"No, no," interrupted Victoria fearing an avowal. "I couldn"t. I"ve been through the mill. Oh, Jack, it was awful. I"ve been cold, hungry, ill; I"ve worked ten hours a day--I"ve swabbed floors."
A hot flush rose in Holt"s fair cheeks.
"Horrible," he whispered, "but why didn"t you tell me? I"d have helped, you know I would."
"Yes, I know, but it wouldn"t have done. No, Jack, it"s no good helping women. You can help men a bit; but women, no. You only make them more dependent, weaker. If women are the poor, frivolous, ignorant things they are, it"s because they"ve been protected or told they ought to want to be protected. Besides, I"m proud. I wasn"t coming back to you until I was--well I"m not exactly rich, but--"
She indicated the room with a nod and Holt, following it, sank deeper into wonder at the room where everything spoke of culture and comfort.
"But how--?" he stammered at last, "how did you--? what happened then?"
Victoria hesitated for a moment.
"Don"t ask me just now, Jack," she said, "I"ll tell you later. Tell me about yourself. What are you doing? and where is your mother?"
Holt looked at her doubtfully. He would have liked to cross-question her, but he was the second generation of a rising family and had learned that questions must not be pressed.
"Mother?" he said vaguely. "Oh, she"s gone back to Rawsley. She never was happy here. She went back as soon as pater died; she missed the tea fights, you know, and Bethlehem and all that."
"It must have been a shock to you when your father died."
"Yes, I suppose it was. The old man and I didn"t exactly hit it off but, somehow--those things make you realise--"
"Yes, yes," said Victoria sympathetically. The similarity of deaths among the middle cla.s.ses! Every woman in the regiment had told her that "these things make you realise" when d.i.c.ky died. "But what about you?
Are you still in--in cement?"
"In cement!" Jack"s lip curled. "The day my father died I was out of cement. It"s rather awful, you know, to think that my freedom depended on his death."
"Oh, no, life depends on death," said Victoria smoothly. "Besides, we are members of one another; and when, like you, Jack, we are a minority, we suffer."
Holt looked at her doubtfully. He did not quite understand her; she had hardened, he thought.
"No," he went on, "I"ve done with the business. They turned it into a limited liability company a month ago. I"m a director because the others say they must have a Holt in it; but directors never do anything, you know."
"And you are going to do like the charwoman, going to do nothing, nothing for ever?"
"No, I don"t say that. I"ve been writing--verses you know, and some sketches."
"Writing? You must be happy now, Jack. Of course you"ll let me see them?
Are they published?"
"Yes. At least Amershams will bring out some sonnets of mine next month."
"And are you going to pa.s.s the rest of your life writing sonnets?"
"No, of course not. I want to travel. I"ll go South this winter and get some local colour. I might write a novel."
His head was thrown back on the cushion, looking out upon the blue southern sky, the bluer waters speckled as with foam by remote white sails.
"You might give me a cigarette, Jack," said Victoria. "They"re in that silver box, there."
He handed her the box and struck a match. As he held it for her his eyes fastened upon the shapely whiteness of her hands, her pink polished finger nails, the roundness of her forearm. Soft feminine scents rose from her hair; he saw the dark tendrils over the nape of her neck. Oh, to bury his lips in that warm white neck! His hand trembled as he lit his own cigarette and Victoria marked his heightened colour.
"You"ll come and see me often, Jack, won"t you?"
"May I? It"s so good of you. I"m not going South for a couple of months."
"Yes, you can always telephone. You"ll find me there under Mrs Ferris."
Holt looked at her once more.
"I don"t want you to think I"m prying. But, you wrote me saying I was to ask for Mrs Ferris. I did, of course, but, you . . . you"re not. . . .?"
"Married? No, Jack. Don"t ask me anything else. You shall know everything soon."
She got up and stood for a moment beside his chair. His eyes were fixed on her hands.
"There," she said, "come along and let me shew you the house, and my pictures, and my pack of hounds."
He followed her obediently, giving its meed of praise to all her possessions. He did not care for animals; he lacked the generation of culture which leads from cement-making to a taste for dogs. The French engravings on the stairs surprised him a little. He had a strain of puritanism in him running straight from Bethlehem, which even the reading of Swinburne and Baudelaire had not quite eradicated. A vague sense of the fitness of things made him think that somehow these were not the pictures a lady should hang; she might keep them in a portfolio.
Otherwise, there were the servants. . . .
"And what do you think of my bedroom?" asked Victoria opening the door suddenly.
Holt stood nervously on the threshold. He took in its details one by one, the blue paper, the polished mahogany, the flowered chintzes, the long gla.s.s, the lace curtains; it all looked so comfortable, so luxurious as to eclipse easily the rigidly good but ugly things he had been used to from birth onwards. He looked at the dressing table too, covered with its many bottles and brushes; then he started slightly and again a hot flush rose over his cheeks. With an effort he detached his eyes from the horrid thing he saw.
"Very pretty, very pretty," he gasped. Without waiting for Victoria he turned and went downstairs.
Within the next week they met again. Jack took no notice of her for four days, and then suddenly telephoned asking her to dine and to come to the theatre. She was still in bed and she felt low-spirited, full of fear that her trump would not make. She accepted with an alacrity that she regretted a minute later, but she was drowning and could not dally with the lifebelt. Her preparation for the dinner was as elaborate as that which had heralded her capture of Cairns, far more elaborate than any she made for the Vesuvius where insolent beauty is a greater a.s.set than beauty as such. This time she put on her mauve frock with the heavily embroidered silver shoulder straps; she wore little jewellery, merely a necklet of chased old silver and amethysts, and a ring figuring a silver chimera with tiny diamond eyes. As she surveyed herself in the long gla.s.s, the holy calm which comes over the perfectly-dressed flowed into her soul like a river of honey. She was immaculate, and from her unlined white forehead to her jewel-buckled shoes she was beautiful in every detail. Subtle scent followed her like a trainbearer.
The entire evening was a tribute. From the moment when Holt set eyes upon her and reluctantly withdrew them to direct the cabman, until they drove back through the night, she was conscious of the wave of adulation that broke at her feet. Men"s eyes followed her every movement, drank in every rise and fall of her breast, strove to catch sight of her teeth, flashing white, ruby cased. Her progress through the dining hall and the stalls was imperial in its command. As she saw men turn to look at her again, women even grudgingly a.n.a.lyse her, as homage rose round her like incense, she felt frightened; for this seemed to be her triumphant night, the zenith of her beauty and power, and perhaps its very intensity showed that it was her swan song. She felt a pain in her left leg.
Jack Holt pa.s.sed that evening at her feet. A fearful exultation was upon him. The neighbourhood of Victoria was magnetic; his heart, his senses, his aesthetic sense were equally enslaved. She realised everything he had dreamed, beauty, culture, grace, gentle wit. It hurt him physically not to tell that he loved her still, that he wanted her, that she was everything. He revelled in the thought that he had found her again, that she liked him, that he would see her whenever he wanted to, perhaps join his life with hers; then fear gripped his uneven soul, fear that he was only her toy, that now she was rich she would tire of him and cast him into a world swept by the icy blasts of regret. And all through ran the horribly suggestive memory of that which he had seen on the dressing table.
Victoria was conscious of all this storm, though unable to interpret its squalls and its lulls. Without effort she played upon him; alternately encouraging the pretty youth, bending towards him to read his programme so that he could feel her breath on his cheek, and drawing up and becoming absorbed in the play. In the darkness she felt his hand close over hers; gently but firmly she freed herself. As they drove back to St John"s Wood they hardly exchanged a word. Victoria felt tired; for in the dark, away from the crowds, the music, the admiration of her fellows, reaction had full play. Holt found he could say nothing, for every nerve in his body was tense with excitement. A hundred words were on his lips but he dared not breathe them for fear of breaking the spell.
"Come in and have a whisky and soda before you go," said Victoria in a matter of fact tone as he opened the garden gate.
He could not resist. A wonderful feeling of intimacy overwhelmed him as he watched her switch on the lights and bring out a decanter, a syphon and gla.s.ses. She put them on the table and motioned him towards it, placing one foot on the fender to warm herself before the glowing embers. His eyes did not leave hers. There was a surge of blood in his head. One of his hands fixed on her bare arm; with the other he drew her towards him, crushed her against his breast; she lay unresisting in his arms while he covered her lips, her neck, her shoulders, with hot kisses, some quick and pa.s.sionate, others lingering, full of tenderness.
Then she gently repulsed him and freed herself.
Jack," she said softly, "you shouldn"t have done that. You don"t know . . . you don"t know . . ."
He drew his hand over his forehead. His brain seemed to clear a little.
The maddening mystery of it all formed into a question.
"Victoria, why are those two razors on your dressing table?"