THE HEROINE FAILS
The fast train, by which they ought to travel, left for London in a
quarter of an hour; a slow train would follow twenty minutes later.
Ashley procured this information before undertaking his search; since
the platform was still crowded it seemed possible that Mr. Fenning would
not be found in time for the fast train. He proved hard to find; yet he
might have been expected to be on the look-out. Ashley sought him
conscientiously and diligently, but before long a vague hope began to
rise in him that the man had not come after all. What then? He did not
answer the question. It was enough to picture Ora freed from her fears,
restored to the thoughtless joyousness of their early days together. If
by wild chance he had found the man dead or heard that he was dead, he
would have been glad with a natural heathen exultation. People die on
voyages across the Atlantic sometimes; there is an average of deaths in
mid-ocean; averages must be maintained; how maintain one with more
beneficial incidental results than by killing Mr. Fenning? Ashley smiled
grimly; his temper did not allow the humour of any situation to escape
him; he felt it even in the midst of the strongest feelings. His search
for Jack Fenning, while Jack Fenning's wife sat in terror, while he
loved Jack Fenning's wife, had its comic side; he wondered how matters
would strike Jack, supposing him to be alive, and to have come; or,
again, if he were dead and fluttering invisible but open-eyed over the
platform.
He saw the girl who had been in the next carriage, hanging on a young
man's arm, radiant and half in tears; but the young man was not like
Jack's photograph. There were many young men, but none of them Jack
Fenning. He scoured the platform in vain. A whistle sounded loud, and
there were cries of "Take your seats!" Ashley looked at his watch; that
was the express starting; they would be doomed to crawl to town. Where
the plague was Jack Fenning? This suspense would be terrible for Ora.
How soon could he be safe in going back and telling her that Jack had
not come? What a light would leap to her face! How she would murmur,
"Ashley!" in her low rich voice! She seemed able to say anything and
everything in the world to him with that one word, "Ashley!" to help the
eloquence of her eyes.
A rush of people scurrying out of the refreshment-room and running to
catch the express encountered and buffeted him. Here was a place he had
not ransacked; perhaps Jack Fenning was in the refreshment-room; a
remembrance of Janet's anxiety about a good whiskey gave colour to the
idea. Ashley waited till the exodus was done and then strolled in; the
place was almost empty; the barmaids were reaching their arms over the
counter to gather up the used glasses or wipe the marble surface with
cloths. But at the far end of the room there was a man standing at the
bar, with a tumbler before him; he was smoking and in conversation with
the girl who served him. Ashley stood still on the threshold for a
moment or two, watching this man. "This is my man," he said to himself;
he seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of the fact and not to rely on
any pose or air which he had noticed in the photograph; he knew that he
was looking at Ora's husband, and stood and looked at him. The man had
come; he was not dead; he was here, drinking at the bar. "How much would
he take to go away again?" That was Ashley's thought. Then he shook his
head and walked towards the man, who had just set his glass down empty.
"You'll have missed the express," said the girl behind the counter.
"I was bound to have a drink," protested the customer in a rather
injured tone.
He turned away, stooped, lifted a hand-bag, and came down the room.
Ashley noticed that his right hand was bandaged; he thought he noticed
also a slight uncertainty in his walk; he did not lurch or stagger, but
he swayed a little. "Just sixpenn'orth too much," was Ashley's summary.
Then he walked up to the stranger and asked if he had the honour of
addressing Mr. Fenning.
There remained always in Ashley Mead's mind a memory of Jack Fenning as
he was that day, of his soft blurred voice, his abashed eyes, his slight
swayings, and the exaggerated apologetic firmness (or even aggression)
of gait that followed them, of his uneasy deference towards the man who
met him, of his obvious and unfeigned nervousness on being told that
Miss Pinsent was waiting for him. Had child married child? The question
leapt to Ashley's thoughts. Here was no burly ruffian, full of drink and
violence. He had been drinking, but surely as a boy who takes his second
glass of birthday port, not knowing the snake which lurks among that
pleasant, green grass? He had struck Ora; the ugly fact was there; yet
now Ashley found himself asking whether children had not their tempers,
whether they are to be judged as men are judged, as gentlemen claim to
be judged. Jack Fenning came neither in a truculent resentment against
his wife, nor in a masterful assertion of his rights, nor (which would
have been worst of all) in a passion for her. He did not question
Ashley's position, he did not ask how he came to be there; nor did he
demand to be taken to his wife, nor did he fly to seek her.
"She's here, is she?" he said with an unmistakable accent of alarm.
"Yes, she's here. Come along. I'll take you to her," said Ashley curtly.
He was angry to find his resentment oozing away. "Didn't you know she
was coming to meet you?"
"She said she might," murmured Jack. "But I didn't think she would."
"I thought there'd be a crowd and so on, so I ran down with her," Ashley
explained, despising himself for explaining at all.
"Awfully kind of you," said Mr. Fenning. "Where--where did you leave
her?"
"Oh, on a seat on the platform. Where's your luggage?"
"Here." He held up the hand-bag.
"That all?"
"Yes, that's all," said Jack with a propitiatory smile. "I didn't see
the good of bringing much." He paused and then added, "I haven't got
much, you know." Another pause followed. "I hope that--that Miss
Pinsent's all right?" he ended.
"Yes, she's all right. Come along." Then he asked abruptly, "Hurt your
hand?"
Jack raised his hand and looked at it. "I got it burnt," he said. "We
were making a night of it, and some fool made the poker hot--we had an
open fire--and I didn't see it was hot and laid hold of it." He looked
at his companion's face, which wore a grim smile. "Of course I shouldn't
have done it if I hadn't had a drop too much," he added, smiling.
"Good God!" groaned Ashley to himself as he led the way. Wouldn't
anything, the burly ruffian, the crafty schemer, or even the coarse
lover, have been better than this? Any of them might have ranked as a
man, any of them might have laid a grasp on Ora and ruled her life to
some pattern. But what could or should this poor creature do? Why, he
had come at her bidding, and now was afraid to meet her!
"Has she talked about me?" Jack asked timidly.
"Yes, a lot," said Ashley. He looked over his shoulder and sent a very
direct glance into his companion's eyes. "She's told me all about it, or
nearly all," he added. Jack looked ashamed and acutely distressed.
Ashley felt sorry for him and cursed himself for the feeling. "You'll
get along better now, I hope," he said, looking away. Then he smiled; it
had occurred to him to wonder what all the folk who were so interested
in the coming of Mr. Fenning would make of this Mr. Fenning who had
come. For an embodiment of respectability, of regularity of life, and of
the stability of the conjugal relation, this creature was so--there
seemed but one word--so flabby.
"Is Janet still with Miss Pinsent?" asked Jack. It was evident that he
hesitated as to what he ought to call his wife. There was a little pause
before he pronounced her name.
"Yes," said Ashley. "Janet's there. She's ordered some whiskey you'll
like." Jack, unobservant of sarcasm, smiled gratefully; he reminded
Ashley of a child rather afraid of its parents and finding comfort in
the presence of a kind familiar nurse. "It was about here I left Miss
Pinsent," Ashley went on, glancing round.
There was the seat on which Ora had sat; but Ora was not on the seat.
Ashley looked about, scanning the platform, seeking the graceful figure
and gait that he knew so well. Jack put his bag down on the seat and
stared at the roof of the station.
"I don't see her," said Ashley. "She must have moved." He glanced at
Jack and added with a sudden burst of laughter, "Now you must stay here
while I look for her!"
"You're very kind," said Jack Fenning, sinking down on the seat.
"I might be the father of twins," said Ashley, as he walked off. Jack,
left alone, furtively unclasped the bag, sought a small bottle, and took
a small mouthful from it; he wanted all his nerve to meet his wife.
Again Ashley Mead searched the station and ransacked the waiting-rooms;
again in whimsical despair he explored the refreshment saloon; all were
empty. What had become of Ora? He returned to the seat where Jack
Fenning was. A tall burly guard stood by Jack, regarding him with a
rather contemptuous smile. When Ashley approached he turned round.
"Perhaps you're the gentleman, sir?" he said. "Mr. Mead, sir?"
"I'm Mr. Mead," said Ashley.
"The lady who went by the express left this note for you, sir. I thought
it was for this gentleman but he says it isn't."
"Thanks, I expect it's for me," said Ashley, exchanging a shilling for
a scrap of twisted paper addressed to him in Ora's familiar scrawl. The
guard looked at the pair with a faint curiosity, spun his shilling in
the air, and turned away. They were, after all, a very unimportant
episode in the life of the guard.
"I have gone. As you love me, don't let him follow me. I am
heart-broken:--Ora."
Thus ran the note which Ashley read. At the last moment, then, the great
drama had broken down, renunciation and reformation had refused to run
in couples, the fine scenes would not be played and--the heroine had
fled from the theatre! An agreement was an agreement, as Mr. Hazlewood
insisted; but Ora had broken hers. Here was Ashley Mead with a stray
husband on his hands! He laughed again as he re-read the note. Where had
she gone, poor dear, she and her broken heart? She was crying somewhere
with the picturesqueness that she could impart even to the violent forms
of grief. His laugh made friends with a groan as he looked down on the
flabby figure of Jack Fenning. That such a creature should make such a
coil! The world is oddly ordered.
"What the devil are we to do now?" he exclaimed aloud, glancing from the
note to Jack, and back from Jack to the note. The note gave no help;
Jack's bewildered questioning eyes were equally useless. "She's gone,"
Ashley explained with a short laugh.
"Gone? Where to?" Helplessness still, not indignation, not even
surprise, marked the tone.
"I don't know. You're not to follow her, she says."
Jack seemed to sink into a smaller size as he muttered forlornly,
"She told me to come, you know." His uninjured hand moved longingly but
indecisively towards his bag. "Will you have a dram?" he asked.
"No, I won't," said Ashley. "Well, we can't stay here all night. What
are you going to do?"
"I don't understand what you mean by saying she's gone," moaned Jack.
"It's all she says--and that you're not to follow. What are you going
to do?"
His look now was severe and almost cruel; Jack seemed to cringe under
it.
"I don't know," he muttered. "You see I--I've got no money."
"No money?"
"No. I had a little, but I had infernally bad luck at poker, coming
over. You wouldn't believe how the luck ran against me."
Ashley put his hands in his pockets and regarded his companion.
"So you've no money?"
"About five shillings."
"And now you've no wife!"
Jack twisted in his seat. "I wish I hadn't come," he said fretfully.
"So do I," said Ashley. "But here you are!" He took a turn along the
platform. The burly guard saw him and touched his hat.
"Train for London in five minutes, sir. The last to-night, sir. Going
on?"
"Damn it, yes, we'll go on," said Ashley Mead. At least there was
nothing to be gained by staying there. "Your ticket takes you through to
London, I suppose?" he asked Jack.
"Yes, it does; but what am I to do there?" asked Jack forlornly.
Something restrained Ashley from the obvious retort, "What the devil do
I care?" If he abandoned Jack, Jack must seek out Ora; he must track her
by public and miscellaneous inquiries; he must storm the small house at
Chelsea, braving Ora for the sake of Janet and the whiskey. Or if he did
not do that, he would spend his five shillings as he had best not,
and--visions of police-court proceedings and consequential newspaper
broad-sheets rose before Ashley's eyes.
He took Jack to London with him. The return journey alone with Mr.
Fenning was an unconsidered case, an unrehearsed effect. Mr. and Mrs.
Fenning were to have gone together; in one mad pleasant dream he and Ora
were to have gone together, with Jack smoking elsewhere. Reality may
fail in everything except surprises. Ora was heaven knew where,
heart-broken in Chelsea or elsewhere, and Ashley was in charge of Mr.
Fenning.
"Good God, how everybody would laugh!" thought Ashley, himself hovering
between mirth and ruefulness. The pencil of Babba Flint would draw a
fine caricature of this journey; the circumstances might wring wonder
even from Mr. Hazlewood's intimate and fatigued acquaintance with the
ways of genius; as for Kensington Palace Gardens--Ashley suddenly
laughed aloud.
"What's the matter?" asked Jack.
"It's all so damned absurd," said Ashley, laughing still. An absurd
tragedy--and after all that Jack should come as he did, be what he was,
and go on existing, was in essentials pure tragedy--seemed set on foot.
"What am I to do with the fellow?" asked Ashley of himself. "I can't let
him go to Chelsea." Nor, on reflection, could he let him go either to
the workhouse or to the police-court. In fact, by an impulsive
extension of the very habit which had appealed so strongly to his
chivalry, Ora had thrown not herself only but her husband also on his
hands!
London drew near, even for the slow train, and with London came the
problem. Ashley solved it in a flash, with a resolve that preserved the
mixture of despair and humour which had become his attitude towards the
situation of affairs. Above him in his house by Charing Cross there
lived a clerk; the clerk had gone for a month's holiday, and had given
liberty to the housekeeper to let his bed-sitting-room (so the compound
was termed) to any solvent applicant. Jack Fenning should occupy the
room for this night at least; he would be safe from danger, from
observation, from causing trouble at Chelsea or wherever his wife might
be. Thus to provide for him seemed mere humanity; he had but five
shillings and a weakness for strong drink; and although he had struck
Ora (the violence grew more and more inconceivable), yet in a sense he
belonged to her. "And something must happen to clear it all up soon,"
Ashley reflected in an obstinate conviction that things in the end went
reasonably.
A short interview with the housekeeper was enough to arrange for Jack
Fenning's immediate comfort; then Ashley took him into his own room and
gave him an improvised supper, and some whiskey and water mixed very
weak; Jack regarded it disconsolately but made no protest; he lugged out
a pipe and began to smoke, staring the while into the empty grate. "I
wonder where she's gone!" he said once, but Ashley was putting on his
slippers and took no notice of the question. There lay on the table a
note and a telegram; Jack's eyes wandered to them. "Perhaps the wire's
from her," he suggested timidly.
"Perhaps," said Ashley, taking it up. But the message was from Alice
Muddock and ran, "Father had a paralytic stroke to-day. Afraid serious.
Will you come to-morrow?"
"It's not from Miss Pinsent," said Ashley, as he turned to the note.
This was from Bowdon, sent by hand: "I'm glad to say that I've persuaded
Irene to be married in a month from now. As you're such a friend of hers
as well as of mine, I hope you'll be my best man on the occasion."
"And the note's not from her either," said Ashley, walking up to the
mantel-piece and filling his pipe.
Jack leant back in his chair and gulped down his weak mixture; he looked
up in Ashley's face and smiled feebly. Ashley's brows were knit, but his
lips curved in a smile. The mixed colours held the field; here was poor
old Sir James come to the end of his work, to the end of new blocks and
the making of sovereigns; here was Bowdon triumphantly setting the last
brick on the high wall behind which he had entrenched himself against
the assault of wayward inclinations. Was Irene then at peace? Would Bob
hold his own or would Bertie Jewett grasp the reins? Was Bowdon resigned
or only fearful? What a break-up in Kensington Palace Gardens! What the
deuce should he do with this man? And where in heaven's name was Ora
Pinsent? Ashley's eyes fell on a couple of briefs which had been sent
after him from the Temple; it seemed as though the ordinary work of life
were in danger of neglect.
"We can't do anything to-night, you know," he said to Jack in an
irritated tone. "You don't want to knock her up to-night, I suppose,
even if she's at her house?"
"No," said Jack meekly.
"Are you ready for bed then?"
Jack cast one longing glance at the whiskey bottle, and said that he
was. Ashley led him upstairs, turned on the gas, and shewed him the room
he was to occupy. Desiring to appear friendly, he lingered a few moments
in desultory and forced conversation, and, seeing that Jack's wounded
hand crippled him a little, began to help him to take his things out of
the bag and lay them in handy places. Jack accepted his services with
regard to the bag, and set about emptying his own pockets on the
mantel-piece. Presently Ashley, his task done, turned round to see his
companion standing with back turned, under the gas jet; he seemed to be
regarding something which he held in his hand.
"I think you'll be all right now," said Ashley, preparing to make his
escape.
Jack faced round with a slight start and an embarrassed air. He still
held in his hand the object which he had been regarding; Ashley now
perceived it to be a photograph. Was it Ora's--Ora's, treasured through
years of separation, of quarrel, of desertion and apparent neglect? Had
the man then grace in him so to love Ora Pinsent? A flash of kindliness
lit up Ashley's feelings towards him; a pang of sympathy went near to
making him sorry that Ora had fled from welcoming the home-comer. His
eyes rested on Jack with a friendly look; Jack responded with a doubtful
wavering smile; he seemed to ask whether he could in truth rely on the
new benevolence which he saw in his host's eyes. Ashley smiled, half at
his own queer thoughts, half to encourage the poor man. The smile
nourished Jack's growing confidence; with a roguish air which had not
been visible before he held out the picture to Ashley, saying,
"Pretty girl, isn't she?"
With a stare Ashley took the portrait. It could not be Ora's, if he
spoke of it like that; so it seemed to the lover who translated
another's feelings into his own. In an instant he retracted; that was
how Jack Fenning would speak of Ora; short-lived kindliness died away;
the man was frankly intolerable. But the sight of the picture sent his
mind off in another direction. The picture was not Ora's, unless in
previous days Ora had been of large figure, of bold feature, of
self-assertive aspect, given to hats outrageous, and to signing herself,
"Yours ever, Daisy." For such were the salient characteristics of the
picture which Mr. Jack Fenning had brought home with him. A perverse
freak of malicious memory carried Ashley back to the room in the little
house at Chelsea, where his own portrait stood in its silver frame on
the small table by Ora's favourite seat. _Mutato nomine, de te!_ But,
lord, what a difference the name makes!
"Very pretty," he remarked, handing back the image which had occasioned
his thought. "Some one you know on the other side?"
"Yes," said Jack, standing the picture up against the wall.
Ashley was absurdly desirous of questioning him, of learning more about
Daisy, of discovering whether Mr. Fenning had his romance or merely
meditated in tranquillity on a pleasant friendship. But he held himself
back; he would not be more mixed up with the man than fate and Ora
Pinsent had commanded. There was something squalid about the man, so
that he seemed to infect what he touched with his own flabby meanness.
How in the world had Ora come to make him her husband? No doubt five
years of whiskey, in society of which Daisy was probably too favourable
a specimen to be typical, would account for much. He need not have been
repulsive always; he might even have had a fawning attractiveness; it
hung oddly about him still. But how could he ever have commanded love?
Love asks more, some material out of which to fashion an ideal, some
nobility actual or potential. At this point his reflections were very
much in harmony with the views of Alice Muddock. He hated to think what
Ora had been to this man; now he thanked God that she had run away. He
would have liked himself to run away somewhere, never to see Jack
Fenning, to forget that he had ever seen him, to rid Ora of every
association with him. It was odious that the thought of her must bring
the thought of Fenning; how soon would he be able to think of her again
without this man shouldering his way into recollection by her side?
Until he could achieve that, she herself, suffering an indignity, almost
seemed to suffer a taint.
"Good-night," said he. "We'll have a talk in the morning about what's to
be done."
"Good-night, Mr. Mead. I'm--I'm awfully obliged to you for everything."
"Not at all," said Ashley. He moved towards the door. As he passed the
table his eye fell on Jack's flask, which lay there. For an instant he
thought of cautioning Jack against an excessive use of it; but where was
the good and why was it his business? Without more he left his unwelcome
guest to himself.
And Jack, being thus left alone, had some more whiskey, another look at
his picture, and another smoke of his pipe. After that he began to
consider how very hardly his wife had used him. Or, rather, he tried to
take up and maintain this position, but he failed. He was so genuinely
relieved that Ora had not been there; he did not want to meet Ora; he
knew that he would be terribly uncomfortable. Why had he come? He
wandered up to the mantel-piece again and looked with pathetic reproach
at the picture and the signature below it.
"I wish she hadn't made me!" he groaned as he turned away and began to
undress himself.
Ora had allowed him to come, but it could hardly be said that she had
made him. Moreover his protest seemed to be addressed to the picture on
the mantel-piece.