by A. J. Cronin
Stupified and sobered, he raised a clumsy hand to his gashed mouth. The tinkling echoes of the shattered glass filled the room. Her own hand began to bleed, though she felt no pain. Then animation returned to her rigid body, and, with a start, she turned swiftly, walked determinedly out of the room, and in a moment had thrust open the front door. She stood upon the threshold of the lighted hall, trembling in the cool air, her eyes glistening, filled by a bitter blazing rage. She waited for what seemed to her a long time while the gas-jet flickered above her bared head; then she heard his slow step in the hall, heard him put on his coat and hat; and he came out, still moving slowly. He looked at her. A handkerchief held to his mouth almost concealed his features, but an uncouth, miserable mortification welled out of his small eyes.
‘What did ye want to do that for?’ he mumbled thickly, from behind the folds of the handkerchief. ‘Ye could ha’ said what was to be said without doing that.’
Now she was conscious of no alarm, but suddenly she hated his stupid loutish face.
‘Have you finished?’ she demanded, with bitter coldness.
‘I never meant nothing,’ he muttered. He was almost blubbering.
She was silent, staring at him. Then she said, with icy distinctiveness: ‘ Because I’ve finished with you.’
For a moment he looked at her; then his eyes filled; and, without a word, he turned and went heavily down the path.
When he had passed, she stepped into the hall, slammed the door shut, bolted it, and for a moment leaned weakly against it. Now she felt utterly weak. No relief filled her, but instead a dreadful nausea; she felt physically sick. The unexpectedness, the shock, the outrage of it, all filled her with a sickening resentment. She was incapable even of tears. In the smoke-filled room she threw up the window dully, and let the night air rush in around her motionless figure. Her large dark eyes looked towards the darkness of the night; then she turned, and those eyes – sombre, darker now from the absorption of that outer darkness – fell upon the table, still covered by the remains of her pitiful preparations for him. The very sight of them shamed her. She had set herself out so eagerly to please him. Her lip curled as she remembered how he had gorged himself. Frank’s brother! Frank had been right! Life seemed to her suddenly bereft of virtue.
Shrinking back into herself, for a long time she stared at the dying fire, then she shivered, closed the window, and went to bed. But it was not to sleep.
As she at last dozed off, all at once she came to herself, and sat up, startled. Suddenly she had realised the almost vital consequences of this irreparable breach with Joe.
Chapter Seven
Upon the next day she paid every bill she owed – those bills which Joe had accepted as his liability; which, in fact, he had so largely incurred. Morally she had not felt herself responsible for these accounts or they would have long ago been settled; but now, despising her original acquiescence, she seized these obligations proudly, and with a bitter alacrity discharged them utterly. As a result, she was left with a capital of under forty pounds, but she was in no mood to dwell upon either the smallness or the magnitude of this sum. The sordid considerations of money were as nothing in the balance of her outraged pride.
In some measure, the very payment of the bills relieved her wounded feelings; she felt vindicated; but still a frightful rankling remained. She would pause sometimes in the midst of her work, suddenly stricken by the remembrance of that scene. Often at nights she turned restlessly in bed, swept by a feverish recollection. After such a night, she made up her mind to inform Edward of the circumstances of Joe’s conduct. Sitting down with compressed lips and a tumultuous indignation, she wrote swiftly a letter of the bitterest resentment. But she tore up that letter – slowly – and threw the fragments into the flames. No, she would not so demean herself. Silence she adjudged the most cutting weapon!
Nevertheless, despite her bold front, she had her moments when she felt sick at heart. Life dragged during the ensuing week, and upon the following Saturday, returning home upon the 12.30 train, she felt tired and depressed. Then, as she stepped on the platform at Ardfillan, she found Miss Hocking, standing statuesque in her tailor-made, quite unruffled by the bustle of the station. The sudden unexpected sight of someone awaiting her made Lucy’s face light up in swift animation, and with open pleasure she exclaimed: ‘Surely you didn’t come to meet me?’
Miss Hocking nodded her head gravely, and in a tone equally: impressive replied: ‘Come!’; then, heightening her air of mystery, she added: ‘ With me.’
Lucy laughed outright – the first time she had laughed for days.
‘Are you going to do away with me?’ she enquired, implying that Miss Hocking’s motive was that of abduction under violence.
‘Perhaps!’ answered the other seriously. She could be very serious in the presence of merriment; her own laughter came unexpectedly and often when the situation demanded the utmost gravity.
‘What, though?’ persisted Lucy pleasantly.
How nice, she thought, to be met in such a fashion by this well-turned-out and friendly woman!
‘Allen’s!’ declared the other, with a laconic sententiousness.
They went, therefore – and Miss Hocking led the way with conscious dignity – to Allen’s, which was a restaurant; but no ordinary restaurant. Allen’s was fashionable, even famous. Differing greatly from the modest tea-room where Lucy often took her luncheon in Ardfillan, Allen’s represented the pinnacle of contemporary elegance in pastrycooks. Allen’s had palms, seductive carpets, waitresses with streamers, distinguished patronage, and charges which were not moderate. The age of orchestras had not yet arrived, or Allen’s would undoubtedly have exploited Mendelssohn!
Miss Hocking knew her way about in such establishments, and, compelled almost by the suction of her majestic weight, Lucy was drawn to a charming table for two, near the window and beneath the stellate fronds of a stupendous palm.
Seated, Miss Hocking drew off her gloves and looked round regally. Instantly a waitress appeared – to Lucy’s attentive eye how suavely the streamers floated – and, without once appearing to observe the waitress, Pinkie declared they would have this and they would have that. Her little finger, curving elegantly, charted a charming course through the mysterious latitudes of the French menu. Yes, it was nice, again thought Lucy, to be treated like this – most awfully nice for a little woman who had been lately so rudely used by fate. She had, indeed, unexpectedly a little rushing mood of intimate self-sympathy. Not often, recently, had she yielded like this; but still she could yield. Take her the right way and she was soft, charming; the wrong way and she was hard and uncompromising as a shut oyster.
Now, after a few spoonfuls of a creamy soup, reminiscent of chicken but surely more ambrosial, she looked up and murmured: ‘This is very pleasant.’ She smiled appreciatively – her breakfast had been hasty that morning. ‘But I don’t understand why.’
‘A little treat for us both,’ answered the other offhandedly enough to expose her satisfaction. ‘ I often go out like this. Dick takes charge of Fairy and out I go.’
Lucy crumbled her roll. Dick – curious abbreviation – was Mrs Dickens, Miss Hocking’s daily woman; Fairy, of course, the fat fox-terrier!
‘Well, it’s kind of you to invite me,’ said she slowly.
‘Nonsense! Beautiful nonsense, my dear!’
After the soup came asparagus. Mingling their flavour with the melted butter, the limp green buds dissolved upon the tongue, surrendering the succulence of spring.
‘This toast is not crisp, waitress!’ said Miss Hocking haughtily. ‘It bends weakly.’
Lucy started. A tiny spot of butter rolled down her chin. She had been enjoying herself excellently, and now she wondered if a sudden wrangling might spoil the harmony of the moment. Frank had wrangled with waitresses in his day in lesser establishments than this. But this waitress was obsequious, utterly obsequious.
‘I’ll get some fresh at once, madam.’ And in a m
oment fresh toast was apologetically brought.
‘One must keep them up to it,’ said Miss Hocking with a little laugh, when the girl had gone. ‘They like you if you scold them. The Taming of the Shrew! Wasn’t it amusing?’
‘I wouldn’t have dared,’ thought Lucy, but she answered: ‘This asparagus is delicious.’ Very correctly was she eating it – with her fingers, delicately.
‘It’s a little thin,’ said the other, in a manner of benevolent patronage. ‘At home we grew it much thicker. Oh, yes, I assure you! The vegetable marrows were enormous!’ No boast this – merely a casual comment.
Their plates were removed deftly, and an ethereal meringue – supreme novelty – was served.
‘Take more,’ urged Miss Hocking dreamily; ‘you like sweet things. Sweet as honeysuckle. I am the bee.’
Yes, Lucy admitted her affection for sweet things, and this – this surpassed all expectation. Dreamy, it was, like Miss Hocking’s change of mood, and evanescent, fleeting as froth – new milk chilled, sweetened by the subtle breath of cowslips, whisked incredibly into solid form. Miraculous! Or, as Edward might have said: ‘Delicious!’ Its last spoonful evoked faintly a sigh of rapture that could not be repeated.
‘Good gracious!’ exclaimed Miss Hocking in a too-casual tone, looking at her fine scrolled watch. ‘We’ll be late if you don’t hurry. “Oh, dear! oh, dear!” said the White Rabbit, “late again!”’
‘Late!’ echoed Lucy, her eyes widening a little as she put down her empty coffee-cup; but her companion was paying the bill and leaving, very generously, a shilling for the streamers.
Out in the street, a fine drizzle had begun to fall from an overcast sky.
‘What a pity!’ said Lucy. ‘We might have taken a walk.’
To go home seemed rather a drab finish to such a banquet; but the shadow of a smile flitted across Miss Hocking’s mobile features.
‘Just the right kind of a day for a concert,’ she asserted, with an air of having arranged the weather and the universe, ‘and it so happens there is the recital at the Victoria Hall. Lehmann!’ The last word was vibrant!
Lucy said nothing. She understood the inference, but she had exhausted her superlatives. She knew all about this concert, which was in a sense the pick of the season’s subscription concerts at the Victoria Hall – an afternoon recital by Lehmann. She had seen the posters, had felt the instinctive desire to go to that concert. Only a sense of her position and of her bereavement had debarred that desire from her conscious mind; and now Miss Hocking had arranged everything and sanctioned everything by taking her! They were, in fact, by virtue of the two stiff yellow tickets in Miss Hocking’s gloved hand, being escorted to the best seats in the front row of the auditorium. From around them rose the subdued rustle of the polite and well-informed audience, a sound which fell gratefully upon the ears of a woman who had lunched at Allen’s and who had her natural aspiration towards refined society.
‘His last performance, I understand!’ proclaimed Miss Hocking most audibly, by way of intensifying the enjoyment. Lehmann, at this epoch, had already inaugurated those farewell recitals which he was to pursue dramatically during the next thirty years.
‘Indeed,’ murmured Lucy, much impressed. Then she joined in the polite applause as the pianist came on to the platform and bowed stiffly over a short white hand, which clasped the lower buttons of his imperial frock coat. He was a big, thick-set man, with a flat, pale face, darkly haloed by the lank locks of his hair; and the movements of his body were abrupt, almost staccato. He parted his tails with a jerk, and with military precision lowered himself upon the piano stool. Then, amidst a further subdued murmur of applause, he gazed slowly around; suddenly threw back his head; conjured his inspiration from the hanging chandelier; and began to play.
It was Chopin, and, as his powerful fingers rippled with incredible delicacy through the Polonaise in A Minor, Lucy drew in her breath. Around her the air quivered with the throbbing ecstasy of invisible strings. She sat entranced through the first part of the programme.
‘A tour de force,’ said Miss Hocking calmly, at the interval, standing up and looking about her; ‘quite a tour de force.’
Lucy sighed, withdrawing herself, returning to reality; a tiny shiver traversed her; her eyes were still fervent.
‘It was wonderful,’ she said. ‘ I don’t understand it as you do, but it’s – it’s overwhelming.’
‘Technique – technique,’ murmured the other, ogling the bowing figure on the platform with her lorgnette. ‘They say he practises six hours a day. Touch – touch!’ She patted her fingers together, joining her approbation to that of the audience, who, relaxed from poses of stern virtuosity, eyes removed from straining towards the infinite, heads no longer sunk between palms in abysmal contemplation, applauded resolutely.
‘Bravo! Bravissimo!’ cried a few bolder devotees.
Lehmann had shown the audience; and now, delicately, the audience returned the shuttlecock, exhibiting their taste, their nous, their discrimination of his genius. A cultured town was Ardfillan. Cosmopolitan, almost, in its affection for the arts!’
But Lucy’s feeling was instinctive, artless, and sincere. When the second part of the performance began, she closed her eyes, occluding everything but the swelling waves of sound which now encompassed her. She became detached, alone. She was in a cave, a vaulted cavern, which sang with the melodious insistency of a vast sea-shell, still humming with the spent echoes of rushing wind and rolling water. Through these echoes came a note more vital, striving to penetrate the cavern from without, retreating at times but returning more loudly, clamouring with a quickening urgency. And then she saw more clearly; she was on a rock lapped in dim light and ringed by water of a green translucency. Her figure was permanent, ageless; within her something reached yearningly towards that outer force that came towards her appealingly in a swell of sound. It grew louder, then louder, at last broke through the narrow rift, and came towards her visibly – like crested water. It rushed upon her in three distinct waves. She saw the first advance and gird the rocks with slavering tongues; the second, louder, larger, broke in foam across her feet; the third, last wave came eagerly, combing the grotto with a surge of surf, and when at last it ebbed, the rock was barren of her figure. The green water quietened, and beneath its opalescent shimmer the swift darting of phosphorescent fishes quivered like flashing lights. Then these died slowly, quenched by a universal silence.
She opened her eyes with a start, almost of alarm. The recital was over.
‘I thought you were sleeping,’ said Miss Hocking with a little giggle. ‘I believe I heard you snore.’
‘Oh, no!’ protested Lucy, with a liquid eye. ‘I loved it, really I loved it. It was like – I don’t know – something I wanted to grasp, but couldn’t.’
‘He’s such a fine upstanding man,’ returned the other, as they came out of the hall. ‘But I couldn’t’ – she giggled again and moistened her lips – ‘I couldn’t think to kiss him.’
They went up the road, in silence. It was dry now. Already some early stars pricked points of light within the remote and ragged gaps of sky.
‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ said Lucy at length, rather awkwardly. ‘This afternoon has meant so much to me.’
‘Good gracious, that’s nothing!’ returned Miss Hocking and she took Lucy’s arm and pressed it playfully. ‘I’m hoping we shall see a great deal of each other now. In fact,’ she paused dramatically – ‘I met you today especially, because, you see – well, I wanted to speak to you.’
‘Yes?’
‘You see,’ resumed Miss Hocking again, ‘we’re just two nuts rattling about in different shells.’
Puzzled by the picturesque but rather pointless metaphor, Lucy looked up at ther companion perplexedly.
‘Oh, you poor thing! Don’t look like that!’ returned Pinkie immediately. ‘You look as though you were thinking preposterously sad things – the child lost in the forest – Doré’s pictu
re. I shall weep, also!’
Lucy smiled, and said: ‘I was just wondering what you meant.’
‘I mean this, my dear – really, I’ve thought of it before. We’re both alone. Only some laths and plaster between us, and there shouldn’t be. I am very attached to you. Why don’t you come up? Share my flat with me?’
Lucy looked down quickly; there was a pause.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she answered slowly. ‘I couldn’t think to give up my home.’
‘But, my dear,’ returned Miss Hocking, with a protective air, ‘you don’t need it. You’re out all day; your little Highlander is at school. He’ll come to us at the holidays. Yes, we’ll give him a lovely time. Besides, forgive me, but surely’ – with extreme tact she added, ‘less expense might –’
‘It’s kind – very kind of you to offer, but really – couldn’t think of it.’
‘Nonsense! I’d love to have you.’
When a desire obtruded itself upon Miss Hocking’s mind, she pursued it gaily, with the impetuous eagerness of a child chasing a butterfly.
‘Come along now, do – say you will! Yes, do say you will!’
‘Well, I’ll – I’ll think about it,’ said Lucy evasively.
It was unlike her to be evasive, but she was fond of Miss Hocking, and now particularly she could not think to wound her by a direct refusal.
‘Besides,’ gushed on Miss Hocking, ‘Fairy wants you, too.’
She advanced this quite seriously as an argument.
‘He only takes to people who are really nice, I assure you, the darlingest thing!’
Again Lucy smiled at the other’s enthusiasm. She had, in fact, in the light of her recent experience, dwelt lately upon her solitary position: those moments of darkness when at nights the house seemed unendurably lonely; and her responsibilities were a heavy burden for her shoulders to support.
Vaguely, she toyed with the suggestion. The motive of economy was a compelling one – but, no, she had no wish to relinquish her home; her own home, secure, filled with her own furniture, was like a rock to which she clung. And, yet again, there was the stronger motive – the craving for companionship. She liked Miss Hocking, saw her to be a lady, had experienced already the ramifications of her extreme kindness. She admitted the other’s eccentricity – that peculiar dreamy, effusive, romantic coquettishness, a combination of dignity and playfulness, a manner at once open and impenetrable, which seemed both to offer and to conceal. A most curious idiosyncrasy! What lay behind it she did not know. It so essentially was Miss Hocking that she did not even question it. Yes, Lucy admitted this eccentricity; admitted it freely; but she was not repelled by it.