Gaga's unspoken appeals. The frown in her eyes deepened. All round her
were the gilded mirrors of the Rezzonico, and the general noise and
movement of a busy restaurant. Opposite was Gaga, smiling with a sort
of joy which made his long face appear to shine. She could tell that he
was almost beside himself with excitement. And she was cool. There was
no current of understanding between them. They had neither physical nor
spiritual _rapport_. Slowly Sally's gaze took in all that was revealed
in Gaga's face and his nervously extended hands. Slowly a little cruel
smile played round her small mouth. She had married him. She was sure of
him. But there was a price. He would be a nuisance, a futile nuisance to
her. He would demand kisses, he would pry, would watch her, would fuss.
He would be a lover with all the empty ardour of the neurotic man.
Sally's heart sank. She did not want a restrained lover, because she was
young and high-spirited; but this singular trembling possessiveness
would soon be intolerable. He would be a nuisance. Again and again the
threat pressed itself upon Sally's consciousness.
Men! That was what Sally thought. She had no deliberate mental process.
All her intuitions were summarised in the one word. Men! Toby.... Gaga!
Gravely, she looked round the restaurant. There were fat men and thin
men, dark and fair, ugly and good-looking and negligible. And as she
looked at them in turn, puzzled, Sally shrugged her shoulders. She came
back to Gaga. She gave him a false, alluring smile, secure in her power
to excite him still further; but her gravity was constant. She had
glimpsed for the first time a thing which she could not have known
before marriage. It was that one married for different reasons, but that
one had to endure the disadvantages accompanying any choice. She was not
afraid, but she was ruffled. She was ruffled by that exulting
possessiveness which shone from Gaga. Had she loved him, her joy might
have been comparable with his. If she had loved him and he had seemed
not to desire her, Sally's happiness would have been undermined. But in
her present coolness, the sense that Gaga was personally inescapable was
enough to depress her. He would be a nuisance.
She found it so when they were in the taxicab on their way to Victoria.
Her smallness made her unable to stem the torrent of his excited
caresses. For a time she submitted to them, still entirely serious. Then
a kind of petulant composure enabled her to chill him. Gaga laughed in a
sort of giggle, holding Sally's hands, and looking adoringly into her
eyes, and trying to kiss her. Instead of giving him kisses, instead of
wishing him to kiss her, Sally found herself aware already of a slight
repugnance. As she looked forward to spending days and nights with him
her heart sank. She was not shocked. She was not afraid. She knew that
there would come a time when, after boring her, Gaga's kisses would
become troublesome. And it was too late now to withdraw. She was too
deeply into her new scheme of life. But this feverish, insatiably
amorous, weak Gaga would get on her nerves. So this was what marriage
might be. Sally's jaw stiffened. Yes, if she allowed it to be so. But
Sally was Sally. Kisses should presently be favours. Gaga should learn
his place. A hardness showed. She pushed aside the clinging arms, and
sat erect.
"No," cried Sally, sharply, at his convulsive motion of return. "Not
now. We're.... People looking at us...."
She did not want to be hard. She did not want to grow hard and bitter.
She had seen women who were both, and she disliked them. But with Gaga
she would have to be hard. Otherwise he would bore her to desperation.
So there was at this moment no longer any softness in Sally's heart
towards Gaga. She resented him. As they pushed through the crowd at
Victoria, Sally had a sudden impulse to run away. A shudder fled through
her. A girl with less resolute will, or perhaps of greater delicacy,
would have made some movement. But Sally merely stood with her head
lowered, and considered the position. It was not his love that she
minded; it was his hysterical possessiveness, the sense that he would
always be there and claiming convulsively those small incessant
intimacies which accompany marriage. Sally could not put her perception
into coherent terms; but she was assured of the fact. Gaga would want
too much, and that not in an adorably masterful way, but with exacting
and pertinacious excitement bred from his weakness and neurotic avidity.
The domination of the weak man would be a tyranny, as it always is.
Sally thought: "He'll be a nuisance. I shall want to do him in by the
time we get back. Oh, Lor! You done for yourself, Sally, my gel! You
come a mucker! Look at your husband! Look at him!" She could see Gaga in
the distance, moving agitatedly about a porter and the guard, and
tripping over luggage, and interrupting other eager passengers, and
stretching his long arm over their shoulders in order to touch the
guard. "That's your _husband_, that is! Man who's lost his head. Man
they all love. Fancy living with it for fifty years! Oh, Lor! A whole
lifetime. Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days in the year, too. All day,
every day! Makes you start thinking!" And she watched Gaga speeding
exultantly towards her.
"All right. We've got a first," he panted, quite out of breath. "To
ourselves. I've tipped the guard. It's ... it's all right. Come along.
This way. Come along!"
"Oo!" cried Sally, with archness. "To ourselves! What a surprise!
Strange!" And to herself, returning to her own sober thoughts: "If you
did too much thinking you'd lose the use of your legs. And if girls
thought a bit before they got marrying, they'd.... Funny! I wonder what
they _would_ do!"
ii
What she would herself have done Sally had no time to consider; for they
were hurried to their compartment and were locked in by the obliging and
amused guard. They then sat demurely upon opposite sides of the carriage
until the train began to move. Every time anybody peered in at the
window Sally, who had recovered her good spirits, began to laugh; and
Gaga was full of consternation. But at last even that anxiety was
removed, and in the afternoon sunlight the country began to glow under
their eyes and race round in a sweeping circle with an intoxicating
effect not to be appreciated by those who are staled for railway
travelling. Sally allowed Gaga to embrace her; but she kept her face
resolutely turned from him for a long time while she relished her new
joy in rushing thus through the increasingly-beautiful districts which
bordered the track. It was only when Gaga became expostulatory that she
abandoned this pleasure and yielded to his tumultuous affection, with a
listlessness and a sense of criticism which was new to her. Silly fool;
why couldn't he sit still and be quiet! She belonged to herself, not to
him. Almost, she thrust him away from her.
They reached Penterby by four o'clock in the afternoon, and were turned
out upon the platform with their two light bags, like the stranded
wanderers they were. And then they walked out into the roughly paved
road leading through the town to higher land behind, and onward, along a
road to which they turned their backs, and which wavered, past the
railroad station, up an incline in the direction of the distant sea.
Gaga carried both bags, and led the way, and Sally saw for the first
time a wide street, and shops and houses quaintly built, and a church
spire with houses below it, arranged in terraces, all warm in the dying
sun. It was still summer here, she thought, and the atmosphere was
pleasant. The houses were not at all crowded, but stood up at the first
glance as if they were proud of great age and their height above the
road from the station.
"We going up there?" demanded Sally, pointing to the hill, and the
houses erect upon it.
"No, darling.... See ... that ... that ... lamp."
Sally looked up at Gaga's face. Oh, if it had only been Toby! The blood
suddenly rushed to her cheeks. Toby! She wanted Toby! As quickly, she
was chilled by fear. What would Toby do? What would he try to do? Yes,
well Toby didn't know yet that she was married. And she was married to
Gaga, and she had done this thing with her eyes open. There was no going
back. Marriage was a thing you could not repudiate. It was final. The
blood flowed away from Sally's face. She was cool again in an instant.
Her eyes were fixed upon the lamp which Gaga had indicated, and upon the
ivy behind it. Upon a suspended board she read in gold the letters
"RIVER HOTEL", and as she appreciated the meaning of this name Sally
observed that the street went onward past the hotel over an unmistakable
bridge.
"Is that the river?" she asked. "Is the hotel _on_ the river? Where we
stay?"
"Yes. You'll see.... You'll like it." Gaga was entreating, now rather
frightened by Sally's lack of response to his feverish endearments,
already inclined to suspicion and sidelong glances of doubt.
"Sure I shall!" cried Sally, perfectly composed once more. "It's nice.
Does the river go just there?"
Gaga became suddenly very enthusiastic. He motioned with the hand in
which both small bags were carried. He began to walk at a quicker pace.
"You see the front of the hotel--all ... all ivy. Well at the end the
wall goes ... goes right down into the water. And there's a balcony ...
all ... all covered with glass, on the first floor. Our room opens on
this balcony. You can look right down into the river.
"Is it a nice river?"
He was rather hesitating in face of her sharp tone of inquiry.
"Well, er.... Nice? It's ... it's a tidal river. It flows up and down.
In ... in the summer things get carried.... I mean, it's not ... not
very clean. It's mud."
"Oo." Sally's little nose wrinkled. "Does it smell? I mean, is it
healthy?" But at this new question Gaga looked very perplexed and rather
unhappy, so that she quickly abandoned her curiosity about the river,
knowing that she would presently be able to satisfy it more effectively
by personal observation. Without further speech they came abreast of the
hotel, and turned in under the arched entrance. To the left of them was
a door with the legend "COFFEE ROOM"; to the right another door above
which hung a little sign "HOTEL." It was by this right-hand door that
they entered, and it was here, by a glass enclosed bar, that they
waited. Upon an extended shelf there was lying a newspaper which had
come through the post for some departed visitor. Beyond the bar Sally
noticed decanters and bottles and upturned glasses. Before her was
another door, open, which revealed a table upon which glasses had left
little circular stains. She was all curiosity. This must be the saloon.
She gave a sharp mischievous hunching of the shoulders, and hugged
Gaga's arm. Then, as a stout woman came out of another room, she grew
sedate, and stood free from her husband in case they should be supposed
to be upon their honeymoon.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Merrick."
She knew him, then. He was no stranger here.
"Mrs. Tennant.... How ... how d'you do? This.... I've brought my wife
with me this time," stammered Gaga proudly. "Sally, this is Mrs.
Tennant."
"Pleased to meet you," announced the stout woman. Sally scrutinised her.
She had been pretty, but had grown fat. She had puffs round her eyes,
and swollen lips, and a cat-like expression of geniality. Behind her
agreeable smile there was suspicion of all mankind, suspicion and
wariness, due to her constant need of self-control in the difficult
business of managing noisy or cantankerous guests. Sally did not like
her. "Tabby!" she thought at once. But immediately afterwards she knew
that it would be worth while to make a friend of Mrs. Tennant. She gave
her little friendly grin, and saw its effect. "That's that," reflected
Sally. And it was so. Mrs. Tennant cordially led the way up to the first
floor, talking of the weather, and of the number of visitors who were at
present staying at the River Hotel.
"Does Mrs. Merrick play?" she asked. "Do you? We've got a very good
piano in the drawing-room.... I'm passionately fond of music myself.
It's the sorrow of my life I can't play."
Sally grimaced. The drawing-room was glimpsed--a room with settees and
big chairs and a strident carpet and antimacassars and small palms in
pots. Large windows made it beautifully light. And as she took in these
details Sally hurried on, and found herself in a narrow dun-coloured
passage, where brown doors with numbers upon them indicated the
bedrooms. It was into the second of these rooms that she was led, and in
spite of the frowst she looked with eagerness at a further door and
windows that opened upon the balcony of which Gaga had spoken. The
windows were lace-curtained, but she could see through the curtains to
what seemed like a conservatory.
"You see the door opens on to the balcony," explained Mrs. Tennant,
while Gaga put down the bags and wiped his hands with his handkerchief.
"Looks right across the river. I'm afraid the tide's out now; but when
it's up you see all sorts of things floating up and down."
"What sort of things?" demanded Sally, going to the glass sides of the
building and peering down at the mud.
"Oh, _all_ sorts...." Mrs. Tennant was a little confused, but
conversational. "That old building you see across there is ... well, it
used to be a granary; but nobody's used it for a long time. There's a
dinghy in the mud over there. It's Mr. Scuffle's...."
Dinghy! Instantly Sally's mind jerked back to a day she had spent with
Toby, when he had teased her about her ignorance of boats. Toby! So that
was a dinghy! Just like any other boat.
The balcony was empty; but trays still lay upon two of the light iron
tables, and a newspaper had been tossed upon the matted floor. All the
chairs were of wicker, and in them lay little hard cushions covered with
dirtied cretonne. Through the long glass side one could see the
slowly-flowing river (for the tide was about to turn), and the already
dimming sky, and the houses upon the rising ground that lay beyond the
farther bank, and the bridge upon which people were walking. Sally
looked up and down the momentarily sinister river. She was afraid of
water, afraid of its secrecy and its current; and she turned away from
her contemplation with a sense of chill.
"I'm cold," she said, brightly. "Bertram.... Could we have some tea,
Mrs. Tennant?"
"Certainly. You'd like a wash? I'll get the tea at once...."
Back in the room, Sally was immediately again embraced. She did not now
trouble about Gaga; she was glad of his arms around her, and his breast
upon which she could lay her head. Married ... river ... married ...
river ... ran her thoughts. And she turned away from Gaga to the
washstand, and poured cold water from the ewer into the basin.
"Let me alone...." she laughingly said. "Be ... get away.... I'm going
to wash."
And when the water touched her face Sally was alert once more, cleansed
and freshened. With tea before her she could face even marriage and that
drearily-flowing river and the hideous mud, so thick and so oozily
sinister.
iii
On the following day Sally, dogged everywhere by Gaga, was perfectly
aware of her contempt for him. Twenty-four hours had been enough to show
her the exacting and irritating characteristics of her new husband. Did
she stir, he looked up; his hand was ever ready for her hand; those
chocolate eyes were eternally suffused with a love that moved Sally to
impatience. He did not even amuse her by his calf-like pursuit. All that
was ruthless in her rose up and sneered at his weakness and his timid
assurance, which had the same effect as one of those horrible streamers
of cobweb that catch the face as one walks unwarily along a dusky lane.
Only her native resoluteness enabled her to show Gaga a false patience.
Only her insensitiveness made his constant caress endurable. Sally
blinked sometimes at his grabbing sentimentality; but she already began
to slip neatly aside and avoid his carefully-planned contacts. She was
not yet hard or perverse.
And while Gaga lay down in the afternoon, as she found he was in the
habit of doing, in order that his physical strength might last through
the day, Sally found the empty drawing-room and with often-strained ears
began the difficult task which she had set herself. Below her was the
thick, powerful current of the now sinking river, laden with refuse
which flowed backwards and forwards past the hotel; and upon the windows
and casual brightnesses of the tall houses on the hill across the river
she could see the crystal sparkling of reflected sunshine. She had a
feeling that all about Penterby was open green country, sometimes flat,
but always in the distance crowned and adorned with hills; and she knew
the brown of the river and the mud, and the green slime which decorated
the wall opposite. It was unforgettable. She would always think of it.
And her task was the writing of a letter to Toby. She had planned to
write to him upon this day--the first free day of her married life; and
she was bent upon keeping to her plan. He must be told at once, and yet
as she held the pen above a sheet of plain paper she was stunned by the
extraordinary difficulty of the composition. Only then, for the first
time, did she grasp the definiteness of the step she had taken. She
would never see Toby again. Never? Never--never--never. Sally's eyes
filled with tears. A thick, painful sob forced its way through her.
Never.
She began to write. She put no address, but only, in her plain
handwriting, still that of a schoolgirl, the words "My dear." It was at
this point that Sally began to discard all the phrases which she had
earlier composed in her head. She considered that if she were never to
see Toby again it did not matter what he thought of her. The bald
announcement would do very well. It was best, and easiest, and safest.
And then she knew again that she was afraid of Toby, and of what he
might do. She was a true woman in being unable to face a conclusion.
She could not imagine that she would never see him again. It was
incredible. So incapable was she of realising the fact of a complete
break that she thought herself possessed by an instinct that they must
meet and continue as before. Sally was much more afraid that he would
kill her. It was the reason why she was putting no address at the head
of the letter. He must not find her with Gaga. She wrote at last.
"My dear. I have been a bad wicked girl and married another man.
Do not try to find me. I shall be all right. Find some other girl,
and be happy with her. I shall never be happy without you. My
husband is very kind and good. Don't forget me."
At the end of this letter she put no signature, but a single cross to
indicate a kiss. Then she addressed an envelope, stamped it, slipped
down the stairs and along to the post office. By the time Toby got the
letter she and Gaga would no longer be there; and he would not be able
to find her afterwards. London was so big. She was afraid of him, and
yet she longed to see him again. Five minutes later she was back in the
drawing-room, seated at the piano, and singing softly in her clear voice
the song that had first so greatly charmed Gaga.
"'Your heart mine, and mine in your keeping,
List while I sing to you love's tender song.'"
As she sang, Sally looked up and at the doorway. There, adoringly, stood
Gaga, all his love making a radiance in his face which she had not
previously seen so distinctly. He came slowly towards her, and as she
continued her song he kissed the back of her neck where the hair was
brushed up in the first soft incalculable wave. Sally for the first
time shrank a little; but she pursued her song unhesitatingly, so
schooled was she in her determination that the price she was paying was
to be borne.
"'When you and I go down the love path together,
Stars shall be shining and the night so fair.'"
"We'll go ... go walking in the moonlight to-night ... shall we?"
whispered Gaga. Sally nodded, making her voice quaver by the motion.
Gaga could not see her face; but Sally knew that even if he had done so
he would have been quite unable to read her thoughts, which were dry and
inflexible. He remained by her side until she had finished the song, and
then fiercely pressed her head back until he was able by stooping to
kiss her lips from above. His hand was under her chin. He kissed her
many times, oppressively--little ravenous pecks that were febrile rather
than loving; and assertive of his new proprietorship. His kisses left
Sally unmoved and slightly frowning. She was surprised at Gaga's
simplicity in imagining that any girl valued or could possibly value
such ceaseless demonstrative action, such ugly hard little parrot-like
caresses.
"Only a soppy kid would," she thought. "She'd like it, I suppose. Think
quantity meant love. It doesn't. Like a beak. Silly fool!" And aloud she
said quite firmly: "There, that's enough. Shan't have any face left, at
this rate. I shall come out in spots. What's the time?"
To soften her words she held and pressed his hand; but only for an
instant. Then she rose abruptly from the piano and walked over to the
window. With his arm immediately at her waist Gaga followed, like a
long, abject greyhound.
"The tide's out," he said, indicating the sun illumined mud by the
opposite wall.
"Ugh!" shuddered Sally. "Fancy getting your feet in that stuff! You'd
never get out.... Gives me the horrors, it does!" She leaned back into
his arms.
iv
They left Penterby by a very early train on the Monday morning, and
while Gaga took the two bags to an hotel where the Merricks were to stay
for the present Sally went direct to Madame Gala's. She had obtained
special permission to be an hour late in the morning, and so she entered
the workroom without confusion. It was the same as it had always
been--the long benches, and the girls, and Miss Summers sitting apart,
as plump and feline as ever. There was, of course, curiosity about
Sally. Few of the girls supposed that she had been away with a girl
friend, which had been the story; and all looked at her with a knowing
suspicion. Only Miss Summers was completely trusting. Sally had slipped
off her wedding-ring, and it lay in her purse. She took in the whole
scene as she entered, and measured the assumptions of the girls with
cool indifference. But she would have done that in any case; for Sally
had nothing to learn about workgirls and their thoughts and
interpretations, and she had also none of the false self-consciousness
which makes wrong-doers imagine that their actions have been
providentially revealed to all observers. Had she and Gaga arrived
together the case would have been different; but nothing had occurred to
make the girls suppose that there was any relation between them, and
Sally was perfectly safe from that most dangerous of all recognitions.
She was still, to the girls, Sally Minto; and to some of them still the
white-faced cocket of Rose Anstey's jealous outburst. Sally looked
boldly at Rose as she sat industriously working. Then, with greater
stealth, at Miss Summers. That plump face had a solemnly preoccupied
expression that gave Sally a faint start of doubt. Immediately, however,
she knew that Miss Summers must be worried, not upon Sally's account,
but on account of some message respecting Madam which had been received
earlier in the morning. This made her seize an excuse to approach Miss
Summers.
"How's Madam?" she whispered, surreptitiously.
Miss Summers shook her head with foreboding.
"Still the same. No better; no worse. Sally, I'm _afraid_."
Sally looked down at Miss Summers. How strangely their relation had been
altered by this weekend's doings! Wherever Sally glanced she knew that
what she saw was now potentially her own. By the simple act of marrying
Gaga she had become, as it were, mistress of the place. And she knew it.
She knew it plainly and without swollen conceitedness. Not yet was her
power unquestionable; but it was none the less genuine. Even Miss
Summers....
"I hope she gets better," said Sally.
Miss Summers shot a quick glance upwards. She started, and a faint
redness came into her plump cheeks. The tip of her nose was irritated,
and she rubbed it with her knuckle.
"Oh, I do _hope_ so," breathed Miss Summers. "It would be awful--awful
for all of us--if she didn't. You see...."
"She'll have to die some time," remarked Sally.