She dressed nervously, in a dark-green dress with a few modest jewels. Looking at herself in the mirror, she still thought herself slim, young-looking and distinguished. She did not see how old-fashioned she was, with her uncompromising erectness, her glistening knob of silver hair sticking out behind, and her long dress.
It was a three-mile drive in the rain, to the small country town. She sat next to old Slater, who was used to driving horses and was nervous and clumsy with a car, without saying a word. He thankfully deposited her at the gate of St. Barnabas’ School.
It was almost half-past-seven. The schoolroom was packed and buzzing with excitement. “I’m afraid we haven’t a seat left, Mrs. Barlow!” said Jackson, one of the church sidesmen, who was standing guard in the school porch, where people were still fighting to get in. He faced her in consternation. She faced him in consternation. “Well, I shall have to stay somewhere, till Mr. Barlow can drive me home,” she said. “Couldn’t you put me a chair somewhere?”
Worried and flustered, he went worrying and flustering the other people in charge. The schoolroom was simply packed solid. But Mr. Simmons, the leading grocer, gave up his chair in the front row to Mrs. Barlow, whilst he sat in a chair right under the stage, where he couldn’t see a thing. But he could see Mrs. Barlow seated between his wife and daughter, speaking a word or two to them occasionally, and that was enough.
The lights went down: The Shoes of Shagput was about to begin. The amateur curtains were drawn back, disclosing the little amateur stage with a white amateur back-cloth daubed to represent a Moorish courtyard. In stalked Percy, dressed as a Moor, his face darkened. He looked quite handsome, his pale grey eyes queer and startling in his dark face. But he was afraid of the audience — he spoke away from them, stalking around clumsily. After a certain amount of would-be funny dialogue, in tripped the heroine, Alice Howells, of course. She was an Eastern houri, in white gauze Turkish trousers, silver veil, and — the blue moccasins. The whole stage was white, save for her blue moccasins, Percy’s dark-green sash, and a negro boy’s red fez.
When Mrs. Barlow saw the blue moccasins, a little bomb of rage exploded in her. This, of all places! The blue moccasins that she had bought in the western deserts! The blue moccasins that were not so blue as her own eyes! Her blue moccasins! On the feet of that creature, Mrs. Howells.
Alice Howells was not afraid of the audience. She looked full at them, lifting her silver veil. And of course she saw Mrs. Barlow, sitting there like the Ancient of Days in judgment, in the front row. And a bomb of rage exploded in her breast too.
In the play, Alice was the wife of the grey-bearded old Caliph, but she captured the love of the young Ali, otherwise Percy, and the whole business was the attempt of these two to evade Caliph and negro-eunuchs and ancient crones, and get into each other’s arms. The blue shoes were very important: for while the sweet Lelia wore them, the gallant Ali was to know there was danger. But when she took them off, he might approach her.
It was all quite childish, and everybody loved it, and Miss M’Leod might have been quite complacent about it all, had not Alice Howells got her monkey up, so to speak. Alice with a lot of make-up, looked boldly handsome. And suddenly bold she was, bold as the devil. All these years the poor young widow had been “good”, slaving in the parish, and only even flirting just to cheer things up, never going very far and knowing she could never get anything out of it, but determined never to mope.
Now the sight of Miss M’Leod sitting there so erect, so coolly “higher plane”, and calmly superior, suddenly let loose a devil in Alice Howells. All her limbs went suave and molten, as her young sex, long pent up, flooded even to her finger-tips. Her voice was strange, even to herself, with its long, plaintive notes. She felt all her movements soft and fluid, she felt herself like living liquid. And it was lovely. Underneath it all was the sting of malice against Miss M’Leod, sitting there so erect, with her great knob of white hair.
Alice’s business, as the lovely Leila, was to be seductive to the rather heavy Percy. And seductive she was. In two minutes, she had him spellbound. He saw nothing of the audience. A faint, fascinated grin came on to his face, as he acted up to the young woman in the Turkish trousers. His rather full, hoarse voice changed and became clear, with a new, naked clang in it. When the two sang together, in the simple banal duets of the play, it was with a most fascinating intimacy. And when, at the end of Act One, the lovely Leila kicked off the blue moccasins, saying: “Away, shoes of bondage, shoes of sorrow!” and danced a little dance all alone, barefoot, in her Turkish trousers, in front of her fascinated hero, his smile was so spellbound that everybody else was spellbound too.
Miss M’Leod’s indignation knew no bounds. When the blue moccasins were kicked across the stage by the brazen Alice, with the words: “Away, shoes of bondage, shoes of sorrow!” the elder woman grew pink with fury, and it was all she could do not to rise and snatch the moccasins from the stage, and bear them away. She sat in speechless indignation during the brief curtain between Act One and Act Two. Her moccasins! Her blue moccasins! Of the sacred blue colour, the turquoise of heaven.
But there they were, in Act Two, on the feet of the bold Alice. It was becoming too much. And the love-scenes between Percy and the young woman were becoming nakedly shameful. Alice grew worse and worse. She was worked up now, caught in her own spell, and unconscious of everything save of him, and the sting of that other woman, who presumed to own him. Own him? Ha-ha! For he was fascinated. The queer smile on his face, the concentrated gleam of his eyes, the queer way he leaned forward from his loins towards her, the new, reckless, throaty twang in his voice — the audience had before their eyes a man spellbound and lost in passion.
Miss M’Leod sat in shame and torment, as if her chair was red-hot. She too was fast losing her normal consciousness, in the spell of rage. She was outraged. The second Act was working up to its climax. The climax came. The lovely Leila kicked off the blue shoes: “Away, shoes of bondage, away!” and flew barefoot to the enraptured Ali, flinging herself into his arms. And if ever a man was gone in sheer desire, it was Percy, as he pressed the woman’s lithe form against his body, and seemed unconsciously to envelop her, unaware of everything else. While she, blissful in his spell, but still aware of the audience and of the superior Miss M’Leod, let herself be wrapped closer and closer.
Miss M’Leod rose to her feet and looked towards the door. But the way out was packed, with people standing holding their breath as the two on the stage remained wrapped in each other’s arms, and the three fiddles and the flute softly woke up. Miss M’Leod could not bear it. She was on her feet, and beside herself. She could not get out. She could not sit down again.
“Percy!” she said, in a low clear voice. “Will you hand me my moccasins?”
He lifted his face like a man startled in a dream, lifted his face from the shoulder of his Leila. His gold-grey eyes were like softly-startled flames. He looked in sheer horrified wonder at the little white-haired woman standing below.
“Eh?” he said, purely dazed
“Will you please hand me my moccasins!” — and she pointed to where they lay on the stage.
Alice had stepped away from him, and was gazing at the risen viper of the little elderly woman on the tip of the audience. Then she watched him move across the stage, bending forward from the loins in his queer mesmerised way, pick up the blue moccasins, and stoop down to hand them over the edge of the stage to his wife, who reached up for them.
“Thank you!” said Miss M’Leod, seating herself, with the blue moccasins in her lap.
Alice recovered her composure, gave a sign to the little orchestra, and began to sing at once, strong and assured, to sing her part in the duet that closed the Act. She knew she could command public opinion in her favour.
He too recovered at once, the little smile came back on his face, he calmly forgot his wife again as he sang his share in the duet. It was finished. The curtains were pulled to. There was immense cheering.
The curtains opened, and Alice and Percy bowed to the audience, smiling both of them their peculiar secret smile, while Miss M’Leod sat with the blue moccasins in her lap.
The curtains were closed, it was the long interval. After a few moments of hesitation, Mrs. Barlow rose with dignity, gathered her wrap over her arm, and with the blue moccasins in her hand, moved towards the door. Way was respectfully made for her.
“I should like to speak to Mr. Barlow,” she said to Jackson, who had anxiously ushered her in, and now would anxiously usher her out.
“Yes, Mrs. Barlow.”
He led her round to the smaller class-room at the back, that acted as dressing-room. The amateur actors were drinking lemonade, and chattering freely. Mrs. Howells came forward, and Jackson whispered the news to her. She turned to Percy.
“Percy, Mrs. Barlow wants to speak to you. Shall I come with you?”
“Speak to me? Aye, come on with me.”
The two followed the anxious Jackson into the other half-lighted class-room, where Mrs. Barlow stood in her wrap, holding the moccasins. She was very pale, and she watched the two butter-muslin Turkish figures enter, as if they could not possibly be real. She ignored Mrs. Howells entirely.
“Percy,” she said, “I want you to drive me home.”
“Drive you home!” he echoed.
“Yes, please!”
“Why — when?” he said, with vague bluntness.
“Now — if you don’t mind — ”
“What — in this get-up?” He looked at himself.
“I could wait while you changed.”
There was a pause. He turned and looked at Alice Howells, and Alice Howells looked at him. The two women saw each other out of the corners of their eyes: but it was beneath notice. He turned to his wife, his black face ludicrously blank, his eyebrows cocked.
“Well, you see,” he said, “it’s rather awkward. I can hardly hold up the third Act while I’ve taken you home and got back here again, can I?”
“So you intend to play in the third Act?” she asked with cold ferocity.
“Why, I must, mustn’t I?” he said blankly.
“Do you wish to?” she said, in all her intensity.
“I do, naturally. I want to finish the thing up properly,” he replied, in the utter innocence of his head; about his heart he knew nothing.
She turned sharply away.
“Very well!” she said. And she called to Jackson, who was standing dejectedly near the door: “Mr Jackson, will you please find some car or conveyance to take me home?”
“Aye! I say, Mr. Jackson,” called Percy in his strong, democratic voice, going forward to the man. “Ask Tom Lomas if he’ll do me a good turn and get my car out of the rectory garage, to drive Mrs. Barlow home. Aye, ask Tom Lomas! And if not him, ask Mr. Pilkington — Leonard. The key’s there. You don’t mind, do you? I’m ever so much obliged — ”
The three were left awkwardly alone again.
“I expect you’ve had enough with two acts,” said Percy soothingly to his wife. “These things aren’t up to your mark. I know it. They’re only child’s play. But, you see, they please the people. We’ve got a packed house, haven’t we?”
His wife had nothing to answer. He looked so ludicrous, with his dark-brown face and butter-muslin bloomers. And his mind was so ludicrously innocent. His body, however, was not so ridiculously innocent as his mind, as she knew when he turned to the other woman.
“You and I, we’re more on the nonsense level, aren’t we?” he said, with the new, throaty clang of naked intimacy in his voice. His wife shivered.
“Absolutely on the nonsense level,” said Alice, with easy assurance.
She looked into his eyes, then she looked at the blue moccasins in the hand of the other woman. He gave a little start, as if realising something for himself.
At that moment Tom Lomas looked in, saying heartily: “Right you are, Percy! I’ll have my car here in half a tick. I’m more handy with it than yours.”
“Thanks, old man! You’re a Christian.”
“Try to be — especially when you turn Turk! Well — ” He disappeared.
“I say, Lina,” said Percy in his most amiable democratic way, “would you mind leaving the moccasins for the next act? We s’ll be in a bit of a hole without them.”
Miss M’Leod faced him and stared at him with the full blast of her forget-me-not blue eyes, from her white face.
“Will you pardon me if I don’t?” she said.
“What!” he exclaimed. “Why? Why not? It’s nothing but play, to amuse the people. I can’t see how it can hurt the moccasins. I understand you don’t quite like seeing me make a fool of myself. But, anyhow, I’m a bit of a born fool. What?” — and his blackened face laughed with a Turkish laugh. “Oh, yes, you have to realise I rather enjoy playing the fool,” he resumed. “And, after all, it doesn’t really hurt you, now does it? Shan’t you leave us those moccasins for the last act?”
She looked at him, then at the moccasins in her hand. No, it was useless to yield to so ludicrous a person. The vulgarity of his wheedling, the commonness of the whole performance! It was useless to yield even the moccasins. It would be treachery to herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But I’d so much rather they weren’t used for this kind of thing. I never intended them to be.” She stood with her face averted from the ridiculous couple.
He changed as if she had slapped his face. He sat down on top of the low pupils’ desk and gazed with glazed interest round the class-room. Alice sat beside him, in her white gauze and her bedizened face. They were like two rebuked sparrows on one twig, he with his great, easy, intimate limbs, she so light and alert. And as he sat he sank into an unconscious physical sympathy with her. Miss M’Leod walked towards the door.
“You’ll have to think of something as’ll do instead,” he muttered to Alice in a low voice, meaning the blue moccasins. And leaning down, he drew off one of the grey shoes she had on, caressing her foot with the slip of his hand over its slim, bare shape. She hastily put the bare foot behind her other, shod foot.
Tom Lomas poked in his head, his overcoat collar turned up to his ears.
“Car’s here,” he said.
“Right-o! Tom! I’ll chalk it up to thee, lad!” said Percy with heavy breeziness. Then, making a great effort with himself, he rose heavily and went across to the door, to his wife, saying to her, in the same stiff voice of false heartiness:
“You’ll be as right as rain with Tom. You won’t mind if I don’t come out? No! I’d better not show myself to the audience. Well — I’m glad you came, if only for a while. Good-bye then! I’ll be home after the service — but I shan’t disturb you. Good-bye! Don’t get wet now — ” And his voice, falsely cheerful, stiff with anger, ended in a clang of indignation.
Alice Howells sat on the infants’ bench in silence. She was ignored. And she was unhappy, uneasy, because of the scene.
Percy closed the door after his wife. Then he turned with a looming slowness to Alice, and said in a hoarse whisper: “Think o’ that, now!”
She looked up at him anxiously. His face, in its dark pigment, was transfigured with indignant anger. His yellow-grey eyes blazed, and a great rush of anger seemed to be surging up volcanic in him. For a second his eyes rested on her upturned, troubled, dark-blue eyes, then glanced away, as if he didn’t want to look at her in his anger. Even so, she felt a touch of tenderness in his glance.
“And that’s all she’s ever cared about — her own things and her own way,” he said, in the same hoarse whisper, hoarse with suddenly-released rage. Alice Howells hung her head in silence.
“Not another damned thing, but what’s her own, her own — and her own holy way — damned holy-holy-holy, all to herself.” His voice shook with hoarse, whispering rage, burst out at last.
Alice Howells looked up at him in distress.
“Oh, don’t say it!” she said. “I’m sure she’s fond of you.”
“Fond o
f me! Fond of me!” he blazed, with a grin of transcendent irony. “It makes her sick to look at me. I am a hairy brute, I own it. Why, she’s never once touched me to be fond of me — never once — though she pretends sometimes. But a man knows — ” and he made a grimace of contempt. “He knows when a woman’s just stroking him, good doggie! — and when she’s really a bit woman-fond of him. That woman’s never been real fond of anybody or anything, all her life — she couldn’t, for all her show of kindness. She’s limited to herself, that woman is; and I’ve looked up to her as if she was God. More fool me! If God’s not good-natured and good-hearted, then what is He — ?”
Alice sat with her head dropped, realising once more that men aren’t really fooled. She was upset, shaken by his rage, and frightened, as if she too were guilty. He had sat down blankly beside her. She glanced up at him.
“Never mind!” she said soothingly. “You’ll like her again to-morrow.”
He looked down at her with a grin, a grey sort of grin. “Are you going to stroke me ‘good doggie!’ as well?” he said.
“Why?” she asked, blank.
But he did not answer. Then after a while he resumed: “Wouldn’t even leave the moccasins! And she’s hung them up in my room, left them there for years — any man’d consider they were his. And I did want this show to-night to be a success! What are you going to do about it?”
“I’ve sent over for a pair of pale-blue satin bed-slippers of mine — they’ll do just as well,” she replied.
“Aye! For all that, it’s done me in.”
“You’ll get over it.”
“Happen so! She’s curdled my inside, for all that. I don’t know how I’m going to be civil to her.”
“Perhaps you’d better stay at the rectory to-night,” she said softly.
He looked into her eyes. And in that look, he transferred his allegiance.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 691