the dishcloth...."
"Not washed prop'ly." Emmy interestedly remarked; "that's what that is."
"Exackly. And the meat's raw inside. Cooks it too quickly. And when I
have a bloater for my breakfast--I'm partial to a bloater--it's black
outside, as if it was done in the cinders; and then inside--well, I like
them done all through, like any other man. Then I can't get her to get
me gammon rashers. She will get these little tiddy rashers, with little
white bones in them. Why, while you're cutting them out the bacon gets
cold. You may think I'm fussy ... fiddly with my food. I'm not, really;
only I like it...."
"Of course you do," Emmy said. "She's not interested, that's what it is.
She thinks anything's food; and some people don't mind at all what they
eat. They don't notice."
"No. I _do_. If you go to a restaurant you get it different. You get
more of it, too. Well, what with one thing and another I've got very
fed up with Madame Bucks. It's all dirty and half baked. There's great
holes in the carpet of my sitting-room--holes you could put your foot
through. And I've done that, as a matter of fact. Put my foot through
and nearly gone over. _Should_ have done, only for the table. Well, I
mean to say ... you can't help being fed up with it. But she knows where
I work, and I know she's hard up; so I don't like to go anywhere else,
because if anybody asked me if he should go there, I couldn't honestly
recommend him to; and yet, you see how it is, I shouldn't like to leave
her in the lurch, if she knew I was just gone somewhere else down the
street."
"No," sympathetically agreed Emmy. "I quite see. It's very awkward for
you. Though it's no use being too kind-hearted with these people;
because they _don't_ appreciate it; and if you don't say anything they
just go on in the same way, never troubling themselves about you. They
think, as long as you don't say anything you're all right; and it's not
their place to make any alteration. They're quite satisfied. Look at
Jenny and me."
"Is she satisfied!" asked Alf.
"With herself, she is. She's never satisfied with me. She never tries to
see it from my point of view."
"No," Alf nodded his head wisely. "That's what it is. They don't." He
nodded again.
"Isn't it a lovely night," ventured Emmy. "See the moon over there."
They looked up at the moon and the stars and the unfathomable sky. It
took them at once away from the streets and the subject of their talk.
Both sighed as they stared upwards, lost in the beauty before them. And
when at last their eyes dropped, the street lamps had become so yellow
and tawdry that they were like stupid spangles in contrast with the
stars. Alf still held Emmy's arm so snugly within his own, and her wrist
was within the clasp of his fingers. It was so little a thing to slide
his fingers into a firm clasp of her hand, and they drew closer.
"Lovely, eh!" Alf ejaculated, with a further upward lift of his eyes.
Emmy sighed again.
"Not like down here," she soberly said.
"No, it's different. Down here's all right, though," Alf assured her.
"Don't you think it is?" He gave a rather nervous little half laugh.
"Don't you think it is?"
"Grand!" Emmy agreed, with the slightest hint of dryness.
"I say, it was awfully good of you to come to-night," said Alf.
"I've ... you've enjoyed it, haven't you?" He was looking sharply at her,
and Emmy's face was illumined. He saw her soft cheeks, her thin, soft
little neck; he felt her warm gloved hand within his own. "D'you mind?"
he asked, and bent abruptly so that their faces were close together. For
a moment, feeling so daring that his breath caught, Alf could not carry
out his threat. Then, roughly, he pushed his face against hers, kissing
her. Quickly he released Emmy's arm, so that his own might be more
protectingly employed; and they stood embraced in the moonlight.
viii
It was only for a minute, for Emmy, with instinctive secrecy, drew away
into the shadow. At first Alf did not understand, and thought himself
repelled; but Emmy's hands were invitingly raised. The first delight was
broken. One more sensitive might have found it hard to recapture; but
Alf stepped quickly to her side in the shadow, and they kissed again. He
was surprised at her passion. He had not expected it, and the flattery
was welcome. He grinned a little in the safe darkness, consciously and
even sheepishly, but with eagerness. They were both clumsy and a little
trembling, not very practised lovers, but curious and excited. Emmy felt
her hat knocked a little sideways upon her head.
It was Emmy who moved first, drawing herself away from him, she knew not
why.
"Where you going?" asked Alf, detaining her. "What is it? Too rough, am
I?" He could not see Emmy's shaken head, and was for a moment puzzled at
the ways of woman--so far from his grasp.
"No," Emmy said. "It's wonderful."
Peering closely, Alf could see her eyes shining.
"D'you think you're fond enough of me, Emmy?" She demurred.
"That's a nice thing to say! As if it was for me to tell you!" she
whispered archly back.
"What ought I to say? I'm not ... mean to say, I don't know how to say
things, Emmy. You'll have to put up with my rough ways. Give us a kiss,
old sport."
"How many more! You _are_ a one!" Emmy was not pliant enough. In her
voice there was the faintest touch of--something that was not
self-consciousness, that was perhaps a sense of failure. Perhaps she was
back again suddenly into her maturity, finding it somehow ridiculous to
be kissed and to kiss with such abandon. Alf was not baffled, however.
As she withdrew he advanced, so that his knuckle rubbed against the
brick wall to which Emmy had retreated.
"I say," he cried sharply. "Here's the wall."
"Hurt yourself?" Emmy quickly caught his hand and raised it, examining
the knuckle. The skin might have been roughened; but no blood was drawn.
Painfully, exultingly, her dream realised, she pressed her cheek against
the back of his hand.
ix
"What's that for?" demanded Alf.
"Nothing. Never you mind. I wanted to do it." Emmy's cheeks were hot as
she spoke; but Alf marvelled at the action, and at her confession of
such an impulse.
"How long had you ... wanted to do it?"
"Mind your own business. The idea! Don't you know better than that?"
Emmy asked. It made him chuckle delightedly to have such a retort from
her. And it stimulated his curiosity.
"I believe you're a bit fond of me," he said. "I don't see why. There's
nothing about me to write home about, I shouldn't think. But there it
is: love's a wonderful thing."
"Is it?" asked Emma, distantly. Why couldn't he say he loved her? Too
proud, was he? Or was he shy? He had only used the word "love" once, and
that was in this general sense--as though there _was_ such a thing. Emmy
was shy of the word, too; but not as shy as that. She was for a moment
anxious, because she wanted him to say the word, or some equivalent. If
it was not said, she was dependent upon his charity later, and would cry
sleeplessly at night for want of sureness of him.
"D'you love me?" she suddenly said. Alf whistled. He seemed for that
instant to be quite taken aback by her inquiry. "There's no harm in me
asking, I suppose." Into Emmy's voice there came a thread of roughness.
"No harm at all," Alf politely said. "Not at all." He continued to
hesitate.
"Well?" Emmy waited, still in his arms, her ears alert.
"We're engaged, aren't we?" Alf muttered shamefacedly. "Erum ... what
sort of ring would you like? I don't say you'll get it ... and it's too
late to go and choose one to-night."
Emmy flushed again: he felt her tremble.
"You _are_ in a hurry," she said, too much moved for her archness to
take effect.
"Yes, I am." Alf's quick answer was reassuring enough. Emmy's heart was
eased. She drew him nearer with her arms about his neck, and they kissed
again.
"I wish you'd say you love me," she whispered. "Mean such a lot to me."
"No!" cried Alf incredulously. "Really?"
"Do you?"
"I'll think about it. Do you--me?"
"Yes. I don't mind saying it if you will."
Alf gave a little whistle to himself, half under his breath. He looked
carefully to right and left, and up at the house-wall against which they
were standing. Nobody seemed to be in danger of making him feel an
abject fool by overhearing such a confession as he was invited to make;
and yet it was such a terrible matter. He was confronted with a
difficulty of difficulties. He looked at Emmy, and knew that she was
waiting, entreating him with her shining eyes.
"Er," said Alf, reluctantly and with misgiving. "Er ... well,
I ... a ... suppose I do...."
Emmy gave a little cry, that was half a smothered laugh of happiness at
her triumph. It was not bad! She had made him admit it on the first
evening. Later, when she was more at ease, he should be more explicit.
x
"Well," said Alf, instantly regretting his admission, and inclined to
bluster. "Now I suppose you're satisfied?"
"Awfully!" breathed Emmy. "You're a dear good soul. You're splendid,
Alf!"
For a few minutes more they remained in that benign, unforgettable
shadow; and then, very slowly, with Alf's arm about Emmy's waist, and
Emmy's shoulder so confidingly against his breast, they began to return
homewards. Both spoke very subduedly, and tried to keep their shoes from
too loudly striking the pavement as they walked; and the wandering wind
came upon them in glee round every corner and rustled like a busybody
among all the consumptive bushes in the front gardens they passed.
Sounds carried far. A long way away they heard the tramcars grinding
along the main road. But here all was hush, and the beating of two
hearts in unison; and to both of them happiness lay ahead. Their aims
were similar, in no point jarring or divergent. Both wanted a home, and
loving labour, and quiet evenings of pleasant occupation. To both the
daily work came with regularity, not as an intrusion or a wrong to
manhood and womanhood; it was inevitable, and was regarded as
inevitable. Neither Emmy nor Alf ever wondered why they should be
working hard when the sun shone and the day was fine. Neither compared
the lot accorded by station with an ideal fortune of blessed ease. They
were not temperamentally restless. They both thought, with a practical
sense that is as convenient as it is generally accepted, "somebody must
do the work: may as well be me." No discontent would be theirs. And Alf
was a good worker at the bench, a sober and honest man; and Emmy could
make a pound go as far as any other woman in Kennington Park. They had
before them a faithful future of work in common, of ideals (workaday
ideals) in common; and at this instant they were both marvellously
content with the immediate outlook. Not for them to change the order of
the world.
"I feel it's so suitable," Emmy startlingly said, in a hushed tone, as
they walked. "Your ... you know ... 'supposing you do' ... me; and
me ... doing the same for you."
Alf looked solemnly round at her. His Emmy skittish? It was not what he
had thought. Still, it diverted him; and he ambled in pursuit.
"Yes," he darkly said. "What do you 'suppose you do' for me?"
"Why, love you," Emmy hurried to explain, trapping herself by speed into
the use of the tabooed word. "Didn't you know? Though it seems funny to
say it like that. It's so new. I've never dared to ... you know ... say
it. I mean, we're both of us quiet, and reliable ... we're not either of
us flighty, I mean. That's why I think we suit each other--better than
if we'd been different. Not like we are."
"I'm sure we do," Alf said.
"Not like some people. You can't help wondering to yourself however they
came to get married. They seem so unlike. Don't they! It's funny. Ah
well, love's a wonderful thing--as you say!" She turned archly to him,
encouragingly.
"You seem happy," remarked Alf, in a critical tone. But he was not
offended; only tingled into desire for her by the strange gleam of
merriment crossing her natural seriousness, the jubilant note of happy
consciousness that the evening's lovemaking had bred. Alf drew her more
closely to his side, increasingly sure that he had done well. She was
beginning to intrigue him. With an emotion that startled himself as
much as it delighted Emmy, he said thickly in her ear, "D'you love
me ... like this?"
xi
They neared the road in which the Blanchards lived: Emmy began to press
forward as Alf seemed inclined to loiter. In the neighbourhood the
church that had struck eight as they left the house began once again to
record an hour.
"By George!" cried Alf. "Twelve ... Midnight!" They could feel the day
pass.
They were at the corner, beside the little chandler's shop which
advertised to the moon its varieties of tea; and Alf paused once again.
"Half a tick," he said. "No hurry, is there?"
"You'll come in for a bit of supper," Emmy urged. Then, plumbing his
hesitation, she went on, in a voice that had steel somewhere in its
depths. "They'll both be gone to bed. She won't be there."
"Oh, I wasn't thinking of that," Alf declared, with unconvincing
nonchalance.
"I'll give you a drop of Pa's beer," Emmy said drily.
She took out a key, and held it up for his inspection.
"I say!" Alf pretended to be surprised at the sight of a key.
"Quite a big girl, aren't I! Well, you see: there are two, and Pa never
goes out. So we have one each. Saves a lot of bother." As she spoke Emmy
was unlocking the door and entering the house. "See, you can have supper
with me, and then it won't seem so far to walk home. And you can throw
Madame Buck's rinds at the back of the fire. You'll like that; and so
will she."
Alf, now perfectly docile, and even thrilled with pleasure at the idea
of being with her for a little while longer, followed Emmy into the
passage, where the flickering gas showed too feeble a light to be of any
service to them. Between the two walls they felt their way into the
house, and Alf softly closed the door.
"Hang your hat and coat on the stand," whispered Emmy, and went
tiptoeing forward to the kitchen. It was in darkness. "Oo, she is a
monkey! She's let the fire out," Emmy continued, in the same whisper.
"Have you got a match? The gas is out." She opened the kitchen door
wide, and stood there taking off her hat, while Alf fumbled his way
along the passage. "Be quick," she said.
Alf pretended not to be able to find the matches, so that he might give
her a hearty kiss in the darkness. He was laughing to himself because he
had only succeeded, in his random venture, in kissing her chin; and
then, when she broke away with a smothered protest and a half laugh, he
put his hand in his pocket again for the match-box. The first match
fizzed along the box as it was struck, and immediately went out.
"Oh, _do_ hurry up!" cried Emmy in a whisper, thinking he was still
sporting with her. "Don't keep on larking about, Alf!"
"I'm not!" indignantly answered the delinquent. "It wouldn't strike.
Half a tick!"
He moved forward in the darkness, to be nearer the gas; and as he took
the step his foot caught against something upon the floor. He exclaimed.
"Now what is it?" demanded Emmy. For answer Alf struck his match, and
they both looked at the floor by Alf's feet. Emmy gave a startled cry
and dropped to her knees.
"Hul-lo!" said Alf; and with his lighted match raised he moved to the
gas, stepping, as he did so, over the body of Pa Blanchard, which was
lying at full length across the kitchen floor.