A Mummer's Wife Part 55

It was about eight o'clock in the evening. A light, grey fog hung over the background of the streets, and the line of the housetops was almost lost in the morose shadows that fell from a soot-coloured sky. Here and there a chimney-stack or the sharp spire of a church tore the muslin-like curtains of descending mist; and vague as the mist were her thoughts. The streets twisted, wriggling their luminous way through slime and gloom, whilst at every turning the broad, flaring windows of the public-houses marked the English highway. But Kate paid no attention to the red-lettered temptations. Docile and hopeful as a tired animal thinking of its stable, she walked through the dark crowd that pressed upon her, nor did she even notice when she was jostled, but went on, a heedless nondescript--a something in a black shawl and a quasi-respectable bonnet, a slippery stepping-stone between the low women who whispered and the workwoman who hurried home with the tin of evening beer in her hand. Like one held and guided by the power of a dream, she lost consciousness of all that was not of it. Thoughts of how d.i.c.k would receive her and forgive her were folded, entangled and broken within narrow limits of time; half an hour pa.s.sed like a minute, and she found herself at the stage-door of the theatre. Drawing the letter from her pocket, she said to the hall-keeper:

'Will you kindly give Mr. Lennox this letter? Has he arrived yet?'

'Yes, but he's busy for the moment. But,' the man added, as he examined Kate's features narrowly, 'you'll excuse me, I made a mistake; Mr. Lennox isn't in the theatre.'

At that moment the swinging door was thrust open, and the call-boy screamed:

'Mr. Lennox says you're not to let Miss Thomas pa.s.s to-night, and if there are any letters for him I'm to take them in.'

'Here's one; will you give it to Mr. Lennox?' said Kate, eagerly thrusting forward her note. 'Say that I'm waiting for an answer.'

The stage-door keeper tried to interpose, but before he could explain himself the boy had rushed away.

'All letters should be given to me,' he growled as he turned away to argue with Miss Thomas, who had just arrived. In a few minutes the call-boy came back.

'Will you please step this way,' he said to Kate.

'No, you shan't,' cried the hall-keeper; 'if you try any nonsense with me I shall send round for a policeman.'

Kate started back frightened, thinking these words were addressed to her, but a glance showed her that she was mistaken.

'Oh! how dare you talk to me like that? You're an unsophisticated beast!'

cried Miss Thomas.

'Pa.s.s under my arm, ma'am,' said the hall-keeper; 'I don't want this one to get through.' And amid a storm of violent words and the strains of distant music Kate went up a narrow staircase that creaked under the weight of a group of girls in strange dresses. When she got past them she saw d.i.c.k at the door of his room waiting for her. The table was covered with letters, the walls with bills announcing, 'a great success.'

He took her hand and placed her in a chair, and at first it seemed doubtful who would break an awkward and irritating silence. At last d.i.c.k said:

'I'm sorry to hear, Kate, that you've been ill; you're looking well now.'

'Yes, I'm better now,' she replied drearily; 'but perhaps if I'd died it would have been as well, for you can never love me again.'

'You know, my dear,' he said, equivocating, 'that we didn't get on well together.'

'Oh, d.i.c.k! I know it. You were very good to me, and I made your life wretched on account of my jealousy; but I couldn't help it, for I loved you better than a woman ever loved a man. I cannot tell you, I cannot find words to express how much I love you; you're everything to me. I lived for your love; I'm dying of it. Yes, d.i.c.k, I'm dying for love of you; I feel it here; it devours me like a fire, and what is so strange is, that nothing seems real to me except you. I never think of anything but of things that concern you. Anything that ever belonged to you I treasure up as a relic.

You know the chaplet of pearls I used to wear when we played _The Lovers Knot_. Well, I have them still, although all else has gone from me. The string was broken once or twice, and some of the pearls were lost, but I threaded them again, and it still goes round my neck. I was looking at them the other day, and it made me very sad, for it made me think of the happy days--ah, the very happy days!--we have had together before I took to ----.

But I won't speak of that. I've cured myself. Yes, I a.s.sure you, d.i.c.k, I've cured myself; and it is for that I've come to talk to you. Were I not sure that I would never touch brandy again I would not ask you to take me back, but I'd sooner die than do what I have done, for I know that I never will.

Can you--will you--my own darling d.i.c.k, give me another trial?'

The victory hung in the balance, but at that moment a superb girl, in all the splendour of long green tights, and resplendent with breastplate and spear, flung open the door.

'Look here, d.i.c.k,' she began, but seeing Kate, she stopped short, and stammered out an apology.

'I shall be down on the stage in a minute, dear,' he said, rising from his chair. The door was shut, and they were again alone; but Kate felt that chance had gone against her. The interruption had, with a sudden shock, killed the emotions she had succeeded in awakening, and had supplied d.i.c.k with an answer that would lead him, by a way after his own heart, straight out of his difficulty.

'My dear,' he said, rising from his chair, 'I'm glad you've given up the--you know what--for, between you and me, that was the cause of all our trouble; but, candidly speaking, I don't think it would be advisable for us to live together, at least for the present, and I'll tell you why. I know that you love me very much, but, as you said yourself just now, it's your jealousy and the drink together that excites you, and leads up to those terrible rows. Now, the best plan would be for us to live apart, let us say for six months or so, until you've entirely got over your little weakness, you know; and then--why, then we'll be as happy as we used to be at Blackpool in the dear old times long ago.'

'Oh, d.i.c.k! don't say that I must wait six months; I might be dead before then. But you're not speaking the truth to me. You were just going to say that I might come back to you when the horrid girl came in. I know. Yes, I believe there's something between you.'

'Now, Kate, remember your promise not to kick up a row. I consented to see you because you said you wouldn't be violent. Here's your letter.'

'I'm not going to be violent, d.i.c.k; but six months seems such a long time.'

'It won't be as long pa.s.sing as you think. And now I must run away; they're waiting for me on the stage. Have you seen the piece? Would you like to go in front?'

'No, not to-night, d.i.c.k; I feel too sad. But won't you kiss me before I go?'

d.i.c.k bent his face and kissed her; but there was a chill in the kiss that went to her heart, and she felt that his lips would never touch hers again.

But she had no protest to make, and almost in silence she allowed herself to be shown out of the theatre. When she got into the mist she s.h.i.+vered a little, and drew her thin shawl tighter about her thin shoulders, and, with one of the choruses still ringing in her ears, she walked in the direction of the Strand. Somehow her sorrow did not seem too great for her to bear.

The interview had pa.s.sed neither as badly nor as well as had been expected, and thinking of the six months of probation that lay before her, but without being in the least able to realize their meaning, she walked dreaming through the sloppy, fog-smelling streets. The lamps were now but like furred patches of yellow laid on a dead grey background, and a mud-bespattered crowd rolled in and out of the darkness. The roofs overhead were engulfed in the soot-coloured sky that seemed to be descending on the heads of the pa.s.sengers. Men pa.s.sed carrying parcels; the white necktie of a theatre-goer was caught sight of. From Lambeth, from Islington, from Pimlico, from all the dark corners where it had been lurking in the daytime, prost.i.tution at the fading of the light, had descended on the town--portly matrons, very respectable in brown silk dresses and veils, stood in the corners of alleys and dingy courts, scorned by the younger generation; young girls of fifteen and sixteen going by in couples with wisps of dyed hair hanging about their shoulders, advertis.e.m.e.nts of their age; the elder taking the responsibility of choosing; Germans in long ulsters trafficked in guttural intonations; policemen on their beats could have looked less concerned. The English hung round the public-houses, enviously watching the arched insteps of the Frenchwomen tripping by.

Smiles there were plenty, but the fog was so thick that even the Parisians lost their native levity and wished themselves back in Paris.

At the crossing of Wellington Street she stumbled against a small man who leaned against a doorway coughing violently. They stared at each other in profound astonishment, and then Kate said in a pained and broken voice:

'Oh, Ralph! is it you?'

'Yes, indeed it is. But to think of meeting you here in London!'

They had, for the second, in a sort of way, forgotten that they had once been man and wife, and after a pause Kate said:

'But that's just what I was thinking. What are you doing in London?'

Ralph was about to answer when he was cut short by a fit of coughing. His head sank into his chest, and his little body was shaken until it seemed as if it were going to break to pieces like a bundle of sticks. Kate looked at him pityingly, and pa.s.sing unconsciously over the dividing years just as she might have done when they kept shop together in Hanley, she said:

'Oh! you know you shouldn't stop out in such weather as this: you'll be breathless to-morrow.'

'Oh no, I shan't; I've got a new remedy. But I've lost my way; that's the reason why I'm so late.'

'Perhaps I can tell you. Where are you staying?'

'In an hotel in Bedford Street, near Covent Garden.'

'Well, then, this is your way; you've come too far.'

And pa.s.sing again into the jostling crowd they walked on in silence side by side. A slanting cloud of fog had drifted from the river down into the street, creating a s.h.i.+vering and terrifying darkness. The cabs moved at walking pace, the huge omnibuses stopped belated, and their advertis.e.m.e.nts could not be read even when a block occurred close under a gas-lamp. The jewellers' windows emitted the most light; but even gold and silver wares seemed to have become tarnished in the sickening atmosphere. Then the smell from fishmongers' shops grew more sour as the a.s.sistant piled up the lobsters and flooded the marbles preparatory to closing; and, just within the circle of vision, inhaling the greasy fragrance of soup, a woman in a blue bonnet loitered near a grating.

'This is Bedford Street, I think,' said Kate, 'but it's so dark that it's impossible to see.'

'I suppose you know London well?' replied Ralph somewhat pointedly.

'Pretty well, I've been here now for some time.'

For the last three or four minutes not a word had been spoken. Kate was surprised that Ralph was not angry with her; she wanted to speak to him of old times, but it was hard to break the ice of intervening years. At last, as they stopped before the door of a small family hotel, he said:

'It's now something like four years since we parted, ain't it?'

The question startled her, and she answered nervously and hurriedly: