CHAPTER LIV
That evening as they sat down to dinner, it might have been noticed that Mrs Downey"s face was more flushed and festal than it had been since the day was fixed for Mr. Rickman"s wedding and departure. She seated herself expansively, with a gay rustling of many frills, and smiled well pleased upon the arrangements of her table. From these signs it was evident that Mrs. Downey was expecting another boarder, a boarder of whom she had reason to be proud. Rickman noticed with dismay that the stranger"s place was laid beside his own. He knew them so well, these eternal, restless birds of pa.s.sage, draggled with their flight from one boarding-house to another. The only tolerable thing about them was that, being here to-day, they were gone to-morrow.
The new boarder was late, culpably late. But Mrs. Downey was proud of that too, as arguing that the poor bird of pa.s.sage had stayed to smooth her ruffled plumage. Mrs. Downey approved of all persons who thus voluntarily acknowledged the high ceremonial character of the Dinner. She was glad that Mr. Rickman would appear to-night in full evening dress, to rush away in the middle of the meal, a splendour the more glorious, being brief. She was waiting for the delightful moment when she would explain to the visitor that the gentleman who had just left the room was Mr. Rickman, "the reviewer and dramatic critic." She would say it, as she had said it many times before, with the easy accomplished smile of the hostess familiar with celebrity.
But that moment never came. The very antic.i.p.ation of it was lost in the thrill of the visitor"s belated entrance. Yet nothing could have been quieter than the manner of it. She (for it _was_ a lady) came into the room as if she had lived at Mrs. Downey"s all her life, and knew her way already from the doorway to her chair. When she said, "I"m so sorry, I"m afraid I"m rather late," she seemed to be taking for granted their recognition of a familiar personal characteristic.
Perhaps it was because she was so tall that her voice sounded like music dropped downward from a height.
There was a stir, a movement down each side of the table; it was subtle, like the flutter of light and wind, and sympathetic, answering to her footfall and the flowing rhythm of her gown. As it pa.s.sed, Mrs.
Downey"s face became if possible more luminous, Miss Bramble"s figure if possible more erect. A feeble flame flickered in Mr. Partridge"s cheeks; Mr. Soper began feeling nervously in his pocket for the box of bon-bons, his talisman of success; while Mr. Spinks appeared as if endeavouring to a.s.sume a mental att.i.tude not properly his own. Miss Bishop searched, double-chinned, for any crumbs that might have lodged in the bosom of her blouse; and Flossie, oh, Flossie became more demure, more correct, more absolutely the model of all propriety. Each was so occupied with his or herself that no one noticed the very remarkable behaviour of Mr. Rickman. He rose to his feet. He turned his back on Flossie. There was a look on his face as of a man seized with sudden terror, and about to fly.
In turning he found himself face to face with Lucia Harden.
He had the presence of mind to stand back and draw her chair from the table for her; so that his action appeared the natural movement of politeness.
Though she held out her hand by an instinct of recognition, there was a perceptible pause before she spoke. He had known that it was she before he saw her. She had to look at him twice to make quite sure.
And then, being sure, she smiled; not the slow, cold smile of politeness that dies downwards on the lips, but the swift smile of pleasure that leaps to the eyes and forehead.
"Mr. Rickman--? I think I should have known you anywhere else; but I didn"t expect to meet you here."
He looked at her courageously.
And as he looked there fell from him the past five years, the long estranging years of bitterness and misery and vain desire, and the years, still more estranging, of his madness and his folly; and not the thinnest phantom shadow of time divided him from the days of Harmouth, That moment of recognition annihilated all between; a l.u.s.tre of his life swept away in one sweep of her eyelids, dropped fathom deep and forgotten in the gaze of her pure and tender eyes. It was not the Lucia of their last meeting; the tragic and terrible Lucia who had been so divided from him by her suffering and her grief. As she had appeared to him on that evening, the last of his brief, incredible happiness, when he sat with her alone in the drawing-room at Court House, and she had declared her belief in him, so she appeared to him now. The unforgettable movements of her face, the sweet curve of her mouth (the upper lip so soft and fine that it seemed to quiver delicately with the rhythm of her pulses and her breath), the turn of her head, the lifting of her eyebrows, told him that she had kept no memory of his part in the things that had happened after that.
And he too forgot. With Lucia sitting at his right hand, he forgot the woman sitting at his left; he forgot the house of bondage, and he forgot that other house where the wedding chamber yet waited for the bride.
"I should have known you anywhere." His eyes dropped and he said no more.
That act of recognition had only lasted a second; but it had made its mark. Over the dim, fluttering table was the hush of a profound astonishment. He neither saw nor felt it; nor did he hear Mrs. Downey scattering the silence with agitated apologies.
"You"ll excuse us beginning, Miss Harden; but it"s Mr. Rickman"s night at the theatre."
Miss Harden looked at him again, lifting her eyebrows with that air of interested inquiry that he knew so well. And yet, beyond those first half dozen words he said nothing.
"Silly boy," said Mrs. Downey to herself, "why can"t he say he"s sorry he has to go. I"m sure I gave him his opportunity." She was annoyed at his rudeness.
Whether he were sorry or not, he went at his appointed time. He never knew how he got out of the room, nor how he had behaved before going.
He had simply looked at her, held her hand and left her. And he had not said a word; or none at least that he could remember.
Miss Harden was, it seemed, the guest, or the ostensible guest, of Miss Roots. And Miss Roots enjoyed herself, delighting openly in the recovery of the friend she had lost sight of for so many years. But from Mrs. Downey"s point of view the Dinner that night was not exactly a success. Mr. Rickman had behaved in an extraordinary manner. Mr.
Soper and Miss Bishop had never looked so--well, so out of place and common. And she could see that Mr. Spinks had taken advantage of the general consternation to help himself outrageously to ginger.
Lucia took her friend aside when it was over. "You might have told me he was here," said she.
"My dear, I didn"t know you knew him."
"Then, did he never--" Whatever Lucia was going to say she thought better of it.
She did not see him till the next night, after dinner, when he came to her as she was sitting in a corner of the back drawing-room alone. And as he came, she looked at him with a curiously intent yet baffled gaze, as if trying to fit a present impression to one past. And yet she could hardly have had any difficulty in recognizing him; for his face was unforgettable, unique; but she missed something in it which used to be familiar. And now she saw that what she had missed was the restless look of youth; the sensuous eagerness that had helped to make it so irregular. It had settled into the other look that she had found there more rarely; the look that strengthened and refined the mobile features, and brought them into harmony with the clean prominent lines of the chin and of the serious level brows. Of all his looks it was the one that she used to like best.
"So you"ve come back again?" he said.
"But I never was away."
"I thought you were abroad?"
"Who told you that?"
"I don"t know. I suppose I must have dreamt it."
"I think you must. I"ve been in town for the last six weeks."
"In town?"
"Yes, if Hampstead"s town. I"ve been staying with the Jewdwines.
Didn"t he tell you?"
"No, he never told me anything."
She was silent for a moment. "So _that"s_ why you never came to see me."
"To see you? I didn"t know--and if I had I shouldn"t have thought--"
He hesitated.
"Of what? Of coming to see me?"
"No, that you would have cared for me to come."
"I think that"s not a thing you ought to say. Of course I cared."
"Well, but I couldn"t take that for granted, could I?"
"Couldn"t you? Not after the messages I sent you?"
"But I never got any messages."
"Didn"t you?" Her upper lip quivered; it was as if she winced at some thought that struck her like a blow. "Then my cousin must have forgotten to give them to you. Just like him; he is shockingly careless."
Now Rickman knew it was not just like him; Jewdwine was not careless, he was in all things painfully meticulous; and he never forgot.
"I don"t think I can forgive him for that."
"You must forgive him. He is overwhelmed with work. And he isn"t really as thoughtless as you might suppose. He has given me news of you regularly. You can"t think how glad I was to hear you were getting on so well. As for the latest news of all--" She lifted her face and looked at him with her sweet kind eyes. "It _is_ true that you are going to be married?"