Nevertheless she wondered why when she felt, in herself, no shame al all at the things that she was doing, she should have to lie to cover those things up. But everything in connection with the Chapel seemed to lie.--The place was wrapped in intrigue and double-dealing. How long would it be before she and Martin were out of it all?
She was to meet him by one of the lions in Trafalgar Square. She bought a golden chrysanthemum which she stuck into the belt of her black dress and she wore her coral necklace. She was tired of black. She sometimes thought she would spend all her Three Hundred Pounds on clothes ...
To-day, as soon as she was out of the house and had turned the corner into King William Street, she slipped on her ring. She kissed it before she put her glove on. He was waiting there looking like a happy schoolboy, that way that she loved him to look. That slow crooked smile of his, something that broke up his whole face into geniality and friendliness, how she adored him when he looked like that! He was wearing clothes of some rough red-brown stuff and a black knitted tie--
She was carrying something, a little parcel in tissue paper. She pressed it into his hand when they met. He opened it, just like a boy, chuckling, his eyes shining, his fingers tearing the paper in his eagerness. Her present was a round locket of thin plain gold and inside was the funniest little black faded photograph of Maggie, her head only, a wild untidy head of hair, a fat round schoolgirl face--a village snapshot of Maggie taken in St. Dreot"s when she was about fifteen.
"It"s all I had," she said. "I remembered it the other day and I found it. A travelling photographer took it one day. He came to the village and every one was taken, father and all. It"s very bad but it was the only one."
"It"s wonderful," said Martin, and truly it was wonderful. It had caught by a marvellous chance, in spite of its shabby faded darkness, the very soul of Maggie. Was it her hair, her untidy hair, or the honesty of her eyes, or the strength and trustiness of her mouth? But then it was to any one who did not know her the bad dim photograph of an untidy child, to any one who did know her the very stamp and witness of Maggie and all that she was. Maggie had spent twenty-five shillings on the locket (she had had three pounds put away from her allowance in her drawer).
It was a very simple locket, thin plain gold round and smooth, but good, and it would last.
"You darling," whispered Martin. "There couldn"t have been anything more like you if you"d been taken by the grandest photographer in London."
They started off towards Shaftesbury Avenue where the theatre was, and as they went a funny little incident occurred. They were both too happy to talk and Maggie was too happy even to think. Suddenly she was aware that some one was coming towards her whom she knew. She looked and tugged herself from that world of Martin and only Martin in which she was immersed. It was the large, smiling, rosy-cheeked, white-haired clergyman, Mr. Trenchard. Yes, certainly it was he. He had recognised her and was stopping to speak to her. Martin moved on a little and stood waiting for her. She was confused and embarra.s.sed but pleased too because he seemed glad to see her. He looked the very picture of a well-dressed, kindly, genial friend who had known her all his life. He was wearing a beautifully shining top-hat and his stiff white collar gleamed. Yes, he was glad to see her and he said so. He remembered her name. "Miss Cardinal," he called her. How had she been? What had she been doing? Had she seen Mrs. Mark? He was staying with his sister at Brown"s Hotel in Somewhere--she didn"t catch the name of the street.
His sister would be so glad if she would come and see them one day.
Would she come? He wouldn"t tie her down, but she had only to write and say she was coming ...
He took her hand and held it for a moment and looked in her eyes with the kindliest friendliest regard. He was glad to have seen her. He should tell his sister ...
He was gone and Maggie really could not be sure what she had said.
Something very silly she could be certain. Stupid the pleasure that his few words had given her, but she felt once again, as she had felt in Katherine Mark"s drawing-room, the contact with that other world, that safe, happy, comfortable, a.s.sured world in which everything was exactly what it seemed. She was glad that he liked her and that his sister liked her. Then she could not be so wild and odd and uncivilised as she often was afraid that she was. She rejoined Martin with a little added glow in her cheeks.
"Who was that?" Martin asked her rather sharply.
She told him.
"One of those humbugging parsons," he said. "He stood over you as though he"d like to eat you."
"Oh, I"m sure he"s not a humbug," she answered.
"You"d be taken in by anybody," he told her.
"Oh, no, I shouldn"t," she said. "Now forget him."
And they did. By the time they had reached Piccadilly Circus they were once more deep, deep in one another. They were back in their dark and gleaming wood.
The Lyric Theatre was their destination. Maggie drew a breath as they stepped into the hall where there stood two large stout commissionaires in blue uniforms, gold b.u.t.tons, and white gloves. People pushed past them and hurried down the stairs on either side as though a theatre were a Nothing. Maggie stood there fingering her gloves and feeling lonely. The oil painting of a beautiful lady with a row of shining teeth faced her. There were also some palms and a hole in the wall with a man behind it.
Soon they too pa.s.sed down the stairs, curtains were drawn back, and Maggie was sitting, quite suddenly, in a large desert of gold and red plush, with emptiness on every side of it and a hungry-looking crowd of people behind a wooden part.i.tion staring at her in such a way that she felt as though she had no clothes on. She gave a hurried glance at these people and turned round blushing.
"Why don"t they sit with us?" she whispered to Martin.
"They"re the Pit and we"re the Stalls," he whispered to her, but that comforted her very little.
"Won"t people come and sit where we are?" she asked.
"Oh yes; we"re early," he told her.
Soon she was more composed and happier. She sat very close to Martin, her knee against his and his hand near to hers, just touching the outside of her palm. Her ring sparkled and the three little pearls smiled at her. As he breathed she breathed too, and it seemed to her that their bodies rose and fell as one body. Without looking directly at him, which would, she knew, embarra.s.s him before all those hungry people behind her, she could out of the corner of her eye see the ruddy brown of his cheek and the hard thick curve of his shoulder. She was his, she belonged to no one else in the world, she was his utterly.
Utterly. Ever so swiftly and gently her hand brushed for an instant over his; he responded, crooking his little finger for a moment inside hers. She smiled; she turned round and looked at the people triumphantly, she felt a deep contented rest in her heart, rich and full, proud and arrogant, the mother, the lover, the sister, the child, everything to him she was ...
People came in, the theatre filled, and a hum of talk arose, then the orchestra began to tune, and soon music was playing, and Maggie would have loved to listen but the people must chatter.
When suddenly the lights went down the only thing of which she was conscious was that Martin"s hand had suddenly seized hers roughly, sharply, and was crushing it, pressing the ring into the flesh so that it hurt. Her first excited wondering thought then was:
"He doesn"t care for me any more only as a friend.--There"s the other now ..." and a strange shyness, timidity, and triumph overwhelmed her so that her eyes were full of tears and her body trembling.
But as the play continued she must listen. It was her very first play and soon it was thrilling to her so that she forgot, for a time, even Martin. Or rather Martin was mingled with it, absorbed in it, part of it, and she was there too sharing with him the very action of the story. It was a very old-fashioned play about a little Charity girl who was brought up by a kindly middle-aged gentleman who cared for nothing but books. He brought her up on his own plan with a view to marrying her afterwards. But meanwhile, of course, she saw a handsome young soldier who was young like herself, and she was naturally bored with the studious gentleman. Maggie shared all the feelings of the Charity girl. Had she been brought up, say by a man like Mr. Trenchard and then had met Martin, why, of course, she could have gone only one way.
The soldier was not like Martin, being slim and curled and beautiful, nor was the studious gentleman like Mr. Trenchard, being thin and tall with a face like a monk and a beautiful voice. But the girl was like Maggie, prettier of course, and with artful ways, but untidy a little and not very well educated. At the first interval, when the lights were up and the band was playing and the people walking, Martin whispered:
"Do you like it, Maggie?"
"I love it," she answered.
And then they just sat there, without another word between them, pressed close together.
A little song ran through the play--one of Burns"s most famous songs, although Maggie, who had never read anything, did not know that. The verses were:
O my luve"s like a red, red rose That"s newly sprung in June: O my luve"s like the melodie That"s sweetly played in tune!
As fair art thou, my bonnie la.s.s, So deep in luve am I: And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a" the seas gang dry:
Till a" the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi" the sun; I will luve thee still, my dear, While the sands o" life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only Luve, And fare thee weel a while! And I will come again, my Luve, Tho" it were ten thousand mile.
First the handsome soldier sang this to the Charity girl, and then, because it was a sentimental tune, it was always turning up through the play, and if one of the characters were not singing it the orchestra was quietly playing it. Maggie loved it; she was not sentimental but she was simple, and the tune seemed at once to belong to herself and to Martin by natural right.
As the story developed it became more unreal and Maggie"s unerring knowledge of the difference between sense and nonsense refused to credit the tall handsome villainness who confronted the Charity girl at the ball. The Charity girl had no right to be at the ball and people stood about in unnatural groups and pretended not to listen to the loud development of the plot and no one seemed to use any of their faculties. Then at the end, when the middle-aged gentleman n.o.bly surrendered his Charity girl to the handsome soldier, the little tune came back again and all was well.
They came out of the theatre into lights and shadows and mists cabs and omnibuses and crowds of people ... Maggie clung to Martin"s arm. It seemed to her, dazzled for an instant, that a great are of white piercing light cut the black street and that in the centre of this arc a tree, painted green, stood, and round the tree figures, dark shapes, and odd shadows danced. She shaded her eyes with her hand. The long shining line of Shaftesbury Avenue ran out, from her feet, into thick cl.u.s.ters of silver lights. The tree had vanished and now there were policemen and ladies in hats and strange mysterious houses. She caught above it all, between the roofs, the pale flat river of the evening sky and in this river stars like golden b.u.t.tons floated. The moon was there too, a round amber coin with the laughing face stamped upon it.
"What time is it?" she asked Martin.
"Half-past five," he said. "How early the moon rises. It"s only climbing now. See the chimney"s tossing it about."
"I must get home."
"No, no." He held her arm fiercely. "You must come to tea. That"s part of the programme. We have plenty of time before seven o"clock." She knew that she ought to return. Something seemed to tell her, as she stood there, that now was the moment to break this off. But when his hand was on her arm, when he was so close to her, she could not leave him. She would have one hour more ... He took her across the street, down into darkness, up into light. Then they went into a shop, up some stairs, and were suddenly in a little room with a table with a cloth, a window looking out into the lamp-lit square, cherry-coloured curtains and gay hunting pictures on the walls. Martin pushed a bell in the wall and a stout waiter, perspiring, smiling, a napkin in his hand, came to the door. "Tea," said Martin, and he vanished. "It"s all right," he said, drawing her to a creaking wicker armchair near the empty fireplace. "No one will interrupt us. They know me here. I ordered the room yesterday." Tea came, but she could not eat anything. In some strange way that moment in the theatre when he had pressed her hand had altered everything. She recognised in herself a new Maggie; she was excited with a thick burning excitement, she was almost sleepy with the strain of it and her cheeks were hot, but her throat icy cold. When she told him that she wasn"t hungry, he said, "I"m not either." Then he added, not looking at her, "That fellow won"t be back for an hour." He came and stood by her looking down on her. He bent forward over the chair and put his hands under her chin and pressed her face up towards his. But he did not kiss her. Then he took her hands and pulled her gently out of the chair, sat down on it himself, then, still very tenderly, put his arms round her and drew her down to him. She lay back against him, her cheek against his, his arms tight around her. He whispered to her again and again, "Darling ... Darling ... Darling."
She felt now so terribly part of him that she seemed to have lost all her own ident.i.ty. His hands, softly, tenderly pa.s.sed up and down her body, stroking her hair, her cheeks, her arms. Her mouth was against his cheek and she was utterly motionless, shivering a little sometimes and once her hand moved up and caught his and then moved away again. At last, as it seemed from an infinite distance, his voice came to her, speaking to her. "Maggie, darling," he said, "don"t go back till late to-night. You can say that those people asked you to stay to dinner.
Your aunts can"t do anything. Nothing can happen. Stay with me here and then later we"ll go and have dinner at a little place I know ... and then come back here ... come back here ... like this. Maggie, darling, say you will. You must. We mayn"t have another chance for so long.
You"re coming to me afterwards. What does it matter, a week or two earlier? What does it matter, Maggie? Stay here. Let us love one another and have something to think about ... to remember ... to remember ... to remember ..." His voice seemed to slip away into infinity as voices in a dream do. She could not say anything because she was in a dream too. She could only feel his hand stroking her face.
He seemed to take her silence for consent. He suddenly kissed her furiously, pressing her head back until it hurt. That woke her. She pushed his arms back and sprang up. Her hands were trembling. She shook her head. "No, Martin. No, not now." "Why not?" He looked at her angrily from the chair. His face was altered, he was frowning, his eyes were dark. "I"m not going to stay now." Her voice shook in spite of herself. With shaking hands she patted her dress. "Why not?" he asked again. "I"m not. I promised the aunts. Not now. It would spoil everything." "Oh, very well." He was furious with her. He wouldn"t meet her eyes. "Not now." She felt that she would cry; tears flooded her eyes. "It"s been so lovely ... Martin ... Don"t look like that. Oh, I love you too much!" She broke off. With a sudden movement she fell at his feet; kneeling there, she drew his hands to her face, she kissed them, the palms of his hands over and over again. His anger suddenly left him. He put his arms round her and kissed her, first her eyes, then her cheeks, then, gently, her mouth. "All right," he said. "Only I feel somehow ... I feel as though our time had come to an end." "But it shan"t?" He turned upon her fiercely, held her hands, looked in her face. "Maggie, do you swear that you"ll love me always, whatever I am, whatever I do?" "I swear," she answered, gazing into his eyes, "that I"ll love you always, whatever you are, whatever you do." Then she went away, leaving him by the table, staring after her. In the street she saw that her chrysanthemum was in pieces, torn and scattered and destroyed. She slipped off the ring and put it into her pocket, then, with forebodings in her heart, as though she did indeed know that her good time was over, she turned towards home. She was right. Her good time was over. That night she was left alone. Martha let her in and, regarding her darkly, said nothing. The aunts also said nothing, sitting all the evening under the green shade of the lamp in the drawing-room, Aunt Anne reading a pamphlet, Aunt Elizabeth sewing.
Maggie pretended to read but she saw no words. She saw only the green lamp like a dreadful bird suspended there and Aunt Anne"s chiselled sanct.i.ty. Over and over again she reasoned with herself. There was no cause for panic. Nothing had happened to change things--and yet--and yet everything was changed. Everything had been changed from that moment when Martin pressed her hand in the theatre. Everything! ...
Danger now of every sort. She could be brave, she could meet anything if she were only sure of Martin. But he too seemed strange to her. She remembered his dark look, his frown when she had refused him. Oh, this loneliness, this helplessness. If she could be with him, beside him, she would fear nothing. That night, the first faint suspicion of jealousy, of doubt, an agonising dart of pain at the knowledge of what it would mean to her now if he left her, stirred in her breast. This room was stifling. She got up from her chair, went to the window, looked out between the thick curtains at the dark deserted street.
"What is it, Maggie?" "Nothing, Aunt Anne." "You"re very restless, dear." "It"s close. May I open the door?" "A little, dear." She opened the door and then sat there hearing the Armed Men sway ever so slightly, tap, tap, against the wall in the pa.s.sage. That night she scarcely slept at all, only tumbling into sudden nightmare dreams when something had her by the throat and Martin was not there. In the morning as soon as she could escape she hurried to Piccadilly. Martin was waiting for her. When she saw him she realised at once that her good time was indeed over. His face was white and strained. He scarcely looked at her but stared anxiously up and down the street.