Denry the Audacious

by Arnold Bennett

  "Steerage!" and Denry whistled.

  "Yes," said Ruth. "Nothing but pride, of course. Old Cotterill wantedto have every penny he could scrape so as to be able to make the leasttiny bit of a show when he gets to Toronto, and so--steerage! Justthink of Mrs. Cotterill and Nellie in the steerage! If I'd known of itI should have altered that, I can tell you, and pretty quickly too; andnow it's too late."

  "No, it is n't," Denry contradicted her flatly.

  "But they 've gone."

  "I could telegraph to Liverpool for saloon berths--there 's bound to beplenty at this time of year--and I could run over to Liverpool to-morrowand catch 'em on the boat and make 'em change."

  She asked him whether he really thought he could, and he assured her.

  "Second-cabin berths would be better," said she.

  "Why?"

  "Well, because of dressing for dinner and so on. They have n't got theclothes, you know."

  "Of course," said Denry.

  "Listen," she said, with an enchanting smile. "Let's halve the cost, youand I. And let's go to Liverpool together and--er--make the little giftand arrange things. I 'm leaving for Southport to-morrow, andLiverpool's on my way."

  Denry was delighted by the suggestion, and telegraphed to Liverpool,with success.

  Thus they found themselves on that morning in the Liverpool expresstogether. The work of benevolence in which they were engaged had apowerful influence on their mood, which grew both intimate and tender.Ruth made no concealment of her regard for Denry; and as he gazed acrossthe compartment at her, exquisitely mature (she was slightly older thanhimself), dressed to a marvel, perfect in every detail of manner,knowing all that was to be known about life, and secure in a handsomefortune--as he gazed, Denry reflected, joyously, victoriously:

  "I 've got the dibs, of course. But she's got 'em too--perhaps more.Therefore she must like me for myself alone. This brilliant creaturehas been everywhere and seen everything, and she comes back to the FiveTowns and comes back to _me_."

  It was his proudest moment. And in it he saw his future far moredazzlingly glorious than he had dreamt--even as late as six monthsbefore.

  "When shall you be out of mourning?" he inquired.

  "In two months," said she.

  This was not a proposal and acceptance, but it was very nearly one.They were silent, and happy.

  Then she said:

  "Do you ever have business at Southport?"

  And he said, in a unique manner:

  "I shall have."

  Another silence. This time, he felt, he would marry her.

  V

  The White Star liner _Titubic_ stuck out of the water like a row ofhouses against the landing-stage. There was a large crowd on herpromenade deck, and a still larger crowd on the landing-stage. Abovethe promenade deck officers paced on the navigating deck, and above thatwas the airy bridge, and above that the funnels, smoking, and somewherestill higher a flag or two fluttering in the icy breeze. And behind thecrowd on the landing-stage stretched a row of four-wheeled cabs andrickety horses. The landing-stage swayed ever so slightly on the tide.Only the ship was apparently solid, apparently cemented in foundationsof concrete.

  On the starboard side of the promenade deck, among a hundred other smallgroups, was a group consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Cotterill and Ruth andDenry. Nellie stood a few feet apart. Mrs. Cotterill was crying.People naturally thought she was crying because of the adieux. But shewas not. She wept because Denry and Ruth by sheer force of will hadcompelled them to come out of the steerage and occupy beautiful andcommodious berths in the second cabin, where the manner of the stewardswas quite different. She wept because they had been caught in thesteerage. She wept because she was ashamed, and because people were tookind. She was at once delighted and desolated. She wanted to outpourpsalms of gratitude, and also she wanted to curse.

  Mr. Cotterill said stiffly that he should repay--and that soon.

  An immense bell sounded impatiently.

  "We 'd better be shunting," said Denry. "That's the second."

  In exciting crises he sometimes employed such peculiar language as this.And he was very excited. He had done a great deal of rushing about.The upraising of the Cotterill family from the social Hades of thesteerage to the respectability of the second cabin had demanded all hisenergy and a lot of Ruth's.

  Ruth kissed Mrs. Cotterill and then Nellie. And Mrs. Cotterill andNellie acquired rank and importance for the whole voyage by reason ofbeing kissed in public by a woman so elegant and aristocratic as RuthCapron-Smith.

  And Denry shook hands. He looked brightly at the parents, but he couldnot look at Nellie; nor could she look at him; their handshaking wasperfunctory. For months their playful intimacy had been in abeyance.

  "Good-bye!"

  "Good luck!"

  "Thanks. Good-bye!"

  "Good-bye!"

  The horrible bell continued to insist.

  "All non-passengers ashore! All ashore!"

  The numerous gangways were thronged with people obeying the call, andhandkerchiefs began to wave. And there was a regular vibrating tremorthrough the ship.

  Mr. and Mrs. Cotterill turned away.

  Ruth and Denry approached the nearest gangway, and Denry stood aside andmade a place for her to pass. And, as always, a number of women pushedinto the gangways immediately after her and Denry had to wait, being aperfect gentleman.

  His eye caught Nellie's. She had not moved.

  He felt then as he had never felt in his life. No, absolutely never!Her sad, her tragic glance rendered him so uncomfortable, and yet sodeliciously uncomfortable, that the symptoms startled him. He wonderedwhat would happen to his legs. He was not sure that he had legs.

  However, he demonstrated the existence of his legs by running up toNellie. Ruth was by this time swallowed in the crowd on thelanding-stage. He looked at Nellie. Nellie looked at him. Her lipstwitched.

  "What am I doing here?" he asked of his soul.

  She was not at all well dressed. She was indeed shabby--in a steeragestyle. Her hat was awry; her gloves miserable. No girlish pride in herdistraught face! No determination to overcome fate! No consciousnessof ability to meet a bad situation. Just those sad eyes and thosetwitching lips.

  "Look here!" Denry whispered. "You must come ashore for a second. I've something I want to give you, and I 've left it in the cab."

  "But there's no time. The bell's..."

  "Bosh!" he exclaimed, gruffly, extinguishing her timid childish voice."You won't go for at least a quarter of an hour. All that's only adodge to get people off in plenty of time. Come on, I tell you."

  And in a sort of hysteria he seized her thin, long hand, and dragged heralong the deck to another gangway, down whose steep slope they stumbledtogether. The crowd of sightseers and handkerchief-wavers jostled them.They could see nothing but heads and shoulders and the great side of theship rising above. Denry turned her back on the ship.

  "This way!" He still held her hand.

  He struggled to the cab-rank.

  "Which one is it?" she asked.

  "Any one. Never mind which. Jump in!" And to the first driver whoseeye met his, he said: "Lime-street Station."

  The gangways were being drawn away. A hoarse boom filled the air, andthen a cheer.

  "But I shall miss the boat," the dazed girl protested.

  "Jump in!"

  He pushed her in.

  "But I shall miss the..."

  "I know you will," he replied, as if angrily. "Do you suppose I wasgoing to let you go by that steamer? Not much!"

  "But mother and father..."

  "I 'll telegraph. They 'll get it on landing."

  "And where's Ruth?"

  "_Be hanged to Ruth!_" he shouted furiously.

  As the cab rattled over the cobbles, the _Titubic_ slipped away from thelanding-stage. The irretrievable had happened.

  Nellie burst into tears.


  "Look here!" Denry said savagely. "If you don't dry up, I shall have tocry myself!"

  "What are you going to do with me?" she whimpered.

  "Well, what do _you_ think? I 'm going to marry you, of course."

  His aggrieved tone might have been supposed to imply that people hadtried to thwart him, but that he had no intention of being thwarted, norof asking permissions, nor of conducting himself as anything but afierce tyrant.

  As for Nellie, she seemed to surrender.

  Then he kissed her--also angrily. He kissed her several times--yes,even in Lord-street itself--less and less angrily.

  "Where are you taking me to?" she inquired humbly, as a captive.

  "I shall take you to my mother's," he said.

  "Will she like it?"

  "She 'll either like it or lump it," said Denry. "It 'll take afortnight."

  "What?"

  "The notice, and things."

  In the train, in the midst of a great submissive silence, she murmured:

  "It 'll be simply awful for father and mother."

  "That can't be helped," said he. "And they 'll be far too seasick tobother their heads about you."

  "You can't think how you 've staggered me," said she.

  "You can't think how I 've staggered myself," said he.

  "When did you decide to..."

  "When I was standing at the gangway and you looked at me," he answered.

  "But..."

  "It's no use butting," he said. "I 'm like that.... That's me, thatis!"

  It was the bare truth that he had staggered himself. But he hadstaggered himself into a miraculous, ecstatic happiness. She had nomoney, no clothes, no style, no experience, no particular gifts. Butshe was she. And when he looked at her, calmed, he knew that he haddone well for himself. He knew that if he had not yielded to thatterrific impulse he would have done badly for himself.

  Mrs. Machin had what she called a ticklish night of it.

  VI

  The next day he received a note from Ruth, dated Southport, inquiringhow he came to lose her on the landing-stage, and expressing concern.It took him three days to reply, and even then the reply was a bad one.He had behaved infamously to Ruth: so much could not be denied. Withinthree hours of practically proposing to her he had run off with a simplegirl who was not fit to hold a candle to her. And he did not care.That was the worst of it: he did not care.

  Of course the facts reached her. The facts reached everybody; for thesingular reappearance of Nellie in the streets of Bursley immediatelyafter her departure for Canada had to be explained. Moreover, theinfamous Denry was rather proud of the facts. And the town inevitablysaid: "Machin all over, that! Snatching the girl off the bloominglugger! Machin all over!" And Denry agreed privately that it wasMachin all over.

  "What other chap," he demanded of the air, "would have thought of it?Or had the pluck...."

  It was mere malice on the part of Destiny that caused Denry to runacross Mrs. Capron-Smith at Euston some weeks later. Happily they bothhad immense nerve.

  "Dear me!" said she. "What are you doing here?"

  "Only honeymooning," he said.

  CHAPTER XI. IN THE ALPS

  I

  Although Denry was extremely happy as a bridegroom, and capable of themost foolish symptoms of affection in private, he said to himself, andhe said to Nellie (and she sturdily agreed with him): "We aren't goingto be the ordinary silly honeymooners." By which, of course, he meantthat they would behave so as to be taken for staid married persons.They failed thoroughly in this enterprise as far as London, where theyspent a couple of nights, but on leaving Charing Cross they made a newand a better start, in the light of experience.

  The destination--it need hardly be said--was Switzerland. After Mrs.Capron-Smith's remarks on the necessity of going to Switzerland inwinter if one wished to respect one's self, there was really noalternative to Switzerland. Thus it was announced in the _Signal_ (whichhad reported the wedding in ten lines, owing to the excessive quietudeof the wedding) that Mr. and Mrs. Councillor Machin were spending amonth at Mont Pridoux, sur Montreux, on the Lake of Geneva. And theannouncement looked very well.

  At Dieppe they got a through carriage. There were several throughcarriages for Switzerland on the train. In walking through thecorridors from one to another Denry and Nellie had their first glimpseof the world which travels and which runs off for a holiday whenever itfeels in the mood. The idea of going for a holiday in any month butAugust seemed odd to both of them. Denry was very bold and would insiston talking in a naturally loud voice. Nellie was timid and clinging."What do you say?" Denry would roar at her when she half-whisperedsomething, and she had to repeat it so that all could hear. It was partof their plan to address each other curtly, brusquely, and to frown, andto pretend to be slightly bored by each other.

  They were outclassed by the world which travels. Try as they might,even Denry was morally intimidated. He had managed his clothes fairlycorrectly; he was not ashamed of them; and Nellie's were by no means theworst in the compartments; indeed, according to the standard of some ofthe most intimidating women, Nellie's costume erred in not being quitesufficiently negligent, sufficiently "anyhow." And they had plenty, andten times plenty of money, and the consciousness of it. Expense was notbeing spared on that honeymoon. And yet... Well, all that can be saidis that the company was imposing. The company, which was entirelyEnglish, seemed to be unaware that any one ever did anything else buttravel luxuriously to places mentioned in second-year geographies. Itastounded Nellie that there should be so many people in the world withnothing to do but spend. And they were constantly saying the strangestthings with an air of perfect calm.

  "How much did you pay for the excess luggage?" an untidy young womanasked of an old man.

  "Oh! Thirteen pounds," answered the old man carelessly.

  And not long before Nellie had scarcely escaped ten days in the steerageof an Atlantic liner.

  After dinner in the restaurant car--no champagne because it was vulgar,but a good sound expensive wine--they felt more equal to the situation,more like part-owners of the train. Nellie prudently went to bed erethe triumphant feeling wore off. But Denry stayed up smoking in thecorridor. He stayed up very late, being too proud and happy and tooavid of new sensations to be able to think of sleep. It was a matchwhich led to a conversation between himself and a thin, drawling,overbearing fellow with an eyeglass. Denry had hated this lordlycreature all the way from Dieppe. In presenting him with a match hefelt that he was somehow getting the better of him, for the match wasprecious in the nocturnal solitude of the vibrating corridor. The merefact that two people are alone together and awake, divided from asleeping or sleepy population only by a row of closed, mysterious doors,will do much to break down social barriers. The excellence of Denry'scigar also helped. It atoned for the breadth of his accent.

  He said to himself:

  "I 'll have a bit of a chat with this johnny."

  And then he said aloud:

  "Not a bad train this!"

  "No!" the eyeglass agreed languidly. "Pity they give you such a beastlydinner!"

  And Denry agreed hastily that it was.

  Soon they were chatting of places, and somehow it came out of Denry thathe was going to Montreux. The eyeglass professed its indifference toMontreux in winter, but said the resorts above Montreux were all right,such as Caux or Pridoux.

  And Denry said:

  "Well, of course, should n't think of stopping in Montreux. Going totry Pridoux."

  The eyeglass said it wasn't going so far as Switzerland yet; it meant tostop in the Jura.

  "Geneva's a pretty deadly place, ain't it?" said the eyeglass after apause.

  "Ye-es," said Denry.

  "Been there since that new esplanade was finished?"

  "No," said Denry. "I saw nothing of it."

  "When were you there?
"

  "Oh! A couple of years ago."

  "Ah! It was n't started then. Comic thing! Of course they 're awfullyproud in Geneva of the view of Mont Blanc."

  "Yes," said Denry.

  "Ever noticed how queer women are about that view? They 're no end keenon it at first, but after a day or two it gets on their nerves."

  "Yes," said Denry. "I 've noticed that myself. My wife..."

  He stopped because he did n't know what he was going to say.

  The eyeglass nodded understandingly. "All alike," it said. "Oddthing!"

  When Denry introduced himself into the two-berth compartment which hehad managed to secure at the end of the carriage for himself and Nellie,the poor tired child was as wakeful as an owl.

  "Who have you been talking to?" she yawned.

  "The eyeglass johnny."

  "Oh! Really!" Nellie murmured, interested and impressed. "With him,have you? I could hear voices. What sort of a man is he?"

  "He seems to be an ass," said Denry. "Fearfully haw-haw. Could n'tstand him for long. I 've made him believe we 've been married for twoyears."

  II

  They stood on the balcony of the Hotel Beau-Site of Mont Pridoux. Alittle below, to the right, was the other hotel, the Metropole, with thered-and-white Swiss flag waving over its central tower. A little belowthat was the terminal station of the funicular railway from Montreux.The railway ran down the sheer of the mountain into the roofs ofMontreux, like a wire. On it, two toy trains crawled towards eachother, like flies climbing and descending a wall. Beyond the fringe ofhotels that constituted Montreux was a strip of water, and beyond thewater a range of hills white at the top.