§ 1
They ate their meal at the Cimerosa Café, a big place attached to the
leading picture-house and satisfying local ideals of smartness.
Otherwise there were few elegant resorts in Newhaven--the shore-walking
sailormen off the Geordies and other coasting craft sought homeliness
rather than elegance, and were catered for by a multitude of small
taverns and shops. The London and Paris Hotel provided for the more
sophisticated tastes of the passing population of the boat trains. For
the ’busman’s holiday and the shopgirl’s night out there was the
Cimerosa Café, with its inlaid tables and mirrored walls to provide a
glitter of luxury and a certain approximation to those homes of
splendour whose doors would be thrown open on the screen of the
picture-house beyond.
Both Belle and Daniel were much impressed as they sat together at their
little table, an island in the midst of the vastness. All round them was
the glitter of glass and steel, polished tiles and polished wood,
flowers made at once cheaper and more impressive by masses of gypsophila
and asparagus fern, while the tinkle and wail of a piano and two fiddles
came threading a plaintive way through the clatter of knives and voices.
Dan was at first struck dumb by the elegance of the waitress and the
profusion of the menu. But between them he and Belle managed at last to
stumble upon the materials of a meal. They had soup, fried cutlets with
French beans, and finally a fruit salad. Belle, as once mistress of the
Crown, knew more about food than Daniel, and also chose the sauterne
that her lover was drinking for the first time.
Though more at their ease when they had begun eating they scarcely
talked during their dinner. They belonged to that order of society which
is too polite to talk when music is being provided for its
entertainment. They listened respectfully to each item as if they had
been at a concert, and applauded respectfully at the end. Belle ate
slowly and sat dreamily, hardly seeming to notice her surroundings. Dan,
on the other hand, stared about the room, watching the other diners and
the waitresses moving among them, interested in their manners and their
food, as it was his custom to be interested in other people’s concerns.
There was another smaller hall beyond the first, and from where he sat
he could see a part of it reflected in the mirror opposite him. In the
mirror he saw a man and woman come in together and sit down at a table
under a palm. The elegance of the woman’s black dress and hat made him
look at her twice, and with a start he recognized her as Pearl Jenner.
The man was unknown.
At first surprise and interest made him miss the significance of this
encounter, but in a minute or two he realized what it meant. Belle had
come to him because she believed her husband to be with another woman,
and here was this other woman without him but with another man. She was
certainly guiltless on this occasion, though, Dan told himself angrily,
it did not follow that she had been guiltless on any other.
After all, Belle had made sure of her perfidy by effective if low
expedients.
He wondered if Belle could see her, but Belle sat with her back to the
mirror and outside the angle of direct vision. She could not see nor be
seen. Then he suddenly asked himself what she would do if she realized
that to-night at least her suspicions were confounded, and Ernley was
innocently eating his dinner in Hastings, the blameless guest of
Rotarians.
The question rushed at him out of the void, bringing with it the answer
not of itself, but of another question which he had not yet dared to
ask. “She is here not because of her love of me, but because of her love
of Ernley.” His hand shook as he quickly raised his glass, and the
glitter of the room with its lights and glass and silver and flowers
seemed to heel over as in a nightmare. By an act of violence he pushed
the question which had no answer and the answer which had no question
out of his mind together. At the same time he stood up. He must do
something--he must settle something--find out something about Pearl
Jenner and why she was there. Then perhaps he would not trouble about
Belle and why she was there.
“Where are you going?” asked Belle, waking out of her dream.
“I’m going to ask if they have any programmes. I’ll be back in a
minute.”
He had seen some posters of the cinema entertainment displayed in the
inner room, and first of all he went and scanned these and took a couple
of leaflets. On his way back he stopped at Pearl Jenner’s table.
“Good evening,” he said.
Miss Jenner lifted her large, rather prominent eyes from her plate and
surveyed him carefully without a word. In that glance Dan saw a grease
mark on his waistcoat exposed, his collar and tie dismissed as
impossible.
“I believe we’ve met before,” he said nervously.
Miss Jenner obviously did not remember the occasion, and her escort now
joined her in her stare. Dan was nearly overwhelmed, but managed to
stand his ground.
“It was at Bullockdean--the George Inn. You came with Mr. Ernley Munk to
meet my--to meet his--leastways....”
Luckily she remembered now.
“Oh, yes. But that was a long time ago.”
“More’n three years.”
“Fancy your remembering.”
She had lost the deficiencies of his collar and tie in the dark, broad
comeliness of his face, with the tan of the summer roads upon the
cheeks, and the brightness of love and excitement in the eyes.
“I ain’t likely to forget.”
He thought a touch of gallantry would not come amiss. Then suddenly his
gaze fell to her hand and saw that she wore a wedding ring.
“Are you married now?” The words broke straight out of his surprise.
She bridled suitably.
“Yes--I’m married. This is my husband, Mr. Percy Johnson. We’re going to
Paris--travelling for his firm.”
“Oh.”
“He’s got a job over there, and we thought we’d tack it on to our
honeymoon. We had meant to cross to-night, but there’s too much swell on
for me, so I said we’d stop at the London and Paris Hotel.”
He seemed properly impressed.
“Sit down and have a drink of something with us,” said Mr. Percy
Johnson.
“No--no--much obliged, I’m sure. I’ve got a friend waiting. Good-bye.”
“So pleased to have met you,” said the lady graciously.
Daniel fled.
He walked quickly back into the next room and sat down opposite Belle.
“It begins at half-past eight. We’d better be going.”
“Well, I’m ready. What a time you were.”
“I met a chap I knew.”
His heart was sick because he knew that he had not the courage to tell
her about Pearl Jenner who was now Pearl Johnson.
§ 2
He told himself it did not really matter. The thing that mattered was
Belle’s jealous suspicion of Ernley, not the question of whether it was
or was not justified. After all, it probably was justified, though Miss
Jenner had seen the wisdom of escaping from a difficult situation by the
most convenient road. Ernley had certainly deceived his wife, plotted
and schemed and lied. He had made Belle’s life a torture by uncertainty,
as she had made his a boredom by certainty. Their marriage was
smashed--trodden in pieces--by themselves. What did anything else
matter?--Pearl Jenner or Pearl Johnson? Daniel stuck a cigarette in the
corner of his mouth, and having paid his bill, led the way out of the
Cimerosa Café into the Cimerosa Palace.
“We’ll have a box,” he said to Belle as she followed.
“But----”
“I don’t care. We must have a good time to-night.”
The desire to strip the future was even more fiercely upon him.
* * * * *
So Belle and Daniel went into the house of Life together.
Life moved before them, flickering on a screen in a procession, as the
procession of life moves before the immortal gods. Those ’busmen and
shopgirls in the darkness were as the immortal gods, seeing as in a
mirror for their sport, life and love and death and hate and jealousy
and wealth and despair and laughter and tenderness and vice and beauty
and age and youth and piety and folly.... Scenes of splendour, a great
country house full of servants, rooms that were halls, halls that were
the naves of cathedrals, meals that were banquets--vicarious luxury for
the immortal gods, making them forget the stained tablecloths and
bed-sitting-rooms of their experience--scenes of squalor, drink and
violence, nothing to eat ... pity bringing comfort to the immortal gods,
who see the depths beneath them and are content.... Far lands, palms,
temple bells, spreading pagodas rising tier on tier above the ageless
dragon-shaped trees, an echo of gongs and terror--and the immortal gods
forget the limits of the Southern Railway and have seen the world and
yet are thankful that they sit at home.... A royal
garden-party--greatness condescending at a factory--a fashionable
cricket match ... elegance for the immortal gods, the wand passed over
their jap silks and serge reach-me-downs ... a drama of High Life--Vice
and Virtue matched as through the million ages--vice purple-mouthed,
virtue starry-eyed--vice drinking champagne and dancing on a restaurant
table--virtue weeping and putting the babies to bed--vice
flaunting--virtue shrinking--vice trapped in a burning theatre and
destroyed sensationally--virtue welcoming erring weakness home with
close-up of forgiveness--the Moral Sense of the immortal gods is
satisfied.... The loveliest most aloof of animal souls takes on human
weakness, and shows the immortal gods their own silly vices, shifts and
philanderings through a diminishing glass. Felix keeps on walking and
the gods laugh ... they laugh again as a greater than Grimaldi comes
before them, futile, pathetic, exalted--here are the shifts of humanity,
laughable, piteous, and yet dignified. He fools, falls, blunders and is
cursed and blessed, and when he has gone there is more laughter, and
among it the first real tears the immortal gods have shed. For the
greater than Grimaldi has shown them human nature as immortal gods
should see it--as a thing of futility and dignity, tears and
laughter.... Now “Next week’s features” and “God save the King,” and the
immortal gods have descended from their velvet thrones and are ’busmen
and shopgirls once more in the street, clasping each other as the crowd
disperses on the pavements and the great arclamps of the entrance die.
* * * * *
Dan’s arm was clasping Belle as he led her homewards. His body was
drugged by her sweetness, and his mind was drugged by Life. They did not
speak, for their thoughts were passing in a procession as on a screen.
Belle walked with her head bent, one arm hanging limply, one hand
holding Dan’s hand against her waist. Dan walked with his head high, and
saw the lamplight in her yellow hair and breaking into the shadows flung
by her hat. They came together to Greville Row, and stood together in
the narrow hallway, with the door shutting out the street lamp and the
moon.
Behind them the steep, narrow stairs soared into a still deeper
darkness. Dan’s arms came out and took Belle, drawing her big shoulder
down on his, holding her flushed face and rough hair down against his
cheek.
“Oh, Belle,” he murmured thickly in her hair. “Oh, Belle--I must love
you.”
And all the House of Life danced before the darkness of his closed eyes
that were closed against hers. She shuddered in his arms, moved herself
suddenly, and broke from him in tears.