Hilda was startled. But she was relieved. Now for the first time she had the authentic sensation of being engaged. And it appeared to her that she had been engaged for a very long period, and that the engagement was a quite ordinary affair. She was relieved; yet she was also grievously saddened. She lowered the gas, and in the gloom gazed for a few seconds at the vague, huddled, sheeted, faintly moaning figure on the bed; the untidy grey hair against the pillow struck her as intolerably pathetic.
"Good night," she said softly.
And the feeble, plaintive voice responded: "Good night."
She went out, leaving the door slightly ajar.
V
In the parlour adjoining George Cannon was seated at the table. When Hilda saw him and their eyes met, she was comforted; a wave of tenderness seemed to agitate her. She realized that this man was hers, and the realization was marvellously rea.s.suring. The sound of the piano descended delicately from the drawing-room as from a great distance.
From the kitchen came the m.u.f.fled clatter of earthenware and occasionally a harsh, loud voice; it was the hour of relaxed discipline in the kitchen, where amid the final washing-up and much free discussion and banter, Florrie was recommencing her career on a grander basis.
Hilda closed the door very quietly. When she had closed it and was shut in with George Cannon her emotion grew intenser.
"I think she"ll get off now," she whispered, standing near the door.
"Have you told her?"
Hilda nodded.
"What does she say?"
Hilda raised her eyebrows: "Oh!... Well, she says we"d better keep it quiet, and make the engagement as short as possible." She blushed.
"Look here," said George. "Let"s go out, eh?"
"But--what will people say?"
"What the devil does it matter what they say? I want you to come out with me."
The whispered oath, and his defiant smile, enchanted her.
"We can go out by the area steps," he continued. "There"s two of "em sitting in the hall, but the front door"s shut. Do go and get your hat."
She left the room with an obedient smile. Pushing open Sarah"s door very gently, she groped on the hooks behind it for her hat. "It won"t matter about gloves--in the dark," she thought. "Besides, I mustn"t disturb her." Before drawing-to the door she looked again at the bed. There was neither sound nor movement. Probably Sarah Gailey slept. The dim vision of the form on the bed and the blue spark of gas in the corner produced in Hilda a mood of poignant and yet delicious sorrow.
"Why, what"s the matter?" George Cannon asked when she had returned to the parlour.
She knew that her eyes were humid with tears. Both her arms were raised above her head as she fixed the hat. This act of fixing the hat in George"s presence gave her a new pleasure. She smiled at him.
"Nothing!" she said, whispering mysteriously. "I think she"s gone off.
I"m so glad. You know she really does suffer dreadfully."
His look was uncomprehending; but she did not care. The antic.i.p.ation of going out with him was now utterly absorbing her.
He waited with his hand on the gas-tap till she was ready, and then he lowered the gas.
"Wait a moment," she whispered at the door, and with a gesture called him back into the room from the flagged pa.s.sage leading to the area steps.
On the desk was his evening gla.s.s of milk, which he drank cold in summer. She offered it to him in the twilit room like an enraptured handmaid. He had forgotten it. The fact that he had forgotten it and she had remembered it yet further increased her strange, mournful, ecstatic bliss.
"Have some," he whispered, when he had drunk.
She finished the gla.s.s, trembling. They went forth, climbing the area steps with proper precautions and escaping as thieves escape, down the street. For an instant she glimpsed the wide-open windows of the drawing-room, and the dining-room, from behind whose illuminated blinds came floating, as it were wistfully, the sound of song and chatter. She thought of Sarah Gailey p.r.o.ne and unconscious in the bas.e.m.e.nt. And she felt the moisture of the milk on her lips. "Am I happy or unhappy?" she questioned herself, and could not reply. She knew only that she was thrillingly, smartingly alive.
At the corner of Preston Street and King"s Road a landau waited.
"This is ours," said George casually.
"Ours?"
What a splendid masculine idea! How it proved that he too had been absorbed in the adventure! She admired him humbly, like a girl, like a little girl. With the most formal deference he helped her into the carriage.
"Drive towards Sh.o.r.eham," he commandingly directed the driver, and took his place by her side.
Yes! He was mature. He was a man of the world. He had had every experience. He knew how to love. That such a being was hers, that she without any effort had captured such a being, flattered her to an extreme degree. She was glorious with pride. She leaned back in the carriage negligently, affecting an absolute calm. She armed herself in her virginity. Not George Cannon himself could have guessed that only by a miracle of self-control did she prevent her hand from seeking his beneath the light rug that covered their knees! She intimidated George Cannon in that hour, and the while her heart burned with shame at the secret violence of her feelings. She thought: "This must be love. This is love!" And yet her conscience inarticulately accused her of obliquity. But she did not care, and she would not reflect. She thought that she wilfully, perversely, refused to reflect; but in reality she was quite helpless.
Under the still and feverish night the landau rolled slowly along between the invisible murmuring sea and the lighted facades of Hove.
Occasionally other carriages, containing other couples, approached, were plain for a moment, and dissolved away.
"So she thinks the engagement ought to be short?" said George Cannon.
"Yes."
"So do I!" he p.r.o.nounced with emphasis.
Hilda desired to ask him: "How short?" But she could not. She could not bring herself to put the question. She was too proud. By a short engagement, did he mean six months, three months, a month? Dared she hope that he meant... a month? This was a thought buried in the deepest fastness of her soul, a thought that she would have perished in order not to expose; but it existed.
"I think I should like to go back now," she breathed timidly, before they were beyond Hove. It was not a request to be ignored. The carriage turned. She felt relief. The sensation of being alive had been too acute to be borne, and it was now a little eased. She knew that her destiny was irrevocable, that nothing could prevent her from being George Cannon"s. Whether the destiny was evil or good did not paramountly interest her. But she wanted to rush forward into the arms of fate and know her fate. She dreamed only of the union.
BOOK V HER DELIVERANCE
CHAPTER I LOUISA UNCONTROLLED
I
Hilda, after a long railway journey, was bathing her face, arms, and neck at the large double washstand in the large double bedroom on the second floor of No. 59 Preston Street. At the back of the washstand was an unused door which gave into a small bedroom occupied by the youngest Miss Watchett. George Cannon came up quietly behind her. She pretended not to hear him. He put his hands lightly on her wet arms. Smiling with condescending indulgence, half to herself, she still pretended to ignore him, and continued her toilet.
The return from the honeymoon, which she had feared, had accomplished itself quite simply and easily. She had feared the return, because only upon the return was the marriage to be formally acknowledged and published. It had been obviously impossible to announce, during the strenuous summer season, the engagement of the landlord to a young woman who lived under the same roof with him. The consequences of such an indiscretion would have been in various ways embarra.s.sing. Hence not a word was said. Nor were definite plans for the wedding made until George remarked one evening that he would like to be married at Chichester, Chichester being the name of his new private hotel. Which exhibition of sentimentality had both startled and touched Hilda. Chichester, however, had to be renounced, owing to the difficulty of residence. The subject having been thus fairly broached, George had pursued it, and one day somewhat casually stated that he had taken a room in Lewes and meant to sleep there every night for the term imposed by the law. Less than three weeks later, Hilda had in.o.btrusively departed from No. 59, the official account being that she was to take a holiday with friends after the fatigues of August and early September. She left the train at Lewes, and there, in the presence of strangers, was married to George Cannon, who had quitted Brighton two days earlier and was supposed to be in London on business. Even Sarah Gailey, though her health had improved, did not a.s.sist at the wedding. Sarah, sole depositary of the secret, had to remain in charge of No. 59.