With tremendous strides, with emotion roaring in and out his nostrils in gusty blasts of fury, my passionate George encompassed the Park this way and that until he came at length upon his trembling Mary.
Save for that first blow where Bob's ring had marked his cheek he had suffered but little in the fight—sufficiently, notwithstanding, coupled with his colossal demeanour, for Mary's eyes to discover that something was amiss.
She came to him; cried at a little distance: “Oh, dearest, I—I could not meet you at the seat.”
Then she saw more clearly. She asked: “What has happened?” and stood with quivering lip recording the flutters of her heart.
George took one hand; patted it between both his. For the moment his boiling anger cooled beneath grim relish of his news. “I've pretty well killed that Chater swine,” he said.
“Mr. Chater?—you've met Mr. Chater?”
Now emotion boiled again in her turbulent George. He said: “I saw you run from him. I saw—what had he been doing?”
“Oh, Georgie!”
“Well, never mind. I'd rather not hear. I've paid him for it, whatever it was.”
“You fought? Oh, and your face—and your hand bleeding too!”
Tears stood in this ridiculous Mary's eyes. Women so often cry at the wrong moment. They should more closely study their men in the tremendous mannish crises that come to some of us. This was no moment for tears; it was an hour to be Amazon. To be hard-eyed. To count the scalps brought home by the brave—in delight to squeal over them; in pride to clap the hands and jump for joy at such big behaviour.
My Mary erred in every way. Her moistening eyes annoyed George.
“Oh, don't make a fuss about that, Mary,” he cried irritably. “It's nothing. Master Bob won't be able to see for a month.”
“Oh, George, why did you do it?”
Then the tremendous young man flamed. “Why did I do it? 'Pon my soul, Mary, I simply don't understand you sometimes. You've made me stand by and see you insulted for a month, and then I see him catch hold of you, and you run, and I go and thrash him, and you say, 'Why did you do it?' Do it? Do it? Why, good Lord, what would you have had me do—apologise for you?”
She turned away, dropped his hand.
My unfortunate George groaned aloud: sprang to her. “Mary, darling, dearest, you know I didn't mean that.”
She kept her face from him; her pretty shoulders heaved.
He cried in misery, striving to see her face: “What a brute I am! What a brute! Mary, Mary, you know I didn't mean that.”
She gasped: “You ge-get angry so quick.”
“I know, I know. I'm not fit—I couldn't help—Mary, do look up.”
She swallowed a sob; gave him her little hand.
He squeezed it, squeezed it as it were between his love for her and the tremendous passion that was consuming him. Contrition at his sharp words to her hammered the upper plate, wrath at the manner of her reception of his news was anvil beneath. The poor fingers horribly suffered.
There are conditions of the male mind—and this George was in the very heart of one—when softness in a woman positively goads to fury. The mind is in an itching fever, and—like a bull against a gate-post—requires hard, sharp corners against which to rub and ease the irritation. Comes the lord and master home sulky or in fury, the wise wife will meet him with a demeanour so spiked that he may scratch his itching at every turn. To be soft and yielding is the most fatal conduct; it is to send the lumbering bull crashing through the gate-post into the lane to seek solace away from the home paddock.
Unversed in these homely recipes, this simple Mary had at least the wit not to cry “Oh!” in pain and move her hand. They found a seat, and for good five minutes this turbulent George sat and threshed in his wrath like a hooked shark—this little hand the rope that held him. Soon its influence was felt. His tuggings and boundings grew weaker. The venom oozed out of him.
He uncovered the crushed fingers; raising, pressed them to his lips.
He groaned. “Now you know me at last.”
She patted those brown hands; did not speak.
“You know the awful temper I've got,” he went on. “Uncontrollable—angry even with you—foul brute—”
“But I annoyed you, Georgie.”
He flung out an accusatory hand against himself. “How? By being sweet and loving! Why, what a brute I must be!”
She told him: “You shan't call yourself names. In fact, you mustn't. Because that is calling me names too. We belong, Georgie.”
The pretty sentiment tickled him. Gloom flew from his brow before sunshine that took its place. He laughed. “You're a dear, dear old thing.”
She gave a whimsical look at him. “I ought to have said at once what I am going to say now: Did you hurt him much?”
“I bashed him!” George said, revelling in it. “I fairly bashed him!”
She snuggled against this tremendous fellow.
It was a park-keeper who, from that opium drug of sweet silence with which lovers love to dull their senses, recalled them to the urgency for action.
The park-keeper led David by one hand, Angela by the other, whence he had found them wandering. Disappointment that their owner was a protected lady instead of a nicely-shaped nursemaid whom by this introduction he might add to his recreations, delivered him of stern reproof at the carelessness which had let these children go astray.
“I would very much like to know,” he concluded, “what their ma would say.”
“My plump gentleman,” said George pleasantly, “meet me at this trysting-place at noon to-morrow, and your desire shall be gratified.”
The park-keeper eyed him; thought better of the bitter words he had contemplated; contented himself with: “Funny, ain't yer?”
“Screaming,” said George. “One long roar of mirth. Hundreds turned away nightly. Early doors threepence extra. Bring the wife.”
The park-keeper withdrew with a morose air.
And now my George and his Mary turned upon the immediate future. Conning the map of ways and means and roads of action, a desolate and almost horrifying country presented itself. No path that might be followed offered pleasant prospects. All led past that ogre's castle at 14 Palace Gardens; at the head of each stood the ogress shape of Mrs. Chater, gnashing for blood and bones over the disaster to her first-born. She must be faced.
George flared a torch to light the gloom: “But why should you go near her, dearest? Let me do it. I'll take the children back. I'll see her. I'll get your boxes.”
Even the sweetest women trudge through life handicapped by the preposterous burden of wishing to do what their sad little minds hold right. It is a load which, too firmly strapped, makes them dull companions on the highway.
Mary said: “It wouldn't be right, dear. The children are in my charge; how could I send them back to their mother in the care of a strange man? And it wouldn't be right to myself, either. It would look as if I admitted myself in the wrong. No; I must, must face her.”
George's torch guttered; gave gloom again. He tried a second: “Well, I'll come with you. That's a great idea. She won't dare say much while I'm there.”
“Oh, it wouldn't be right, Georgie. You oughtn't to come to the house—to see her—after what you've done to the detestable Bob. No, I'll go alone and I'll go now. You shall come as far as the top of the road and there wait.”
“And then?” George asked.
This was to research the map for rest-houses and for fortunes that might be won after the ogre castle had been passed.
Mary conned and peered until the strain squeezed a little moisture in her eyes. “I don't know,” she said faintly.
Her bold George had to know. “It won't be for very long, dear old girl. You must find another situation. Till then a lodging. I know a place where a man I know used to have digs. A jolly old landlady. I'll raise some money—I'll borrow it.”
Mary tried to brighten. “Yes, and I'll go to that agency again. I must, because I shall have no character, you see. I'll tell her everything quite truthfully, and I think she'll be nice.”
“It's no good waiting,” George said. His voice had the sound of a funeral bell.
Mary arose slowly, white. She said: “Come along.”
With a tumbril rumble in their ears, the children dancing ahead, they started for Palace Gardens.
The groans and curses of her adored Bob, his bulgy mouth and shutting eyes, his tender nose and the encrimsoned water where he had layed his wounds—these had so acted upon Mrs. Chater's nerves, plunged her into such vortex of hysteria, that the manner of her reception of Mary was true reflection of her fears, nothing dissembled.
Withdrawing her agitated face from the dining-room window as Mary and the children approached, she bounded heavily to the door; flung it ajar; collapsed to her knees upon the mat; clasped David and Angela to that heaving bosom.
“Safe!” she wailed. “Safe! Thank God, my little lambs are safe!”
Distraught she swayed and hugged; kissed and moaned again.
David pressed away. “You smell like whisky, mummie,” he said.
It was a dash of icy water on a fainting fit; wonderfully it strung the demented woman's senses. She pushed her little lambs from her; fixed Mary with awful eye.
“So you've come back—Miss?”
Mary quivered.
“I wonder you dared. I wonder you had the boldness to face me after your wicked behaviour. You've got nothing to say for yourself. I'm not surprised—”
Mary began: “Mrs. Chater, I—”
“Oh, how can you? How can you dare defend yourself? Never, never in all my born days have I met with such ingratitude; never have I been deceived like this. I took you in. I felt sorry for you. I fed you, clothed you, cared for you, treated you as one of my own family; and this is my reward. There you stand, unable to say a word—”
“If you think, Mrs. Chater—”
“Don't speak! I won't hear you. Here have I day after day been entrusting my beloved lambs to your care, and heaven alone knows what risks they have run. My boy—my Bob, who would die rather than get a living soul into trouble—sees you with this man you have been going about with. He does his duty to me, his mother, and to my precious lambs, his brother and sister, by reproving you, and you set this man—this low hired bully—upon him to murder him. I'll have the law on the coward. I'll punish him and I'll punish you, miss. No wonder you were frightened when my Bob caught you. No wonder.”
“That is untrue, Mrs. Chater.”
“Don't speak!”
“I will speak. I shall speak. It is untrue.”
“You dare—”
“It is a lie. Yes, I don't mind what I say when you speak to me like that. It is a wicked lie.”
“Girl—!”
“If your son told you he caught me with the man who thrashed him as he deserved, he told you a lie. He never saw me with him. He followed me into the Park this morning and tried to repeat what he did on Friday night. He is a coward and a cad. The man to whom I am engaged caught him at it and thrashed him as he deserved. There! Now you know the truth!”
Very white, my ridiculous Mary pressed her hand to her panting breast; stopped, choked by the wild words that came tumbling up into her mouth.
Very red, swelling and panting in turkey-cock fury, Mrs. Chater, towering, swallowed and gasped, breathless before this vixenish attack.
But she was the first to find speech; and incoherently she stormed as at a scratching do those persons whose true selves lie beneath a tissue film of polish.
She bubbled and panted: “Oh, you wicked girl!—oh, you wicked girl!—oh, you wicked girl!—bold as brass-calling me a liar—me—and my battered boy—engaged indeed!—I'll have the law and the police and the judges—my solicitors—libel and assault, and slander and attempted murder—boxes searched—my precious lambs to hear their mother spoken to like this—get out of the hat-rack, David, and go upstairs this instant—Angela, don't stand there—if I wasn't a lady I'd box your ears, miss—only a week ago didn't I give you a black silk skirt of mine?—and fed you like a princess, with a soft feather pillow too, because you said the bolster made your head ache—servants to wait on you hand and foot—and this is my reward—how I keep my hands off you heaven only knows—but you shall suffer, miss—oh, yes you shall—I'll give you in charge—I'll call a policeman.”
She turned towards the kitchen stairs; screamed “Susan! Kate! Jane! Susan!”
Small need to bellow. Around the staircase corner three white-capped heads—Kate holding back Susan, Susan restraining Jane, Jane holding Kate—had been with delighted eyes and straining ears bathing in this rare scene. With glad unanimity they broke their restraint one upon the other; crushed pell-mell, hustling up the narrow stairs.
Mrs. Chater plumped back into a chair; with huge hands fanned her heated face. “Fetch a policeman!”
They plunged for the door.
Bob's swollen countenance came over the banisters. He roared “Stop!”
Kate, Jane and Susan swung between the conflicting authorities.
“Call a policeman! Summon a constable! Fetch an officer!” In gusty breaths from behind Mrs. Chater's hands, working like a red paddle-wheel, came the commands.
“Stop!” roared Bob; and to enforce pushed forward the battered face till it stuck out flat over the hall.
His alarmed mother screamed: “Bob, you'll fall over the banisters!”
The two kept up a battledore and shuttlecock of agitated conversation.
“Well, stop those women!” Bob cried; “for God's sake, stop them, mother! What on earth are you thinking of?”
“I'll give her in charge!”
“You can't, you can't. Oh, my God, what a house this is!”
“She called me a liar!”
“You can't charge her for that.”
“She half murdered you!”
“She never touched me. Why don't you do as I told you? Why don't you send her away?”
“Mercy, Bob! you'll fall and kill yourself!”
“Do as I say, then! Do as I say!”
“Well, put back your head! Put back your head.”
“Do as I say, then!”
Mrs. Chater stopped the paddle-wheel; rose to her feet. Bob's ghastly face drew in to safer limits. She addressed Mary: “Again my boy has interceded for you. Oh, how you must feel!” She addressed the maids: “Is her box packed?”
They chorused “Yes”; pointed, and Mary saw her tin box, corded, set against the wall.
“Call a cab,” Mrs. Chater commanded; and as the whistle blew she turned again upon Mary.
“Now, miss, you may go. I pack you off as you deserve. But before you go—”
The battered face shot out again above the banisters: “Pay her her wages and send her away, mother. Do, for goodness' sake, send her away!”
“Wages! Certainly not! Mercy! Your head again! Go back, Bob!”
The maddened, pain-racked Bob bellowed: “Oh, stop it! stop it! I shall go mad in a minute. She is entitled to her wages. Pay her.”
“I won't!”
“Well, I will. Susan! Susan, come up here and take this money. How much is it?”
“She is not to be paid,” Mrs. Chater trumpeted.
“She is to be paid,” bawled her son. “Do you want an action brought against you? Oh, my God, what a house this is!”
“My boy! You will fall! Very well, I'll pay her.” Mrs. Chater turned to Mary. “Again and yet again my son intercedes for you, miss. Oh, how you must feel!” She grabbed around her dress for her pocket; found a purse; produced coins; banged them upon the table. “There!”
And now my Mary, who had stood upright breasting these successive surges, spoke her little fury.
With a hand she swept the table, sending the coins flying this way and that—with them a card salver, a vase, a pile of prayer-books. With her little foot she banged the floor.
“I would not touch your money—your beastly money. You are contemptible and vulgar, and I despise you. Mr. Chater, if you are a man you will tell your mother why you were thrashed. Do you dare to say you interfered because you found me with someone? Do you dare?”
With masterly strategy Bob drove home a flank attack. To have affirmed he did dare might lead to appalling outburst from this little vixen. He said very quietly, as though moved by pity: “Please do not make matters worse by blustering, Miss Humfray.” He sighed: “I bear you no ill-will.”
My poor Mary allowed herself to be denuded of self-possession. His words put her control to flight; left her exposed. Tears started in her eyes. She made a little rush for the stairs. “Oh, you coward!” she cried. “You coward! I will make you say the truth.”
Would she have clutched the skirts of his dressing-gown, forgetting the proper modesty of a nice maiden, and dragged him down the stairs? Would she indelicately have pursued him to his very bedroom, and there, regardless of his scanty dress, have assaulted him?
Bob believed she would. It is so easy for the world's heroines to remain calm against attack. My Mary was made of commoner stuff—the wretched, baser clay of which not I, but my neighbours, not you, but your acquaintances, are made.
Bob believed she would. He cried, “Send her away! Why the devil don't you send her away?”; gathered his skirts; fled for the safety of a locked door.
Mrs. Chater believed she would. Mrs. Chater plunged across the hall; stood, an impassable and panting guardian, upon the lowermost step. Her outstretched arm stayed Mary; a voice announced, “The cab'm.”
My Mary stood a moment; little fists clenched, flashing eyes; blinked against the premonition of a rush of tears; then, as they came, turned for the door.
“Go!” trumpeted Mrs. Chater. “Go!”
Mary was upon the mat when Angela and David made a little rush; caught her skirts. The alarming scenes had hurtled in sequence too rapid and too violent to be by the children understood. But a scrap here and a scrap there they had caught, retained, correctly interpreted; and the whole, though it supplied no reason, told clearly that their adored Mary was going from them.
“You're coming back soon, aren't you?” David cried.
“You're not going away, are you, Miss Humf'ay?” implored Angela.
Mrs. Chater shrilled: “Children, come away. Come here at once.”
Mary dropped one knee upon the mat; caught her arms about the children. She pressed a cool face against each side her wet and burning countenance, gave kisses, and upon the added stress of this new emotion choked: “Good-bye, little ducklings!”
“Oh, darling, darling Miss Humf'ay, we will be good if you'll stay!” They felt this was the desperate threat that so often followed their misdemeanours put into action.
She held them, hugging them. “It isn't that. You have been good.”
“Then you said you would stay for ever and ever if we were good.”
“Not ever and ever; I said—I said perhaps a fairy prince would come to take me. Didn't I?”
This was the romance that forbade tears. But David had doubts. He regarded the hansom at the door: “That's a cab, not a carriage. Fairy princes don't come in cabs.”
“The prince is waiting. Kiss me, darling Davie. Angie, dear, dear Angle, kiss me.”
She rose. Mrs. Chater had come from the stairs, now laid hands upon the small people and dragged them back from the pretty figure about which they clung.
They screamed, “Let me go!”
David roared; dropped prone upon the mat to kick and howl: “Take away your hand, mother!”
Angela gasped: “Oh, comeback, comeback, darling Miss Humf'ay!”
With a glare of defiance into Mrs. Chater's stormy eyes, my Mary stooped over David.
“David!” The calm ring of the tones he had learned to obey checked his clamour, his plunging kicks. She stooped; kissed him. “Be good as gold,” she commanded. “Promise.”
“Good as gold—yes—p'omise,” David choked.
Angela was given, and gave, the magic formula. Mary stepped back. Susan slammed the door.
With quivering lips my Mary walked to the cab.
“Drive down the street,” she choked; lay back against the cushions; gave herself to shaking sobs.
Her George met her a very few yards down the street. He gave an order to the cabman and sat beside her.
It was not long before her grief was hushed. She dried her eyes; nestled against this wonderful fellow who, as love had now constituted her world, was the solace against every trouble that could come to her, the shield against any power that might arise to do her hurt.
They debated the position and found it desperate; discussed the immediate future to discover it threatening. Yet the gloom was irradiated by the glowing light of the prospective future; the rumbling of present fears was lost in the tinkling music of their voices, striking notes from love.
The cab twisted this way and that; clattered over Battersea Bridge, down the Park, to the right past the Free Library, and so into Meath Street and to the clean little house of the landlady whom George knew.
To her, in the tiny sitting-room, the story was told.
It appeared that she had never yet taken a lady lodger. In her street ladies were regarded with suspicion; that no petticoats were ever to be fetched across the threshold was a rule to which each medical student who engaged her rooms must first subscribe.
None the less she was here acquiescent. She knew George well; had for him an affection above that which commonly she entertained for the noisy young men who were her means of livelihood. Mary should pay for the little back bedroom that Mr. Thornton had; and, free of charge, should have use of the sitting-room rented by Mr. Grainger. There would be no lodgers until the medical schools reopened in October.
So it was settled—and together in the sitting-room where Mrs. Pinking made them a little lunch again they debated the immediate future. It was three weeks before George's examination was due. Again he declared himself confident that, when actually he had passed, his uncle would not refuse the 400 pounds which meant the world to them—which meant the tight little practice at Runnygate. But the intervening weeks were meanwhile to be faced. Mary must have home. At the Agency she must pour forth her tale and seek new situation till they could be married. If the Agency failed them—They shuddered.
Revolving desperate schemes for the betterment of this position into which with such alarming suddenness they had been thrust, George took his leave. He would have tarried, but his Mary was insistent that his work must not be interfered with. Upon its successful exploitation everything now depended.
Brightly she kissed her George good-bye. He was not to worry about her. She was to be shut from his mind. To-morrow she would go to the Agency. He might lunch with her, and, depend upon it, she would greet him with great news.
So they parted.
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