A Mummer's Wife Part 49

There were moments when d.i.c.k longed for the earth to open; but he nevertheless continued to try to prevent Kate from entering the public-house.

'I will drink! I will drink! I will drink! And not because I like it, but to spite you, because I hate you.'

When she came out she appeared to be a little quieted, and d.i.c.k tried very hard to persuade her to get into a cab and drive home. But the very sound of his voice, the very sight of him, seemed to excite her, and in a few moments she broke forth into the usual harangue. Several times the temptation to run away became almost irresistible, but with a n.o.ble effort of will he forced himself to remain with her. Hoping to avoid some part of the ridicule that was being so liberally showered upon him, he besought of her to keep up Drury Lane and not descend into the Strand.

'You don't want to be seen with me; I know, you'd prefer to walk there with Mrs. Forest. You think I shall disgrace you. Well, come along, then.

'"Look at me here! look at me there!

Criticize me everywhere!

I am so sweet from head to feet, And most perfect and complete."'

'That's right, old woman, give us a song. She knows the game,' answered another.

Raising his big hat from his head, d.i.c.k wiped his face, and as if divining his extreme despair, Kate left off singing and dancing, and the procession proceeded in quiet past several different wine-shops. It was not until they came to Short's she declared she was dying of thirst and must have a drink.

d.i.c.k forbade the barman to serve her, and brought upon himself the most shocking abuse. Knowing that he would be sure to meet a crowd of his 'pals'

at the Gaiety bar, he used every endeavour to persuade her to cross the street and get out of the sun.

'Don't bother me with your sun,' she exclaimed surlily; and then, as if struck by the meaning of the word, she said, 'But it wasn't a son, it was a daughter; don't you remember?'

'Oh, Kate! how can you speak so?'

'Speak so? I say it was a daughter, and she died; and you said it was my fault, as you say everything is my fault, you beast! you venomous beast!

Yes, she did die. It was a pity; I could have loved her.'

At this moment d.i.c.k felt a heavy hand clapped on his shoulder, and turning round he saw a pal of his.

'What, d.i.c.k, my boy! A drunken chorus lady; trying to get her home? Always up to some charitable action.'

'No; she's my wife.'

'I beg your pardon, old chap; you know I didn't mean it;' and the man disappeared into the bar-room.

'Yes, I'm his wife,' Kate shrieked after him. 'I got that much right out of him at least; and I played the Serpolette in the _Cloches_.'

'"Look at me here, look at me there,"'

she sang, flirting with her abominable skirt, amused by the applause of the roughs. 'But I'm going to have a drink here,' she said, suddenly breaking off.

'No, you can't, my good woman,' said the stout guardian at the door.

'And why--why not?'

'That don't matter. You go on, or I'll have to give you in charge.'

Kate was not yet so drunk that the words 'in charge' did not frighten her, and she answered humbly enough, 'I'm here wi-th--my hu-s-band, and as you're so im-impertinent I shall go-go elsewhere.'

At the next place they came to d.i.c.k did not protest against her being served, but waited, confident of the result, until she had had her four of gin, and came reeling out into his arms. Shaking herself free she stared at him, and when he was fully recognized, cursed him for his d.a.m.ned interference. She could now scarcely stand straight on her legs, and, after staggering a few yards further, fell helplessly on the pavement.

Calling a cab, he bundled her into it and drove away.

XXVII

'Oh, d.i.c.k, dear, what did I do yesterday? Do tell me about yesterday. Was I very violent? And those wounds on your face, I didn't do that; don't tell me that I did. d.i.c.k, d.i.c.k, are you going to leave me?'

'I have to attend to my business, Kate.'

'Ah, your business! Your business! Mrs. Forest is your business; you've no other business but her now. And that is what is driving me to drink.'

'Oh, Kate, don't begin it again. I've a rehearsal----'

'Yes, the rehearsal of her opera and Montgomery's music. I did think he was my friend; yet he is putting up her opera to music, and all the while he was setting it you were telling me lies about _Chilperic_, saying that I was to play the Fredegonde, and all the princ.i.p.al parts in the great Herve festival, that the American--but there was no American. It was cruel of you, d.i.c.k, to shut me up here with n.o.body to speak to; nothing to do but to wait for you hour after hour, and when you come home to hear nothing from you but lies, nothing but lies! _Chilperic, Le Pet.i.t Faust, L'Oeil Creve, Trone d'ecosse, Marguerite de Navarre, La Belle Poule_. And all the music I've learnt hoping that I would be allowed to sing it; and yet you expect that a woman who is deceived like that can abstain from drink.

Why, you drive me to it, d.i.c.k. An angel from heaven wouldn't abstain from drink. Away you go in the morning to Mrs. Forest--to her opera.'

'But, Kate, there's nothing between me and Mrs. Forest. She is a very clever woman, and I am doing her opera for her. How are we to live if you come between me and my business?'

'Womanizing is your business,' Kate answered suddenly.

'Well, don't let us argue it,' d.i.c.k answered. He tied his shoe-strings and sought for his hat.

'So you're going,' she said; 'and when shall I see you again?'

'I shall try to get home for dinner.'

'What time?'

'Not before eight.'

'I shall not see you before twelve,' she replied, and she experienced a sad sinking of the heart when she heard the door close behind him, a sad sinking that she would have to endure till she heard his latchkey, and that would not be for many hours, perhaps not till midnight. She did not know how she would be able to endure all these hours; to sleep some of them away would be the best thing she could do, and with that intention she drew down the blind and threw herself on the bed, and lay between sleeping and waking till the afternoon. Then, feeling a little better, she rang and asked for a cup of tea. It tasted very insipid, but she gulped it down as best she could, making wry faces and feeling more miserable than ever she had felt before; afraid to look back on yesterday, afraid to look forward on the morrow, she bethought herself of the past, of the happy days when Montgomery used to come and teach her to sing, and her triumphs in the part of Clairette; she was quite as successful in Serpolette; people had liked her in Serpolette, and to recall those days more distinctly she opened a box in which she kept her souvenirs: a withered flower, a broken cigarette-holder, two or three old b.u.t.tons that had fallen from his clothes, and a lock of hair, and it was under these that the prize of prizes lay--a string of false pearls. She liked to run them through her fingers and to see them upon her neck. She still kept the dresses she wore in her two favourite parts, the stockings and the shoes, and having nothing to do, no way of pa.s.sing the time away, she bethought herself of dressing herself in the apparel of her happy days, presenting, when the servant came up with her dinner, a spectacle that almost caused Emma to drop the dish of cold mutton.

'Lord, Mrs. Lennox, I thought I see a ghost; you in that white dress, oh, what lovely clothes!'

'These were the clothes I used to wear when I was on the stage.'

'But law, mum, why aren't you on the stage now?'

Kate began to tell her story to the servant-girl, who listened till a bell rang, and she said:

'That's Mr. So-and-So ringing for his wife; I must run and see to it. You must excuse me, mum.'

The cold mutton and the damp potatoes did not tempt her appet.i.te, and catching sight of herself in the gla.s.s, bitter thoughts of the wrongs done to her surged up in her mind. The tiny nostrils dilated and the upper lip contracted, and for ten minutes she stood, her hands grasping nervously at the back of her chair; the canine teeth showed, for the project of revenge was mounting to her head. 'He'll not be back till midnight; all this while he is with Leslie and Mrs. Forest, or some new girl perhaps. Yet when he returns to me, when he is wearied out, he expects to find me sober and pleased to see him. But he shall never see me sober or pleased to see him again.' On these words she walked across the room to the fire-place, and putting her hand up the chimney brought down a bottle of Old Tom, and sat moodily sipping gin and water till she heard his key in the lock.

'He's back earlier than I expected,' she said.

d.i.c.k entered in his usual deliberate, elephantine way. Kate made no sign till he was seated, then she asked what the news was.