Carnival Part 61

"I'll get a cab," said Danby.

"No; don't leave me here all alone," cried Jenny.

"Why should you go home at all to-night?" Danby breathed in a parched whisper.

Jenny pressed her face against the jet-black window-pane and suddenly away beyond Westminster there was a low bourdon of thunder.

"Stay with me," pleaded Danby; "it's such a night for love."

"Who cares?" murmured Jenny. "I've only myself to think about."

"What did you say?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"But you will stay?"

She nodded.

Chapter XXIX: _Columbine at Dawn_

Columbine, leaden-eyed, sat up in the strange room, where over an unfamiliar chair lay huddled all her clothes. Through the luminous white fog of dawn a silver sun, breasting the house-tops, gleamed very large.

Wan with a thousand meditations, seeming frail as the mist of St.

Valentine's morning, suddenly she flung herself deep into the pillow and, buried thus, lay motionless like a marionette whose wire has snapped.

Chapter x.x.x: _Lugete, O Veneres_

The silver dawn was softened to a mother-of-pearl morning that seemed less primal than autumnal. When Danby came into the sitting-room, he found Jenny, fully dressed for departure, crouched over the ashes of last night's fire. He had a pinched, unwholesome look so early in the day, and was peevish because Jenny's presence kept him from summoning the housekeeper to bring up breakfast.

"We must get something to eat," he said.

"I don't want anything," said Jenny.

"Why not?"

"I've got a headache."

Danby tried to appear sympathetic; but his hands so early were cold as fish, and his touch made Jenny shrink.

"What a nuisance packing is. I've got a fearful lot to do to get to Charing Cross in time for the boat train."

Like many other people he tried to demonstrate his sympathy by enlarging on his own trials.

"Well?" said Jenny, regarding him from eyes pinpointed with revulsion in a critical survey that was not softened by the gray morning light, for whatever silkiness clung to the outside air was lost in the stale room.

"I wish I hadn't got to go away," said Danby awkwardly.

"Why?" Jenny asked, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up her eyes as if she had perceived upon the wall an unpleasant insect.

"Well, it seems a pity now that we've--we've got to know each other better."

"You don't think," said Jenny, chiseling the words from the very bedrock of her contempt, "you _don't_ think that because I've been in your flat all a night, you know me? Why, I don't know myself even."

"Aren't you going to come and see me off?" he asked in a ludicrous attempt at sentiment.

"See you off? See you off? Oh yes, that's a game of mine seeing off clothes-props. If you can't move," she added, "I can. Let me pa.s.s, please."

Jenny walked towards the door of the contaminated flat followed by Danby in a state of weak bewilderment.

"You'll write to me, little girl?" he asked, making a motion to detain her hand.

"You seem to think I'm struck on you," she rapped out. "But I'm not."

"Well, why did you----"

"Ah, Mr. Enquire Within," she interrupted, "you're right. Why?"

"Surely," he persisted, "the first person who----"

"The first! Hark at Mr. Early Bird. If you go out with your long soppy self like that, you'll miss your train. Ching-a-ling."

So Jenny parted from Mr. Jack Danby as long ago she had parted from Mr.

Terence O'Meagh of the Royal Leinster Fusiliers. It was typical of her pride that, in order to rob Danby of any satisfaction in his achievement, she should prefer to let him a.s.sume he was merely one of a crowd, a commonplace incident in her progress. Anything seemed more suitable to the fancy of such a despicable creature than the self-congratulation of the pioneer.

Yet, though she bore herself so bravely from the hated room which had witnessed the destruction of her inaccessibility, when she was seated alone in the taxi whirring back to Camden Town, Jenny was very near to an emotional collapse. This was averted by an instinct to review the several aspects of the experience. The actual event, happening in the normal course of a temperament's advance to completeness, scarcely distressed her. On the other hand, the circ.u.mstances and actors were abhorrent. The very existence of the Danbys was an outrage, and as for Irene, her behavior was treachery incarnate. What added bitterness to her meditations was the reflection that, however contemptuous she might show herself of the two brothers, they, with Irene to voice their absence, would have the laugh on their side. From one point of view it had been a skillful seduction effected with the deliberation of use.

Jenny was maddened by the thought that Irene would believe she had been unable to avoid it, that she had been bewitched by Jack Danby's dissolute accomplishments. She would never be able to impress Irene's stolidity with the fact that she had used Danby for her own purpose.

Irene would be bound to consider the wretched business a justification of her own dependence on the elder brother. She would triumph with damaging retorts, pointing out the fallibility of other girls when brought beneath the Danby sway, citing Jenny in a manner that would infuriate her with the impotence of argument. All larger issues were obscured by this petty annoyance, and at first her regrets were confined to wis.h.i.+ng she had played the inevitable drama of womanhood in some secret place with only her own soul for audience. Why had she stayed at Greycoat Gardens last night?

After the first vexation of her loss of prestige, deeper commentaries upon the act wrote themselves across her mind. She had intended, while her mother was still alive, to be rigidly una.s.sailable. There was weakness in her failure to sustain this resolution, and Jenny loathed weakness. What had made her carry this experience through against the finest influence upon her life? Well, it was done; but the knowledge of it must be kept from her mother. Regrets were foolish; yet she would make some reparation. She would go and live at home again and, before anything, please her mother for a long time to come. She would be extra nice to May. She would be--in parental terminology--a really good girl.

Whatever agony Maurice's love had caused her to bear, this sacrifice of her youth upon a tawdry altar had finally and effectually deadened. She could meet without a tremor now the cause of all the miserable business.

Things might have been different, were fidelity an imaginable virtue.

But it was all over now; she had consummated the aspirations of youth.

There should be an end of love henceforth. For what it was worth of bitter and sweet, she had known it. No longer was the viceroy of human destiny a riddle. He had lost his wings and lay like a foundling in the gutter. No more of such a sorry draggled G.o.d for her. Jenny's ambition now was in reconciliation with her mother to be reestablished in the well-beloved house in Hagworth Street, and in affection for old familiar things to forget the wild adventures of pa.s.sion.

The taxi swept on down the Hampstead Road until it turned off on the right to Camden Town, whose curious rococo squares mildewed and queerly ornamented seemed the abode of a fantastic depression. For all the sunlight of St. Valentine, the snowdrops looked like very foolish virgins as they s.h.i.+vered in the wind about the blackened gra.s.s, good sport for idle sparrows. The impression of faded wickedness made on Jenny's mind by Stacpole Terrace that morning suited her disgust. Every window in the row of houses was askew, c.o.c.king a sinister eye at her reappearance. Every house looked impure with a smear of green damp over the stucco. Stacpole Terrace wore an air of battered gayety fit only for sly entrances at twilight and furtive escapes in the dawn; while in one of the front gardens a stone Cupid with broken nose smirked perpetually at whatever shady intrigue came under his patronage.

It was nearly eleven o'clock when Jenny, entering the sitting-room, found Irene bunched sloppily over the fire. Mrs. Dale and her youngest daughter were busy in the kitchen. Winnie was not yet out of bed, and the head of the family was studying in the dust of his small apartment the bargains advertised in yesterday's paper.

"Why didn't you call for me last night?" Jenny demanded straight and swift.