Saturday was the day immediately following this scene.
George, on a 'bus carrying him towards Regent's Park, was in spirit at one with the gay freshness that gave this September morning a spring-like air.
A week of torrid heat, in which London crawled, groaned, and panted, had been wiped from the memory by an over-night thunderstorm that burst the pent-up dams of heaven and loosed cool floods upon the staring streets. No misty drizzle nor gusty shower it had been, but a strong, straight, continuous downpour, seemingly impelled by tremendous pressure. Dusty roofs, dusty streets, dusty windows it had scoured and scrubbed and polished; torrents had poured down the gutters—whenever temporarily the pressure seemed to relax, the ears of wakeful Londoners were sung to by the gurgle and rush of frantic streams driving before them the collected debris of many days.
Upon this morning, in the result, a tempest might have swept the town and found never a speck of dust to drive before it. The very air had been washed and sweetened; and London's workers, scurrying to and from their hives, seemed also to have benefited by some attribute of the downpour that tinted cheeks, sparkled eyes, and, rejuvenating limbs, gave to them a new sprightliness of movement.
George, from his 'bus, caught many a bright eye under a jaunty little hat; gave each back its gleam from the depths of gay lightness that filled his heart. Nearing the Park he alighted; made two purchases. From a confectioner bun-corn for David and Angela, those ramping steeds; from a florist the reddest rose that an exhaustive search of stock could discover.
Mary had from him such a rose at their every meeting. She might not wear it back to Palace Gardens—it would not flourish beneath Mrs. Chater's curiosity; but while they were together she would tuck it in her bosom, and George tenderly would bear it home and set it in a vase before him to lend him inspiration as he worked.
It is almost certain that such a part is one for which flowers were especially designed.
Those splendid steeds, David and Angela, having been duly exercised, groomed, and turned out to browse upon bun-corn, George rushed at once upon the matter that was singing within him.
Where he sat with his Mary they were sheltered from any but chance obtrusion. She had taken off her gloves, and George gave her hands, as they lay in her lap, a little confident pat. It was the tap of the baton with which the conductor calls together his orchestra—for this was a song that George was about to tune, very confident that the chords of both instruments that should give the notes were in a harmony complete.
He said: “Mary, do you know what I am going to talk about?”
She had been a little silent that morning, he had thought; did not answer now, but smiled.
He laid a hand upon both hers. “You must say 'yes.' You've got to say 'yes' about twenty times this morning, so start now. Do you know what I'm going to talk about?”
“Yes.”
“No objections this time?”
“Yes.”
He laughed; gave her hand a little smack of reproof. (You who have loved will excuse these lovers' absurdities.) “No, no; you are only to say 'yes' when I tell you. No objections to the subject this morning?”
His Mary told him “No.”
“Couldn't have a better morning for it, could we?”
She took a little catch at her breath.
George dropped the banter in his tone. “Nothing wrong to-day, is there, dear? Nothing up?”
How sadly wrong everything in truth was she had determined not to tell him until she more certainly knew its extent. She shook her head; reassuringly smiled.
“Well, that's all right—there couldn't be on a morning like this. Now we've got to begin at the beginning. Mary, I planned it all out last night—all this conversation. We've got to begin at the beginning—Do you know I've never told you yet that I love you? You knew it, though, didn't you, from the first, the very first? Tell me from when?”
“George, this is awfully foolish, isn't it?”
“Never mind. It's jolly nice. It's necessary, too. I've read about it. It's always done. Tell me from when you knew I loved you.”
“After last Saturday.”
“Oh, Mary! Much earlier than that! You must have!”
“Well, I thought perhaps you—you cared after that first day when you came here.”
“Not before that?”
She laughed. “Come, how could I? Why, I'd hardly seen you.”
“Well, I did, anyway,” George told her. “I loved you from the very minute you shot out of the cab that day. There! But even this isn't the proper thing. I've been promising myself all night to say four words to you—just four. Now I'm going to say them: Mary, I love you.”
She looked in his eyes for a moment, answering the signal that shone thence; and then she laughed that clear pipe of mirth which was so uniquely her own possession.
“Oh, I say, you mustn't do that,” George cried. He was really perturbed.
“I can't help it. You are so utterly foolish.”
“I'm not. It's the proper thing. I tell you I've planned it all out. I love you. I've never said it to you before. Now it's your turn.”
“But what on earth am I to say?”
“You've got to say that you love me.”
“You're making a farce of it.”
“No, I tell you I've planned it all out. I can't go on till you've said it.”
“You can't expect me to say: 'George, I love you.' It's ridiculous. It's like a funny story.”
“Oh, never mind what it's like. Do be serious, Mary. How can I be sure you love me if you won't tell me?”
For the first moment since its happening the thought of Bob Chater and of Mrs. Chater passed completely from Mary's mind. She looked around: there was no soul in sight. She listened: there was no sound. She clasped her fingers about his; leaned towards him, her face upturned....
He kissed her upon the lips....
“The plans,” said George after a moment, “have all gone fut. I never thought of that way.”
“It's much better,” Mary said.
“The other's not a patch upon it,” said George.
You must conjecture of what lovers think when, following their first kiss, they sit silent. It is not a state that may be written down in such poor words as your author commands. For the touch of lips on lips is the key that turns the lock and gives admission to a world dimly conceived, yet found to have been wrongly conceived since conceived never to be so wonderful or so beautiful as it does prove. Nor, ever again, once the silence is broken and speech is found, has that world an aspect quite the same. For the door that divides this new world from the material world can never from the inside be closed. It is at first—for the space of that silence after the first kiss—pushed very close by those who have entered; but, soon after, the breath of every rushing moment blows it further and further ajar. Drab objects from the outer world drift across the threshold and obtrude their presence—vagabond tramps in a rose-garden, unpleasant, marring the surroundings, soiling the atmosphere. Cares drift in, worldly interests drift in; in drift smudgy, soiled, unpleasant objects brushing the door yet wider upon its hinges till it stands back to its furthest extent and the interior becomes at one with the outer world. The process is gradual, indiscernible. When completed the knowledge of what has been done dawns suddenly. One knocks against an intruder especially drab, starts into wakefulness to rub the bruise, and looking around exclaims, “And this is love!”
Well, it was love. But a rose-garden will not long remain beautiful if no care is taken of what may intrude.
If we but stand sentinel at the door, exercising a nice discretion, the garden may likely remain unsoiled, its air uncontaminated.
George said that though across the first portion of the scheme he had so laboriously planned he had been shot at lightning speed by the vehicle of Mary's action, its latter portion yet remained to be discussed. “We've got to marry, dearest—and as quick as quick. We can't go on like this—seeing each other once a week. No, not even if it were once a day. It's got to be always.”
“Always and always, dear,” Mary said softly.
Women are more intoxicated than men by the sudden atmosphere of that new world. The awe of it was still upon her. The light of love comes strongly to men, with the sensation of bright sunshine; to women as through stained glass windows, softly.
She continued: “Fancy saying 'always' and being glad to say it! I never thought I could. Do you know—will this frighten you?—I am one of those people who dread the idea of 'always.' I never could bear the idea of looking far, far ahead and not seeing any end. It frightened me. Ever since father died, I've been like that—even in little things, even in tangible things. When we go to the seaside in the summer I never can bear to look straight across the sea. That gives me the idea of always—of long, long miles and miles without a turn or a stop. I want to think every day, every hour, that what I am doing can't go on—mustchange. It suffocates me to think otherwise. I want to jump out, to scream.”
Then she gave that laugh that seldom failed to come to her relief, and said: “It's a sort of claustrophobia—isn't that the word?—on a universal scale. But why is it? And why am I suddenly changed now? Why does the thought of always, always, endless always with you, bring a sort of—don't laugh, dear—a sort of bliss, peace?”
This poor George of mine, who was no deep thinker, nevertheless had the reason pat. He said:
“I think because the past has all been unhappy and because this, you know, means happiness.”
She gave a little sigh; told him: “Yes, that's it—happiness.”
And now they fell to making plans as mating birds build nests. Here a bit of straw and there a tuft of moss; here a feather, there a shred of wool—George would do this and George would do that; here the house would be and thus would they do in the house. Probabilities were outraged, obstacles vaulted.
Castles that are builded in the air spring into being quicker than Aladdin's palace—bricks and mortar, beams and stones are featherweight when handled in the clouds; every piece is so dovetailed, marked and numbered that like magic there springs before the eye the shining whole—pinnacled, turreted, embattled.
Disaster arrives when the work is completed. “There!” we say, standing back, a little flushed and out of breath with the excitement of the thing. “There! There's a place in which to live! Could any existence be more glorious?” And then we advance a step and lean against the walls to survey the surrounding prospect. It is the fatal action. The material body touches the aerial structure and down with a crash the castle comes—back we pitch into the foundations, and thwack, bump, thwack, comes the masonry tumbling about us, bruising, wounding.
George had built the castle. Mary had sat by twittering and clapping her hands for glee as higher and higher it rose. He knew for a fact, he told her, that his uncle had not expended upon his education much more than half the money left him for the purpose. He was convinced that by hook or by crook he could obtain the 400 pounds that would buy him the practice at Runnygate of which the Dean had told him. They would have a little house there—the town would thrive—the practice would nourish—in a year—why, in a year they would likely enough have to be thinking of getting a partner! And it would begin almost immediately! In three weeks the examination would be held. He could not fail to pass—then for the 400 pounds and Runnygate!
And then, unhappily, George leaned against this castle wall; provoked the crash.
“Till then, dear,” he said, “you will stay with these Chater people. I know you hate it; but it will be only a short time, a few weeks at most.”
Instantly her gay twittering ceased. Trouble drove glee from her eyes. Memory chased dreams from her brain. Distress tore down the gay colours from her cheeks. She clasped her hands; from her seat half rose.
“Oh!” she cried; and again, “Oh! I had forgotten!”
“Forgotten? Forgotten what?”
“Dearest, I should have told you at the beginning, but I could not. I wanted to wait until I knew. I have not seen her yet this morning.”
My startled George was becoming pale. “Knew what? Seen whom? What do you mean?”
She said, “No, I won't tell you. I won't spoil all this beautiful morning we have spent. I will wait till next week.”
“Mary, what do you mean? Wait till next week? No. You must tell me now. How could I leave you like this, knowing you are in some trouble? What has happened? You must tell. You must. I insist.”
“Ah, I will.” Her agitation, as her mind cast back over the events of the previous night, was enhanced by the suddenness of the change from the sunshine in which she had been disporting to the darkness that now swept upon her. She was as a girl who, singing along a country lane, is suddenly confronted from the hedgeside by some ugly tramp.
She said, “You know that young Mr. Chater?”
Dark imaginings clouded upon George's brow. “Yes,” he said. “Yes; well—?”
“Last night—” And then she gave him the history of events.
This simple George of mine writhed beneath it.
It was a poison torturing his system, twisting his brow, knotting his hands. Her presence, when she finished, did not stay his cry beneath his rackings: he was upon his feet. “By Gad,” he cried, “I'll thrash the life out of him! The swine! By Gad, I'll kill him!”
She laid a hand upon his arm. “Georgie, dear,” she pleaded. “Don't, don't take it like that. I haven't finished.”
Roughly he turned upon her. “Well, what else? What else?”
“I haven't seen him since. He went away early this morning for the week-end. And I have not seen Mrs. Chater again either. I am to see her this afternoon. She sent me word to take the children as usual and that she would see me at three.”
My poor George bitterly broke out: “Oh! Will she? That's kind of her! That's delightful of her! Are you going to see her?”
“Of course I shall see her.”
“'Of course'! 'Of course'! I don't know what you mean by talking in that tone. You won't stay there another minute! That's what you'll tell her if you insist upon seeing her. If you had behaved properly you'd have walked out of the house there and then when it happened last night.”
Spite of her trouble Mary could not forbear to laugh. “Dearest, how could I?”
But this furious young man could not see her point. His fine passion swept him above contingencies.
“Well, then, this morning,” he laid down. “The first thing this morning you should have gone.” He supplied detail: “Packed your box, and called a cab and gone.”
His dictatory air drew from her another sad little laugh.
“Oh, George, dear,” she cried, “gone where?”
It was a bucket of water dashed upon his flames, and for a moment they flickered beneath it—then roared again: “Where? Anywhere!”
“Oh!” she cried, “you are stupid! You don't see—you don't understand! Easy to say 'anywhere,' but where—where? I have no money. I have no friends—I—”
The knowledge of her plight and her outlook crowded upon her speech; broke her voice.
Her distracted George in a moment had her hands in his. “Oh, my dear,” he cried, “what a fool I am! What a beast to storm like that! I was so wild. So mad. Of course you had to think before you moved. You were right, of course you were right. But, my darling, I'm right now. You see that, don't you? You can't stay a moment longer with those beasts.”
And then he laughed grimly. “Especially,” he added, “after what I'm going to do to Master Bob.”
She too laughed. The thought of Bob learning manners beneath the tuition of those sinewy brown hands that were about hers was very pleasant to her. But it was a pleasure that must be denied—this she saw clearly as the result of weary tossings throughout the night; and now she set about the task of explaining it to George.
She said: “Oh, my dear, you're not right. Georgie, I can't go—if Mrs. Chater will let me stay I must stay.”
He tried to be calm, to understand these women, to understand his Mary. “But why?” he asked. “Why?”
“Dearest, because I must bridge over the time until you are ready to take me. You see that?”
“Of course. But why there? You can easily get another place.”
“Oh, easily! If you had been through it as I have been! The first thing they ask you for is a reference from your former situation. Think what a reference Mrs. Chater would give me!”
He would not agree. He plunged along in his blundering, man fashion: “In time you could get a place where they would not ask questions—or rather—yes, of course this is it. Tell them frankly all that happened. Who could see you and not believe you? Tell them everything. There must be some nice people in the world.”
“There may be. But they don't want helps or governesses—in my experience.” The little laugh she gave was sadly doleful.
He was still angry. “You can't generalise like that. There are thousands who would believe you and be glad to take you. Suppose you have to wait a bit—well, you have a little money that she must give you; and I—oh, curse my poverty!—I can borrow, and I can sell things.”
The help that a man would give a woman so often has lack of sympathy; he is unkind while meaning to be kind. George's obdurateness, coming when she was most in need of kisses, hurt her. Trouble welled in her eyes.
“I wouldn't do that,” she said. “For one thing, we want all our money. Why throw it away to get me out of a place in which I shall only be for a few weeks longer? Another thing—another thing—” She dragged a ridiculous handkerchief from her sleeve; dabbed her brimming eyes. “Another thing—I'm afraid to risk it. I'm afraid to be alone and looking for a place again. There—now you know. I'm a coward.”
She fell to sniffing and sobbing; and her wretched George, cursing himself for the grief he had evoked, cursing Bob Chater, cursing Mrs. Chater, cursing his uncle Marrapit, put his arms about her and drew her to him. She quivered hysterically, and he frantically moaned that he was a beast, a brute, unworthy; implored forgiveness; entreated calm; by squeezing her with his left arm and with his right hand dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief, screwed to a pathetic little damp ball, strove to stem the flood that alarmingly welled from them.
It was an awful position for any young man; and just as my poor George, distinguished in nothing, inept, bewildered, was in a mood murderous to the whole world save this anguished fairy, a wretched old gentleman must needs come sunning himself down the path, making for this seat with hobbling limbs.
He collapsed upon it, and then, glancing to his right, was struck with palpitations by sight of the heaving back of a young woman over whose shoulder glared at him with hideous ferocity the face of a young man.
“Dear me, dear me,” said he; “nothing wrong, sir, I trust?”
“Go away!” roared my distracted George.
“Eh?” inquired the old gentleman, horribly startled.
“Go away! Go away!”
The fire of those baleful eyes, of that bellowing voice, struck terror into the aged heart. He clutched his stick.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” said he; hobbled away at a speed dangerous to his life and limbs to seek protection of a park-keeper.
The sobs grew longer, less hysterical: changed into long “ohs” of misery; died away.
“There, there,” said George, patting, dabbing. “There, there.”
With a final frantic sniff she recovered her self-possession.
“I'm a little f—fool,” said she.
“I'm a brute,” said George.
The bitter knowledge nerved each to better efforts. Calm reigned.
Mary said, “Now you must listen and believe, dear.”
“Let me have your hand, then.”
She gave it with a little confiding, snuggling movement, and she continued: “You must believe, because I have thought it all out, whereas to you it is new. If I were a proper-spirited girl”—she rebuked his negation with a gesture—“if I were a proper-spirited girl I know I should leave Mrs. Chater at once—walk out and not care what I might suffer rather than stay where I had been insulted. Girls in books would do it. Oh, Georgie, this isn't books. This is real. I have been through it, and I would die sooner than face it again. You know—I have told you—what it is like being alone in cheap lodgings in London. Afraid of people, dear. Afraid of men, afraid of women. I couldn't, could not go through it again. And after all-don't you see?—if Mrs. Chater will let me stay, what have I to mind? I shall be better off than before, if anything. Mrs. Chater has always been—well, sharp. She may be a little worse—there's nothing in that. But this Bob Chater, since he came, has been the worst part of it. And as things are now, his mother watchful and he—what shall I say? angry, ashamed—why, he will pay no further attention to me. Come, am I not right? Isn't it best?—if only she will let me stay.”
“I don't like it,” George said. “I don't like it.”
“Dearest, nor I. But we can't, can't have what we like, and this will be the best of the nasty things. For so short a time, too. I'm quite bright about it. Am I not? Look at me.”
George looked. Then he said, “All right, old girl.”
She clapped her hands. “Only one thing more. You mustn't seek out—you mustn't touch the detestable Bob.”
With the gloom of one relinquishing life's greatest prize George said, “I suppose I mustn't.” He added, “I tell you what, though. You mustn't interfere with this. I'll save it up for him. The day I take you out and marry you I'll pull him out—and pay him.”
They parted upon the promises that Mary would write that evening to tell him of the result of her interview with Mrs. Chater, and that, in the especial circumstances, he might come to see her in the Park for just two minutes on Monday morning.
Chater, but upon the love they had declared.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg