The Debit Account Part 11

So Evie said she was glad, and I said that I was glad too, with something about the ridiculousness of such old acquaintances standing on ceremony, and Miss Levey, I knew, was the only glad one of the three.

"Isn't it annoying, the way we always find ourselves at this gate!" she said, when at last she had dropped Evie's hands. "Aschael and I have been here at least ten times! You ought to know the way out, Mr Jeffries, a clever man like you!"

"I'm afraid I don't, but there's the man up the perch there--he'll always point out the way."

"Oh, but one doesn't like to be beaten!" she said, with a covert look at me. "Dear me, I'm quite hot! I think Aschael must have given me the slip. Perhaps you wouldn't mind finding him for me, Mr Jeffries?"

My polite "With pleasure" didn't in the least represent my feelings, but as I thought I should recognise the p.a.w.nbroker's a.s.sistant who had brought our Arab horse-tamers, I bade them stay where they were, and left them.

After I had found the ringleted Aschael it took us half-an-hour to escape from the pair of them, and even then it was done only at the cost of the invitation I had so obstinately withheld. Miss Levey was to come up with me from the F.B.C. on the following Wednesday evening, and Aschael was to fetch her away again at ten o'clock. It seemed quite a nicely balanced point whether she would kiss Evie or not when she left, but she did not, and for some minutes after we had lost sight of them I saw the man up the perch pointing out turnings and heard his calling to them.

"Deuce take her!" I muttered, twenty minutes later, when Evie and I had also been shown the way out. We had pa.s.sed the glowing parterre, and were just turning into the cool Fountain Court.

"It couldn't be helped, dear," said Evie. "It was all there was to do.

We needn't get into the habit of asking her if you don't want her."

"Oh, it doesn't matter," I answered absently. I was once more wondering whether Pepper intended to take Miss Levey over presently from the F.B.C. Already I was pretty well resolved that he should not.

And I was quite resolved on this point when Evie next spoke. We had stopped by one of the arches, and were looking over the gra.s.s plot and fountain in the middle. The Court was deliciously cool, and I should have liked Billy Izzard to make a sketch of Evie as she leaned against the pillar, dressed in soft pink muslin, her hand touching her cheek, and only her dark eyes darker than that Black Knight sweet-pea of her hair. Those eyes were full of grave thought.

"Jeff," she said diffidently by-and-by.

"What, dear?"

"You know where you left us just now----"

"Left you and Miss Levey?"

"Yes.... She told me something I think I ought to tell you."

"Oh? She didn't lose much time," I could not forbear remarking.

"It was something I know you'd far rather I told you--it was something about poor Kitty," Evie went awkwardly on.

"Oh?"...

You may guess from this "Oh?" that I had told Evie no more than I had thought fit about my meeting with Louie. Indeed, of that extraordinary walk that had begun at Swan & Edgar's corner and ended in the King's Road, Chelsea, I had told her nothing at all. When I had reached home again, at four o'clock in the morning, Evie had been in bed, Billy asleep by the ashes of the dining-room fire. He had yawned hugely and stiffly: "A-a-a-h!... I like your idea of a couple of hours in the evening, my friend! I say, you look rather done up; what have you been doing with yourself?... Evie? She went to bed at two; she would sit up till then. What time is it? Nice goings-on at the Berkeley!"

And Billy and I had lighted the fire and breakfasted, moving about quietly so as not to wake Evie. Evie did not know the exact hour of my return, and had made no remark about the condition of my hat and trousers.

It seems an odd thing to say, but I simply had not dared to tell her.

When I say that she would never, never have understood I am not belittling her either; she simply would not have understood. It would have been different had I been able to tell her all, but better nothing than half. Nay, what she already knew was in its way almost too much, for of course Billy, taking studio mysteries for granted, had told her, rather as a joke against myself, of my coming upon Louie Causton. Seeing Evie's almost painful blush, he had been a little sorry he had spoken.

For while Evie liked Billy, she could never get used to the idea of his models. It was a little as if some outwardly very charming person should be in reality a known dynamiter. And even when she had grasped the model (so to speak) in theory, it had only to be made a personal matter for the blood to rise into her cheeks. Suppose I had come upon Aunt Angela thus!... So, unable to tell her all, of the later events I had told her nothing.

But now she said again, looking over the quiet Fountain Court, "It's about poor Kitty. Louie didn't tell you, I suppose?" (I had admitted having had a few words with Louie.)

"In Billy's studio, do you mean?"

"Yes."

"No," I answered, with what strictness of veracity you will observe.

I saw, by the way she dropped her great eyes and pushed a bit of gravel about with her toe, what had come over her again. Just as, on that Bank Holiday evening in the tea-garden in the Vale of Health, she had had Kitty, if not on her conscience, at any rate on her magnanimity, so she had her now. By reason of that slight emptiness and waiting state of her life (in spite of all that I could do), her thoughts still flew back.

Between my departures in the mornings and returns again o' nights, reminiscences, the freer in their play that her work was merely mechanical, still occupied her. These reminiscences welled up again in her now, and, added to them, filling her breast completely, was that half-compunctious desire of the victress for the squaring of accounts that is to be found in the exercise of compa.s.sion.

And as I saw her perturbation, something welled up in me too. She did not know I was looking at her, but I was, and already I had begun to see the only thing that would be more than temporarily efficacious against these strayings. There was only one thing. A picture came into my mind of a woman who blew a kiss from the top of a bus, played on the floor on Sundays with her boy, and found her life full and happy....

"Oh, my darling," I thought as I looked at her, "is it so very, very long--so very long and empty?... Very well.... It will modify a good many plans, but better that.... Your life too shall be full--and your arms----"

When next she looked up there was, about her eyes, a tiny bright edging of tears that did not fall.

"Jeff," she said, unusually quickly, "Kitty's ill. She has attacks of some kind. I couldn't quite make it out. I suppose Miriam Levey'll tell us all about it on Wednesday. I know you don't like Miriam, but she's awfully troubled about Kitty, and thinks she ought to be looked after.

Somebody told her--told Miriam--that poor Kitty'd been found one night walking round and round Lincolns Inn Fields, and when the policeman asked her, she couldn't remember at first where she lived. Oh, Jeff, it does seem so sad!"

Privately I found that horrible. It had been in Lincolns Inn Fields that Kitty and I had walked together, and to think of her still haunting the place, alone, I found very horrible. But if that horror was mine, it was not going to be Evie's if I could help it. I nodded gravely, and took her arm.

"Well," I said (although I was again cudgelling my brains to see how Miss Levey's visit could be frustrated), "no doubt you will hear all about it next Wednesday. I wouldn't worry till then.... What about tea?"

We left the Palace, and sought the teashop near the Bridge. Miss Levey and Aschael pa.s.sed the door of the shop as we sat, and Miss Levey waved her hand and gave us an artificially bright smile. But her goose was cooked with Jeffries & Pepper. I had far too much respect for her inquisitiveness and persistence to admit her to our new enterprise.

Between her and myself Pepper would not hesitate for long, and I intended, if necessary, to put the matter in precisely that form....

After tea, Evie and I took another turn in the Palace. It was a golden evening, with a wonderful bloom on the old walls, windows flas.h.i.+ng yellow, and the forests of twisted chimney-stacks brightly gilded. Her arm was in mine, and her hand made little delicious pressures from time to time, and ever and again her cheek seemed to be on the point of falling against my shoulder. Louie Causton's touch had not thrilled me thus. Some high forbiddance would ever have said Louie Causton and myself Nay, but here was flesh of my flesh, and the promise of sweet and rosy flesh between us--for we had spoken of it, and the west that bathed all in golden light was not more tranquil than that other heaven in our hearts....

I remember very well our journey back from Waterloo in the old horse-bus that night. I remember it because of that whispered new pact between Evie and myself. She, tired out no less by that gentle vista than by the fatigues of the day, slept for the greater part of the way with her head on my shoulder and her hat in my lap; and I had to wake her to change buses. In the new bus she settled down again; and I was left free to consider whether the promise I had pa.s.sed would or would not necessitate a hastening of matters with Pepper. If it should turn out so, so much the worse. In any case it had to be done. For fear of the seven devils, Evie's mind was no longer going to be left as it now was, swept and garnished.

As it happened, I was spared the trouble, though not the subsequent responsibility, of putting Miss Levey off for the following Wednesday evening. On the morning of that very day, as I took Judy a number of drafts, he said, in Miss Levey's hearing, "Are you doing anything to-night?"

"To-night? I'm afraid I am," I replied, though solely for Miss Levey's benefit. "To-morrow I'm not."

"To-morrow won't do. You're a dashed difficult man to get, Jeffries!"

"You should have given me a little notice," I said, though foreseeing already that Pepper would eat Miss Levey's supper that night.

"Well, we'll talk about it presently; if you can possibly put your engagement off, do.... Now, Miss Levey----"

He began to give instructions to Miss Levey.

Later in the morning Miss Levey sought me.

"Oh, Mr Jeffries," she began, very _empressee_, "I think we won't come to-night. Mr Pepper----"

"It is rather awkward," I admitted. "I'm awfully sorry----"

"Please don't apologise. It really doesn't matter. I can come up any evening, you know."

"Well, in that case----"

"We'll fix another evening. I know you and Mr Pepper have private affairs."