The Devil's Garden Part 10

"Shan't tell. Yes, I will," and he roared with laughter, "since it's you that's paying for it. Best part of seven s.h.i.+llings."

"Oh, Will, it's _wicked_!"

"Bos.h.!.+ This is the time of our lives;" and he chaffed her again about being a secret capitalist. "Blow the expense. Let the money fly. And, Mav, I on'y borrow it. This is all my affair really."

"No, no. You'll spoil half my pleasure if you don't let me pay."

But his money or her money--what did it matter? They two were one, reunited after a cruel, most bitterly cruel separation; her face was flushed with joy more than with wine, and her love poured out of her eyes like a stream of light.

They walked from the restaurant to Leicester Square, arm in arm, proud and joyous, enjoying the lamplight and noise, not minding the airless heat; but when they reached the entrance of the music hall--where he had stood gaping, solitary and sad, a few nights ago--Mavis met with disappointment.

"Oh," she said, "what a shame! They've changed the bill. Chirgwin's name is gone. He was acting here Friday night."

"How d'you know that?"

She followed him into the vestibule, and he asked her again while they waited in the crowd by the ticket office.

"I read it in the paper. Aunt and I were talking of him; and I--I had the curiosity to look at the advertis.e.m.e.nts--not dreaming that I should come so near seeing him."

"Never mind," cried Dale, in his jovial, far-carrying voice; "there'll be a many as good as him."

"Hush," she whispered. "If you talk like that, they'll know we come from the country;" and she squeezed his arm affectionately. "I don't mind a bit, dear--but there's no one so clever as Chirgwin. Really there isn't."

She at once forgot her trifling disappointment. Placed side by side in extravagantly expensive seats of the stately circle, surrounded by ladies and gentlemen in evening dress, they both gave themselves wholly to the pleasure of this unparalleled treat. All the early items of a long program astounded or charmed him; and her enjoyment was enhanced by recognizing how completely he had thrown off the narrowness or prejudice of village life. Listening to his laughter at almost indecent jokes, his e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of wonder when conjurers showed their skill, his enthusiastic clappings after acrobats had proved their strength, she understood that all his natural sternness was temporarily relaxed; he would not allow himself to be disturbed by any semi-religious notions of propriety or impropriety; he was just a jolly comrade for an evening's sport.

"Brayvo! Brayvo! By Jupiter--wouldn't 'a' credited it without the evidence of my own eyes." The gorgeous curtains had just descended upon a narrow parlor, which a j.a.panese necromancer had literally filled to overflowing with colored cardboard boxes produced from the interior of one single top hat. "See! Watch 'em, Mav." Footmen were coming in front of the curtains to remove the plethora of cardboard boxes. "They're real boxes, Mav."

Sweet music, happy laughter, brilliant light--the evening glided entrancingly, like a dream in which neither Greenwich nor any other time is kept.

During the interval before the ballet he took her out of the circle, strolled with her up and down the promenade, and gave her an American drink in a refreshment saloon. It was appallingly hot, and they were both longing to quench their thirst with something big and cold. A magnificent waiter brought them bigness and coldness in tall tumblers with straws, and they sat on a velvet divan and sucked rapturously.

Standing or seated at tables, there were young bloods with white waistcoats and cigarettes, and young ladies with rich gowns and made-up faces; through a gilded doorway one had a vista of the thronged promenade; the air was hot, exhausted, pungent with tobacco smoke; and amid the chatter of voices, the clink of gla.s.ses, the rustle of petticoats, one could only just hear the great orchestra playing chords of some fantastic march.

Suddenly Mavis felt a vaguely pleasant confusion of mind, as though the icily cold liquid, as she slowly absorbed it through the straw, was freezing her intelligence. She could not for a few moments understand what Dale was whispering at her ear.

"Between you and me and the post, Mav"--And he told her that, according to his opinion, all these women parading up and down were no better than they ought to be. They were of course, socially, much higher than the common women of the streets, but he considered them to be, morally, on the same level: although they did not accost strangers, they were all willing to sc.r.a.pe acquaintance with any one who looked as if he had money in his pocket. "Yes, London's a bit of an eye-opener, old girl." Then he laughed behind his hand, and said that she was probably the only respectable woman and virtuous wife in the whole of the theater.

Mavis, although trying to listen, answered at random.

"Will, I do believe there's spirits in this stuff--yes, and strong spirits too."

"Oh, bosh. It's just a refresher. Mostly crushed ice, and a few drops of sirup."

Mavis, however, was quite correct. At the bottom of the gla.s.s, and below the light sirupy mixture, there lurked liqueurs of which the potency was only rendered doubtful because of their low temperature.

The beginning of the long drink was absolutely delicious, so soothing and so cooling; but at the end of it was as if one had filled one's self with insidious quick-running flame.

Mavis put down her empty tumbler, and looked at it reproachfully.

"Will, it has made me come over all funny. My head's swimming."

When they got back to their seats and were watching the ballet, he too felt the consequences of guileless straw-sucking; but with him the after effects were entirely pleasurable. He felt invigorated, peaceful, ma.s.sively grand.

He sat placidly enjoying the beauty of the scene, the grace of the dancers, the vibrations of the music. The stage was dark at first, and one could merely make out that it pictured a wildly-imagined grove in the land of dreams; then it grew brighter, and one saw preposterous giant-flowers--foxgloves so big that when they opened there was a human face in each quivering bell. And the flowers came out of the earth and danced; children dressed up as birds, brown boys like beetles, slim girls like b.u.t.terflies, all came dancing, dancing; with more light every moment, till the dazzle and the blaze seemed to drive away the little people;--and then quite glorious forms appeared, pirouetting, almost flying--pink-limbed houris, fairies, nymphs--"call 'em what you please--a fair knock-out."

"It makes me go round and round," whispered Mavis.

He sat grave and silent--just nodding his head in approval of all he saw, not troubling to applaud any further, impa.s.sive as some Eastern sultan for whom slaves and courtiers had made a mask.

Then gradually his mind seemed half to detach itself from the thraldom of external objects. These novel sense impressions, pouring into him, joined themselves to old memories, and, mingling, made up a fuller stream of joy. He seemed to be able to think of five or six things at once; but, as the undercurrent of every thought, there was the same deep-flowing comfort, of which the source lay in his relief at the escape from danger. Those fairies flas.h.i.+ng about under the branches of sham trees momentarily evoked the ancient haunting distress of his youth, and out of this thought came the lofty conception of Mavis as his guardian angel. How persistently the first of those fancies lingered--after so many years! Bother the fairies or nymphs, or whatever they were. Household angels are what a man wants to bring him contentment; and keep him straight, day by day, and week by week.

Before the ballet was over, he became bored with it. Too long! Enough is as good as a feast. They were singing now as well as dancing.

The ma.s.sive, voluminously quiescent sensation induced by the liqueurs had pa.s.sed away, and in its place came increased weariness of the spectacular entertainment. The light, and the music, and the half-naked women, who still danced and pranced, were affecting his nerves unpleasantly now. He looked away from the stage, and stared at the audience. Behind him, as he knew, there were all those hussies with painted faces offering themselves for hire. And wherever he looked, he seemed to see evidences of amorous traffic. When you examined it attentively, the entire audience seemed to resolve itself into an endless repet.i.tion of the same small group of two persons of two s.e.xes, each soliciting the other's favor; a man and a woman sitting close together, the couple, the factorial two--everywhere, all round the circle, along the three visible rows of stalls, and again in the private boxes. Those wealthy men in the boxes were unquestionably accompanied by their mistresses and not by their wives or sisters.

Through the vibrating music and the super-heated atmosphere, on a river of vivid light, they were all drifting fast toward the night of love that each pair had arranged for itself.

And they too would have their night of love. He looked at his wife, and felt his pulses stirred as much now as in the far-off days of courts.h.i.+p--more, because then there was no experience of facts to strengthen his imagination. He gently pressed her arm, and thrilled at the mere contact. She was leaning back, fanning herself with her program, and he observed the roundness and whiteness of her neck, the flesh of her shoulder showing through the transparent sleeve of her blouse, the moistness and warmth of her open lips.

Yet she had told him at Rodchurch Road Station that she was attractive only to his eyes, and that she could never again arouse desire in other men. What utter nonsense! She was simply adorable.

VII

They took a cab to drive back in, and he almost carried her up to their bedroom. It was on the same floor as the other room, with the same marvelous bird's-eye view of the starlit sky and the lamplit town. He had got her to himself at last--here, high above the world, half-way to heaven. There seemed to him something poetical, almost sublime in their situation: they two alone, isolated, millions of people surrounding them and no living creature able to interfere with them.

As he knew, they were the only lodgers on this top floor; and so one need not even trouble to avoid making a noise. He gave full voice to his exultation.

"There, old lady." He had opened the window as wide as it would go, and he told her to look out. "The air--what there is of it--will do you good."

"Oh, I couldn't," and she recoiled.

"Giddy?"

"_Giddy_ isn't the word. Oh, Will, why did you let me drink that stuff--after drinking the wine?"

"I thought you'd got a better head-piece. Look at _me_. I could 'a'

stood two or three more goes at it, and bin none the worse." And he chaffed her merrily. "Here's a tale--if it ever leaks out Rodchurch way. Have you heard how Mrs. Dale behaved up in London? Went to the theater, and drunk more'n was good for her. Came out fair squiffy--so's poor Mr. Dale, he felt quite disgraced."

She was not intoxicated in an ugly way; her speech, her movements were unaffected, and yet the alcohol was troubling her brain. She looked like a child who has been overexercised at a children's party, and who comes home with eyebrows raised, eyes glowing and yet dull, and cheeks very pale.

"Oh, dear, I _am_ tired," and she sat down on a chair by the chest of drawers, and slowly took off her hat.

But she got up again and pushed Dale away, when he offered to help her in undressing.

"No, certainly not. What are you thinking of?" and she began to hum one of the pretty airs they had heard at the theater. "But, my word, Will," and she stopped humming, and laughed foolishly, "I shan't be sorry to get out of my things. It _is_ hot. This is the hottest night we've had."

"Ah, you feel it. I've got acclim'tized."