His wife had nothing to answer. He looked so ludicrous, with his dark-brown face and butter-muslin bloomers. And his mind was so ludicrously innocent. His body, however, was not so ridiculously innocent as his mind, as she knew when he turned to the other woman.
"You and I, we're more on the nonsense level, aren't we?" he said, with the new, throaty clang of naked intimacy in his voice. His wife shivered.
"Absolutely on the nonsense level," said Alice, with easy assurance.
She looked into his eyes, then she looked at the blue moccasins in the hand of the other woman. He gave a little start, as if realising something for himself.
At that moment Tom Lomas looked in, saying heartily: "Right you are, Percy! I'll have my car here in half a tick. I'm more handy with it than yours."
"Thanks, old man! You're a Christian."
"Try to be--especially when you turn Turk! Well--" He disappeared.
"I say, Lina," said Percy in his most amiable democratic way, "would you mind leaving the moccasins for the next act? We s'll be in a bit of a hole without them."
Miss M'Leod faced him and stared at him with the full blast of her forget-me-not blue eyes, from her white face.
"Will you pardon me if I don't?" she said.
"What!" he exclaimed. "Why? Why not? It's nothing but play, to amuse the people. I can't see how it can hurt the moccasins. I understand you don't quite like seeing me make a fool of myself. But, anyhow, I'm a bit of a born fool. What?"--and his blackened face laughed with a Turkish laugh. "Oh, yes, you have to realise I rather enjoy playing the fool," he resumed. "And, after all, it doesn't really hurt you, now does it? Shan't you leave us those moccasins for the last act?"
She looked at him, then at the moccasins in her hand. No, it was useless to yield to so ludicrous a person. The vulgarity of his wheedling, the commonness of the whole performance! It was useless to yield even the moccasins. It would be treachery to herself.
"I'm sorry," she said. "But I'd so much rather they weren't used for this kind of thing. I never intended them to be." She stood with her face averted from the ridiculous couple.
He changed as if she had slapped his face. He sat down on top of the low pupils' desk and gazed with glazed interest round the class-room. Alice sat beside him, in her white gauze and her bedizened face. They were like two rebuked sparrows on one twig, he with his great, easy, intimate limbs, she so light and alert. And as he sat he sank into an unconscious physical sympathy with her. Miss M'Leod walked towards the door.
"You'll have to think of something as'll do instead," he muttered to Alice in a low voice, meaning the blue moccasins. And leaning down, he drew off one of the grey shoes she had on, caressing her foot with the slip of his hand over its slim, bare shape. She hastily put the bare foot behind her other, shod foot.
Tom Lomas poked in his head, his overcoat collar turned up to his ears.
"Car's here," he said.
"Right-o! Tom! I'll chalk it up to thee, lad!" said Percy with heavy breeziness. Then, making a great effort with himself, he rose heavily and went across to the door, to his wife, saying to her, in the same stiff voice of false heartiness:
"You'll be as right as rain with Tom. You won't mind if I don't come out? No! I'd better not show myself to the audience. Well--I'm glad you came, if only for a while. Good-bye then! I'll be home after the service--but I shan't disturb you. Good-bye! Don't get wet now--" And his voice, falsely cheerful, stiff with anger, ended in a clang of indignation.
Alice Howells sat on the infants' bench in silence. She was ignored. And she was unhappy, uneasy, because of the scene.
Percy closed the door after his wife. Then he turned with a looming slowness to Alice, and said in a hoarse whisper: "Think o' that, now!"
She looked up at him anxiously. His face, in its dark pigment, was transfigured with indignant anger. His yellow-grey eyes blazed, and a great rush of anger seemed to be surging up volcanic in him. For a second his eyes rested on her upturned, troubled, dark-blue eyes, then glanced away, as if he didn't want to look at her in his anger. Even so, she felt a touch of tenderness in his glance.
"And that's all she's ever cared about--her own things and her own way," he said, in the same hoarse whisper, hoarse with suddenly-released rage. Alice Howells hung her head in silence.
"Not another damned thing, but what's her own, her own--and her own holy way--damned holy-holy-holy, all to herself." His voice shook with hoarse, whispering rage, burst out at last.
Alice Howells looked up at him in distress.
"Oh, don't say it!" she said. "I'm sure she's fond of you."
"Fond of me! Fond of me!" he blazed, with a grin of transcendent irony. "It makes her sick to look at me. I am a hairy brute, I own it. Why, she's never once touched me to be fond of me--never once--though she pretends sometimes. But a man knows--" and he made a grimace of contempt. "He knows when a woman's just stroking him, good doggie!--and when she's really a bit woman-fond of him. That woman's never been real fond of anybody or anything, all her life--she couldn't, for all her show of kindness. She's limited to herself, that woman is; and I've looked up to her as if she was God. More fool me! If God's not good-natured and good-hearted, then what is He--?"
Alice sat with her head dropped, realising once more that men aren't really fooled. She was upset, shaken by his rage, and frightened, as if she too were guilty. He had sat down blankly beside her. She glanced up at him.
"Never mind!" she said soothingly. "You'll like her again to-morrow."
He looked down at her with a grin, a grey sort of grin. "Are you going to stroke me 'good doggie!' as well?" he said.
"Why?" she asked, blank.
But he did not answer. Then after a while he resumed: "Wouldn't even leave the moccasins! And she's hung them up in my room, left them there for years--any man'd consider they were his. And I did want this show to-night to be a success! What are you going to do about it?"
"I've sent over for a pair of pale-blue satin bed-slippers of mine--they'll do just as well," she replied.
"Aye! For all that, it's done me in."
"You'll get over it."
"Happen so! She's curdled my inside, for all that. I don't know how I'm going to be civil to her."
"Perhaps you'd better stay at the rectory to-night," she said softly.
He looked into her eyes. And in that look, he transferred his allegiance.
"You don't want to be drawn in, do you?" he asked, with troubled tenderness.
But she only gazed with wide, darkened eyes into his eyes, so she was like an open, dark doorway to him. His heart beat thick, and the faint, breathless smile of passion came into his eyes again.
"You'll have to go on, Mrs. Howells. We can't keep them waiting any longer."
It was Jim Stokes, who was directing the show. They heard the clapping and stamping of the impatient audience.
"Goodness!" cried Alice Howells, darting to the door.
THE WITCH A LA MODE
When Bernard Coutts alighted at East Croydon he knew he was tempting Providence.
"I may just as well," he said to himself, "stay the night here, where I am used to the place, as go to London. I can't get to Connie's forlorn spot to-night, and I'm tired to death, so why shouldn't I do what is easiest?"
He gave his luggage to a porter.
Again, as he faced the approaching tram-car: "I don't see why I shouldn't go down to Purley. I shall just be in time for tea."
Each of these concessions to his desires he made against his conscience. But beneath his sense of shame his spirit exulted.
It was an evening of March. In the dark hollow below Crown Hill the buildings accumulated, bearing the black bulk of the church tower up into the rolling and smoking sunset.
"I know it so well," he thought. "And love it," he confessed secretly in his heart.
The car ran on familiarly. The young man listened for the swish, watched for the striking of the blue splash overhead, at the bracket. The sudden fervour of t
he spark, splashed out of the mere wire, pleased him.
"Where does it come from?" he asked himself, and a spark struck bright again. He smiled a little, roused.
The day was dying out. One by one the arc lamps fluttered or leaped alight, the strand of copper overhead glistened against the dark sky that now was deepening to the colour of monkshood. The tram-car dipped as it ran, seeming to exult. As it came clear of the houses, the young man, looking west, saw the evening star advance, a bright thing approaching from a long way off, as if it had been bathing in the surf of the daylight, and now was walking shorewards to the night. He greeted the naked star with a bow of the head, his heart surging as the car leaped.
"It seems to be greeting me across the sky--the star," he said, amused by his own vanity.
Above the colouring of the afterglow the blade of the new moon hung sharp and keen. Something recoiled in him.
"It is like a knife to be used at a sacrifice," he said to himself. Then, secretly: "I wonder for whom?"
He refused to answer this question, but he had the sense of Constance, his betrothed, waiting for him in the Vicarage in the north. He closed his eyes.
Soon the car was running full-tilt from the shadow to the fume of yellow light at the terminus, where shop on shop and lamp beyond lamp heaped golden fire on the floor of the blue night. The car, like an eager dog, ran in home, sniffing with pleasure the fume of lights.
Coutts flung away uphill. He had forgotten he was tired. From the distance he could distinguish the house, by the broad white cloth of alyssum flowers that hung down the garden walls. He ran up the steep path to the door, smelling the hyacinths in the dark, watching for the pale fluttering of daffodils and the steadier show of white crocuses on the grassy banks.
Mrs. Braithwaite herself opened the door to him.
"There!" she exclaimed. "I expected you. I had your card saying you would cross from Dieppe to-day. You wouldn't make up your mind to come here, not till the last minute, would you? No--that's what I expected. You know where to put your things; I don't think we've altered anything in the last year."
Mrs. Braithwaite chattered on, laughing all the time. She was a young widow, whose husband had been dead two years. Of medium height, sanguine in complexion and temper, there was a rich oily glisten in her skin and in her black hair, suggesting the flesh of a nut. She was dressed for the evening in a long gown of soft, mole-coloured satin.
"Of course, I'm delighted you've come," she said at last, lapsing into conventional politeness, and then, seeing his eyes, she began to laugh at her attempt at formality.
She let Coutts into a small, very warm room that had a dark, foreign sheen, owing to the black of the curtains and hangings covered thick with glistening Indian embroidery, and to the sleekness of some Indian ware. A rosy old gentleman, with exquisite white hair and side-whiskers, got up shakily and stretched out his hand. His cordial expression of welcome was rendered strange by a puzzled, wondering look of old age, and by a certain stiffness of his countenance, which now would only render a few expressions. He wrung the newcomer's hand heartily, his manner contrasting pathetically with his bowed and trembling form.
"Oh, why--why, yes, it's Mr. Coutts! H'm--ay. Well, and how are you--h'm? Sit down, sit down." The old man rose again, bowing, waving the young man into a chair. "Ay! well, and how are you? . . . What? Have some tea--come on, come along; here's the tray. Laura, ring for fresh tea for Mr. Courts. But I will do it." He suddenly remembered his old gallantry, forgot his age and uncertainty. Fumbling, he rose to go to the bell-pull.
"It's done, Pater--the tea will be in a minute," said his daughter in high, distinct tones. Mr. Cleveland sank with relief into his chair.
"You know, I'm beginning to be troubled with rheumatism," he explained in confidential tones. Mrs. Braithwaite glanced at the young man and smiled. The old gentleman babbled and chattered. He had no knowledge of his guest beyond the fact of his presence; Coutts might have been any other young man, for all his host was aware.
"You didn't tell us you were going away. Why didn't you?" asked Laura, in her distinct tones, between laughing and reproach. Coutts looked at her ironically, so that she fidgeted with some crumbs on the cloth.
"I don't know," he said. "Why do we do things?"
"I'm sure I don't know. Why do we? Because we want to, I suppose," and she ended again with a little run of laughter. Things were so amusing, and she was so healthy.
"Why do we do things, Pater?" she suddenly asked in a loud voice, glancing with a little chuckle of laughter at Coutts.
"Ay--why do we do things? What things?" said the old man, beginning to laugh with his daughter.
"Why, any of the things that we do."
"Eh? Oh!" The old man was illuminated, and delighted. "Well, now, that's a difficult question. I remember, when I was a little younger, we used to discuss Free Will--got very hot about it . . ." He laughed, and Laura laughed, then said, in a high voice:
"Oh! Free Will! We shall really think you're passé, if you revive that, Pater."
Mr. Cleveland looked puzzled for a moment. Then, as if answering a conundrum, he repeated:
"Why do we do things? Now, why do we do things?"
"I suppose," he said, in all good faith, "it's because we can't help it--eh? What?"
Laura laughed. Coutts showed his teeth in a smile.
"That's what I think, Pater," she said loudly.
"And are you still engaged to your Constance?" she asked of Coutts, with a touch of mockery this time. Coutts nodded.
"And how is she?" asked the widow.
"I believe she is very well--unless my delay has upset her," said Coutts, his tongue between his teeth. It hurt him to give pain to his fiancée, and yet he did it wilfully.
"Do you know, she always reminds me of a Bunbury--I call her your Miss Bunbury," Laura laughed.
Coutts did not answer.
"We missed you so much when you first went away," Laura began, reestablishing the proprieties.
"Thank you," he said. She began to laugh wickedly.
"On Friday evenings," she said, adding quickly: "Oh, and this is Friday evening, and Winifred is coming just as she used to--how long ago?--ten months?"
"Ten months," Coutts corroborated.
"Did you quarrel with Winifred?" she asked suddenly.
"Winifred never quarrels," he answered.
"I don't believe she does. Then why did you go away? You are such a puzzle to me, you know--and I shall never rest till I have had it out of you. Do you mind?"
"I like it," he said, quietly, flashing a laugh at her.
She laughed, then settled herself in a dignified, serious way.
"No, I can't make you out at all--nor can I Winifred. You are a pair! But it's you who are the real wonder. When are you going to be married?"
"I don't know--When I am sufficiently well off."
"I asked Winifred to come to-night," Laura confessed. The eyes of the man and woman met.
"Why is she so ironic to me?--does she really like me?" Coutts asked of himself. But Laura looked too bonny and jolly to be fretted by love.
"And Winifred won't tell me a word," she said.
"There is nothing to tell," he replied.
Laura looked at him closely for a few moments. Then she rose and left the room.
Presently there arrived a German lady with whom Coutts was slightly acquainted. At about half-past seven came Winifred Varley. Courts heard the courtly old gentleman welcoming her in the hall, heard her low voice in answer. When she entered, and saw him, he knew it was a shock to her, though she hid it as well as she could. He suffered too. After hesitating for a second in the doorway, she came forward, shook hands without speaking, only looking at him with rather frightened blue eyes. She was of medium height, sturdy in build. Her face was white and impassive, without the least trace of a smile. She was a blonde of twenty-eight, dressed in a white gown just short enough not to touch the ground. Her throat was solid and strong, her arms heavy
and white and beautiful, her blue eyes heavy with unacknowledged passion. When she had turned away from Coutts, she flushed vividly. He could see the pink in her arms and throat, and he flushed in answer.
"That blush would hurt her," he said to himself, wincing.
"I did not expect to see you," she said, with a reedy timbre of voice, as if her throat were half-closed. It made his nerves tingle.
"No--nor I you. At least . . ." He ended indefinitely.
"You have come down from Yorkshire?" she asked. Apparently she was cold and self-possessed. Yorkshire meant the Rectory where his fiancée lived; he felt the sting of sarcasm.
"No," he answered. "I am on my way there."
There was a moment's pause. Unable to resolve the situation, she turned abruptly to her hostess.
"Shall we play, then?"
They adjourned to the drawing-room. It was a large room upholstered in dull yellow. The chimney-piece took Coutts' attention. He knew it perfectly well, but this evening it had a new, lustrous fascination. Over the mellow marble of the mantel rose an immense mirror, very translucent and deep, like deep grey water. Before this mirror, shining white as moons on a soft grey sky, was a pair of statues in alabaster, two feet high. Both were nude figures. They glistened under the side lamps, rose clean and distinct from their pedestals. The Venus leaned slightly forward, as if anticipating someone's coming. Her attitude of suspense made the young man stiffen. He could see the clean suavity of her shoulders and waist reflected white on the deep mirror. She shone, catching, as she leaned forward, the glow of the lamp on her lustrous marble loins.
Laura played Brahms; the delicate, winsome German lady played Chopin; Winifred played on her violin a Grieg sonata, to Laura's accompaniment. After having sung twice, Coutts listened to the music. Unable to criticise, he listened till he was intoxicated. Winifred, as she played, swayed slightly. He watched the strong forward thrust of her neck, the powerful and angry striking of her arm. He could see the outline of her figure; she wore no corsets; and he found her of resolute independent build. Again he glanced at the Venus bending in suspense. Winifred was blonde with a solid whiteness, an isolated woman.