They were silent for a long time, too much mixed up with passion and grief and death to do anything but hold each other in pain and kiss with long, hurting kisses wherein fear was transfused into desire. At last she disengaged herself. He felt as if his heart were hurt, but glad, and he scarcely dared look at her.
‘I’m glad,’ she said also.
He held her hands in passionate gratitude and desire. He had not yet the presence of mind to say anything. He was dazed with relief.
‘I ought to go,’ she said.
He looked at her. He could not grasp the thought of her going, he knew he could never be separated from her any more. Yet he dared not assert himself. He held her hands tight.
‘Your face is black,’ she said.
He laughed.
‘Yours is a bit smudged,’ he said.
They were afraid of each other, afraid to talk. He could only keep her near to him. After a while she wanted to wash her face. He brought her some warm water, standing by and watching her. There was something he wanted to say, that he dared not. He watched her wiping her face, and making tidy her hair.
‘They’ll see your blouse is dirty,’ he said.
She looked at her sleeves and laughed for joy.
He was sharp with pride.
‘What shall you do?’ he asked.
‘How?’ she said.
He was awkward at a reply.
‘About me,’ he said.
‘What do you want me to do?’ she laughed.
He put his hand out slowly to her. What did it matter!
‘But make yourself clean,’ she said.
XIV
As they went up the hill, the night seemed dense with the unknown. They kept close together, feeling as if the darkness were alive and full of knowledge, all around them. In silence they walked up the hill. At first the street lamps went their way. Several people passed them. He was more shy than she, and would have let her go had she loosened in the least. But she held firm.
Then they came into the true darkness, between the fields. They did not want to speak, feeling closer together in silence. So they arrived at the Vicarage gate. They stood under the naked horse-chestnut tree.
‘I wish you didn’t have to go,’ he said.
She laughed a quick little laugh.
‘Come tomorrow,’ she said, in a low tone, ‘and ask father.’
She felt his hand close on hers.
She gave the same sorrowful little laugh of sympathy. Then she kissed him, sending him home.
At home, the old grief came on in another paroxysm, obliterating Louisa, obliterating even his mother for whom the stress was raging like a burst of fever in a wound. But something was sound in his heart.
XV
The next evening he dressed to go to the vicarage, feeling it was to be done, not imagining what it would be like. He would not take this seriously. He was sure of Louisa, and this marriage was like fate to him. It filled him also with a blessed feeling of fatality. He was not responsible, neither had her people anything really to do with it.
They ushered him into the little study, which was fireless. By and by the vicar came in. His voice was cold and hostile as he said:
‘What can I do for you, young man?’
He knew already, without asking.
Durant looked up at him, again like a sailor before a superior. He had the subordinate manner. Yet his spirit was clear.
‘I wanted, Mr Lindley—’ he began respectfully, then all the colour suddenly left his face. It seemed now a violation to say what he had to say. What was he doing there? But he stood on, because it had to be done. He held firmly to his own independence and self-respect. He must not be indecisive. He must put himself aside: the matter was bigger than just his personal self. He must not feel. This was his highest duty.
‘You wanted—’ said the vicar.
Durant’s mouth was dry, but he answered with steadiness:
‘Miss Louisa – Louisa – promised to marry me—’
‘You asked Miss Louisa if she would marry you – yes—’ corrected the vicar. Durant reflected he had not asked her this:
‘If she would marry me, sir. I hope you – don’t mind.’
He smiled. He was a good-looking man, and the vicar could not help seeing it.
‘And my daughter was willing to marry you?’ said Mr Lindley.
‘Yes,’ said Durant seriously. It was pain to him, nevertheless. He felt the natural hostility between himself and the elder man.
‘Will you come this way?’ said the vicar. He led into the dining-room, where were Mary, Louisa, and Mrs Lindley. Mr Massy sat in a corner with a lamp.
‘This young man has come on your account, Louisa?’ said Mr Lindley.
‘Yes,’ said Louisa, her eyes on Durant, who stood erect, in discipline. He dared not look at her, but he was aware of her.
‘You don’t want to marry a collier, you little fool,’ cried Mrs Lindley harshly. She lay obese and helpless upon the couch, swathed in a loose, dove-grey gown.
‘Oh, hush, mother,’ cried Mary, with quiet intensity and pride.
‘What means have you to support a wife?’ demanded the vicar’s wife roughly.
‘I!’ Durant replied, starting. ‘I think I can earn enough.’
‘Well, and how much?’ came the rough voice.
‘Seven and six a day,’ replied the young man.
‘And will it get to be any more?’
‘I hope so.’
‘And are you going to live in that poky little house?’
‘I think so,’ said Durant, ‘if it’s all right.’
He took small offence, only was upset, because they would not think him good enough. He knew that, in their sense, he was not.
‘Then she’s a fool, I tell you, if she marries you,’ cried the mother roughly, casting her decision.
‘After all, mama, it is Louisa’s affair,’ said Mary distinctly, ‘and we must remember—’
‘As she makes her bed, she must lie — but she’ll repent it,’ interrupted Mrs Lindley.
‘And after all,’ said Mr Lindley, ‘Louisa cannot quite hold herself free to act entirely without consideration for her family.’
‘What do you want, papa?’ asked Louisa sharply.
‘I mean that if you marry this man, it will make my position very difficult for me, particularly if you stay in this parish. If you were moving quite away, it would be simpler. But living here in a collier’s cottage, under my nose, as it were – it would be almost unseemly. I have my position to maintain, and a position which may not be taken lightly.’
‘Come over here, young man,’ cried the mother, in her rough voice, ‘and let us look at you.’
Durant, flushing, went over and stood – not quite at attention, so that he did not know what to do with his hands. Miss Louisa was angry to see him standing there, obedient and acquiescent. He ought to show himself a man.
‘Can’t you take her away and live out of sight?’ said the mother. ‘You’d both of you be better off.’
‘Yes, we can go away,’ he said.
‘Do you want to?’ asked Miss Mary clearly.
He faced round. Mary looked very stately and impressive. He flushed.
‘I do if it’s going to be a trouble to anybody,’ he said.
‘For yourself, you would rather stay?’ said Mary.
‘It’s my home,’ he said, ‘and that’s the house I was born in.’
‘Then’ – Mary turned clearly to her parents, ‘I really don’t see how you can make the conditions, papa. He has his own rights, and if Louisa wants to marry him—’
‘Louisa, Louisa!’ cried the father impatiently. ‘I cannot understand why Louisa should not behave in the normal way. I cannot see why she should only think of herself, and leave her family out of count. The thing is enough in itself, and she ought to try to ameliorate it as much as possible. And if—’
‘But I love the man, papa,’ said Louisa.
‘And I h
ope you love your parents, and I hope you want to spare them as much of the – the loss of prestige, as possible.’
‘We can go away to live,’ said Louisa, her face breaking to tears. At last she was really hurt.
‘Oh, yes, easily,’ Durant replied hastily, pale, distressed.
There was dead silence in the room.
‘I think it would really be better,’ murmured the vicar, mollified.
‘Very likely it would,’ said the rough-voiced invalid.
‘Though I think we ought to apologize for asking such a thing,’ said Mary haughtily.
‘No,’ said Durant. ‘It will be best all round.’ He was glad there was no more bother.
‘And shall we put up the banns here or go to the registrar?’ he asked clearly, like a challenge.
‘We will go to the registrar,’ replied Louisa decidedly.
Again there was a dead silence in the room.
‘Well, if you will have your own way, you must go your own way,’ said the mother emphatically.
All the time Mr Massy had sat obscure and unnoticed in a corner of the room. At this juncture he got up, saying:
‘There is baby, Mary.’
Mary rose and went out of the room, stately; her little husband padded after her. Durant watched the fragile, small man go, wondering.
‘And where,’ asked the vicar, almost genial, ‘do you think you will go when you are married?’
Durant started.
‘I was thinking of emigrating,’ he said.
‘To Canada? or where?’
‘I think to Canada.’
‘Yes, that would be very good.’
Again there was a pause.
‘We shan’t see much of you then, as a son-in-law,’ said the mother, roughly but amicably.
‘Not much,’ he said.
Then he took his leave. Louisa went with him to the gate. She stood before him in distress.
‘You won’t mind them, will you?’ she said humbly.
‘I don’t mind them, if they don’t mind me!’ he said. Then he stooped and kissed her.
‘Let us be married soon,’ she murmured, in tears.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll go tomorrow to Barford.’
Rudyard Kipling
The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat
Our drive till then had been quite a success. The other men in the car were my friend Woodhouse, young Ollyett, a distant connection of his, and Pallant, the M.P. Woodhouse’s business was the treatment and cure of sick journals. He knew by instinct the precise moment in a newspaper’s life when the impetus of past good management is exhausted and it fetches up on the dead-centre between slow and expensive collapse and the new start which can be given by gold injections – and genius. He was wisely ignorant of journalism; but when he stooped on a carcase there was sure to be meat. He had that week added a half-dead, halfpenny evening paper to his collection, which consisted of a prosperous London daily, one provincial ditto, and a limp-bodied weekly of commercial leanings. He had also, that very hour, planted me with a large block of the evening paper’s common shares, and was explaining the whole art of editorship to Ollyett, a young man three years from Oxford, with coir-matting-coloured hair and a face harshly modelled by harsh experiences, who, I understood, was assisting in the new venture. Pallant, the long, wrinkled M.P., whose voice is more like a crane’s than a peacock’s, took no shares, but gave us all advice.
‘You’ll find it rather a knacker’s yard,’ Woodhouse was saying. ‘Yes, I know they call me The Knacker; but it will pay inside a year. All my papers do. I’ve only one motto: Back your luck and back your staff. It’ll come out all right.’
Then the car stopped, and a policeman asked our names and addresses for exceeding the speed-limit. We pointed out that the road ran absolutely straight for half a mile ahead without even a side-lane. ‘That’s just what we depend on,’ said the policeman unpleasantly.
‘The usual swindle,’ said Woodhouse under his breath. ‘What’s the name of this place?’
‘Huckley,’ said the policeman. ‘H-u-c-k-l-e-y,’ and wrote something in his note-book at which young Ollyett protested. A large red man on a grey horse who had been watching us from the other side of the hedge shouted an order we could not catch. The policeman laid his hand on the rim of the right driving-door (Woodhouse carries his spare tyres aft), and it closed on the button of the electric horn. The grey horse at once bolted, and we could hear the rider swearing all across the landscape.
‘Damn it, man, you’ve got your silly fist on it! Take it off!’ Woodhouse shouted.
‘Ho!’ said the constable, looking carefully at his fingers as though we had trapped them. ‘That won’t do you any good either,’ and he wrote once more in his note-book before he allowed us to go.
This was Woodhouse’s first brush with motor law, and since I expected no ill consequences to myself, I pointed out that it was very serious. I took the same view myself when in due time I found that I, too, was summonsed on charges ranging from the use of obscene language to endangering traffic.
Judgment was done in a little pale-yellow market-town with a small, Jubilee clock-tower and a large corn-exchange. Woodhouse drove us there in his car. Pallant, who had not been included in the summons, came with us as moral support. While we waited outside, the fat man on the grey horse rode up and entered into loud talk with his brother magistrates. He said to one of them – for I took the trouble to note it down – ‘It falls away from my lodge-gates, dead straight, three-quarters of a mile. I’d defy any one to resist it. We rooked seventy pounds out of ’em last month. No car can resist the temptation. You ought to have one your side the county, Mike. They simply can’t resist it.’
‘Whew!’ said Woodhouse. ‘We’re in for trouble. Don’t you say a word – or Ollyett either! I’ll pay the fines and we’ll get it over as soon as possible. Where’s Pallant?’
‘At the back of the court somewhere,’ said Ollyett. ‘I saw him slip in just now.’
The fat man then took his seat on the Bench, of which he was chairman, and I gathered from a bystander that his name was Sir Thomas Ingell, Bart., M.P., of Ingell Park, Huckley. He began with an allocution pitched in a tone that would have justified revolt throughout empires. Evidence, when the crowded little court did not drown it with applause, was given in the pauses of the address. They were all very proud of their Sir Thomas, and looked from him to us, wondering why we did not applaud too.
Taking its time from the chairman, the Bench rollicked with us for seventeen minutes. Sir Thomas explained that he was sick and tired of processions of cads of our type, who would be better employed breaking stones on the road than in frightening horses worth more than themselves or their ancestors. This was after it had been proved that Woodhouse’s man had turned on the horn purposely to annoy Sir Thomas, who ‘happened to be riding by’! There were other remarks too – primitive enough, – but it was the unspeakable brutality of the tone, even more than the quality of the justice, or the laughter of the audience that stung our souls out of all reason. When we were dismissed – to the tune of twenty-three pounds, twelve shillings and sixpence – we waited for Pallant to join us, while we listened to the next case – one of driving without a licence. Ollyett with an eye to his evening paper, had already taken very full notes of our own, but we did not wish to seem prejudiced.
‘It’s all right,’ said the reporter of the local paper soothingly. ‘We never report Sir Thomas in extenso. Only the fines and charges.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ Ollyett replied, and I heard him ask who every one in court might be. The local reporter was very communicative.
The new victim, a large, flaxen-haired man in somewhat striking clothes, to which Sir Thomas, now thoroughly warmed, drew public attention, said that he had left his licence at home. Sir Thomas asked him if he expected the police to go to his home address at Jerusalem to find it for him; and the court roared. Nor did Sir Thomas approve of the man’s name, but insisted
on calling him ‘Mr Masquerader’, and every time he did so, all his people shouted. Evidently this was their established auto-da-fé.
‘He didn’t summons me – because I’m in the House, I suppose. I think I shall have to ask a Question,’ said Pallant, reappearing at the close of the case.
‘I think I shall have to give it a little publicity too,’ said Woodhouse. ‘We can’t have this kind of thing going on, you know.’ His face was set and quite white. Pallant’s, on the other hand, was black, and I know that my very stomach had turned with rage. Ollyett was dumb.
‘Well, let’s have lunch,’ Woodhouse said at last. ‘Then we can get away before the show breaks up.’
We drew Ollyett from the arms of the local reporter, crossed the Market Square to the Red Lion and found Sir Thomas’s ‘Mr Masquerader’ just sitting down to beer, beef and pickles.
‘Ah!’ said he, in a large voice. ‘Companions in misfortune. Won’t you gentlemen join me?’
‘Delighted,’ said Woodhouse. ‘What did you get?’
‘I haven’t decided. It might make a good turn, but – the public aren’t educated up to it yet. It’s beyond ’em. If it wasn’t, that red dub on the Bench would be worth fifty a week.’
‘Where?’ said Woodhouse. The man looked at him with unaffected surprise.
‘At any one of My places,’ he replied. ‘But perhaps you live here?’
‘Good heavens!’ cried young Ollyett suddenly. ‘You are Masquerier, then? I thought you were!’
‘Bat Masquerier.’ He let the words fall with the weight of an international ultimatum. ‘Yes, that’s all I am. But you have the advantage of me, gentlemen.’
For the moment, while we were introducing ourselves, I was puzzled. Then I recalled prismatic music-hall posters – of enormous acreage – that had been the unnoticed background of my visits to London for years past. Posters of men and women, singers, jongleurs, impersonators and audacities of every draped and undraped brand, all moved on and off in London and the Provinces by Bat Masquerier – with the long wedge-tailed flourish following the final ‘r’.
The Penguin Book of the British Short Story, Volume 1 Page 74