The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales Part 16

He remembered now that the girl's zeal for Mission work had cooled ever since she had been walking-out with her d.i.c.k--a young stoker in the _Berenice_.

"I reckon that's the last of the dinner-guests. The others won't be comin' much before ten. Well, I'm off to the 'Oe; there's going to be fireworks, and that's the best place for seein'."

"In the way of business, too, I suppose?" said Gilbart, and wondered how he could say it.

Milly giggled. "You 'ad me there," she confessed. "But what's the good to give way? I'm sure"--with conviction--"it's just what d.i.c.k would like me to do. I'm going, anyway. So long!" She paused: "that is-- unless you'd like to come along, too?"

It was, after all, astonis.h.i.+ngly easy. Even if he found and convinced the Admiral, nothing could be done. Why then should he hasten all this misery? Was it not, rather, an act of large mercy to hold back the news? Say that by holding his tongue he delayed it by twenty-four hours; life after all was made up of days and not so very many of them.

By silence then--it stood to reason--he gained from woe a clear day for hundreds. Meanwhile here stood one of those hundreds. Might he not give her, under the very shadow of fate, an hour or two of actual, positive happiness? He told himself this, knowing all the while that he lied. He knew that the thing was easier to put off than to do. He knew that he took Milly's arm in his not to comfort her (although he meant to do this, too) but to drug his own conscience, and because he was mad-- yes, mad--for human company and support. For hours--it seemed for weeks--he had been isolated, alone with that secret and his own soul.

He could bear it no longer; he must ease the torment--only for a little--then perhaps he would go back to the Admiral. Chatter was what he wanted, the sound of a fellow-creature's voice, babbling no matter what. He knew also that he bought this respite at a price, and the price must be paid terribly when he came to wake. And yet he found it astonis.h.i.+ngly easy to take Milly's arm.

"But I say," she rattled on, "you must be soft!"

"Why?" He was drinking in the sound of her words, letting the sense run by him.

"Why, to suppose the Admiral would see you at this time. What was it about?"

"Please go on talking."

"Well, I am. What did you want to see the Admiral for? Some Mission business, I s'pose. . . .Oh, you needn't tell if you don't choose; I'm not dying to hear."

They stood side by side on the Hoe, watching the fireworks. Three or four searchlights were playing over the Sound, turned now upon the anch.o.r.ed craft, now upward, following the rockets, and again downward, crisscrossing their white rays as if to catch the dropping multi-coloured stars. "O--o--oh!" exclaimed Milly, as each shower of rockets exploded. "But what makes you jump like that?"

"I say," he asked after a time, "since we've come to enjoy ourselves why not do the thing thoroughly? What do you say to the theatre after this?"

"The theatre! Well, you are gettin' on! That would be 'eavenly.

They've got the 'Charity Girl' on this week--Gertie Lennox dancing.

But don't you disapprove of that sort of thing?"

"So I--I mean I don't make a practice of it. But perhaps--once in a way--"

"I love it; though 'tisn't often I gets the chance. I dunno what d.i.c.k would say, though."

She said it archly, meaning to suggest that d.i.c.k might be jealous.

John Gilbart misunderstood.

"But that's foolish. Why not to-night as well as any other night?

What difference can it make to--to--" He broke off, laughing a little wildly. "We'll go and give each other moral support. We'll take tickets for the pit--no, the dress circle!"

"The dress circle!" There was awe in Milly's voice; her hand went up to her head. "They make you take your 'at off there. Oh, I couldn't!"

But he caught her by the arm and hurried her off almost at a run--the girl giggling and panting and beginning to enjoy herself amazingly.

The performance had begun; but they found seats in the front row of the dress circle, almost before she had ceased panting, and Milly was unpinning her hat and glancing up at the gallery on the chance of an envious friendly recognition. The lights, the colours, the clash of bra.s.s in the orchestra made Gilbart's head spin. A stout _tenore robusto_ in the uniform of a naval lieutenant was parading the stage in halos of mauve and green lime-light, and bawling his own praises to a semicircle of females. Gilbart's ear caught and retained but a line or two of their shrill chorus:

Through the world so wide He's old England's pride, But we'er glad now he's come back: For he's dressed in blue, And he's always true-- Heaven bless you, dear old Jack!

The sentiments of this ditty did not materially differ from those which Gilbart was in the habit of a.s.similating from his morning newspaper; nor were they much more fatuously expressed. Twenty-four hours ago he might even have applauded them as noisily as anyone in the enraptured house.

Now his gorge rose against the song, the complacent singer, the men and women who could be amused by such things. Could this be what they called the joy of living? Milly's eyes had begun to sparkle. He forgot that in this very contempt the theatre was providing what he had come to seek--a drug for conscience. And before he recognised this the drug was weakening. Horribly, stealthily, _It_ began to rea.s.sert itself. These people--what would happen if he stood up in his place and shouted _It?_ His mind played with the temptation; he saw white faces, men standing and looking up at him, the performance on the stage arrested, the orchestra mute; almost he heard his voice ring out over the sudden frozen consternation. No; he gripped the velvet cus.h.i.+on before him. "I must sit it out. I will sit it out."

And he did, though he suffered horribly. Milly found him a desperately dull companion, but luckily her neighbours' dresses and ornaments diverted her between the acts. She would have liked an orange; but it appeared that oranges were not eaten in the dress circle.

Outside the theatre door in the great portico Gilbart flung up both hands and let out a long, shuddering sigh.

"My! What's the matter with you?" asked Milly.

"Come along and have some supper."

He led her to a supper-room. "Well, you do know how to do things," she said. But it frightened her when he ordered champagne. She looked at him nervously. "I've never tasted it," she confessed; "and"--with a glance around the room--"and I don't think I like it."

She drank her gla.s.sful, however, while he finished the pint bottle.

Then she picked up her worn gloves.

"Must we be going?" The end had come and worse torment must begin.

"Of course we must; and 'igh time too, if you knew what mother'll say when I get home. You mustn't think I 'aven't enjoyed myself, though,"

she added, "because I 'ave."

Out in the street as they walked arm in arm she unbent still further.

"I shall tell mother, of course. She won't mind when she knows it's you, because you're so respectable. But girls 'ave to be careful."

At her door she paused before saying good-night. She loved d.i.c.k, of course; but she wondered a little what Mr. Gilbart meant. His manner had been so queer when he said, "Must we be going?"

For a moment she waited, half expecting him to say something, meaning to be angry if he said it. Such was her crude idea of coquettishness.

But John Gilbart merely shook hands, waited until the door closed behind her, and bent his steps toward home.

That was in the next street. He walked briskly up to the door--then turned on his heel and strode away rapidly. He could not go upstairs; could not face the silent hours alone. As he retreated the front door was opened. Mrs. Wilc.o.x had been sitting up for him, and had heard and recognised his footstep. He ran. After a minute the door was closed again.

At nine o'clock next morning a sentry on the seaward side of Tregantle Fort saw a man sitting below in the suns.h.i.+ne on the edge of the cliff, and took him for a tramp. It was John Gilbart. He had spent the night trudging the streets, but always returning to the pavement in front of one or the other of the two important newspaper offices. Lights shone in the upper windows of each, but all was quiet; and he saw the men leave one by one and walk away into darkness with brisk but regular footfall. A little before dawn he had caught the newspaper-train for the west, left it at the first station over the Cornish border and set his face toward the sea. His walk took him past dewy hedgerows over which the larks sang. But he neither saw nor heard. A deep peace had fallen upon him. He knew himself now; had touched the bottom of his cowardice, his falsity. He would never be happy again, but he could never deceive himself again; no, not though G.o.d interfered.

He looked out on the suns.h.i.+ne with purged eyes. Now and then he listened, as if for some sound from the horizon or the great town behind him.

_Had_ G.o.d interfered? How still the world was!

THE CELLARS OF RUEDA.

I.

I ENTER THE CELLARS.

It happened on a broiling afternoon in July 1812, and midway in a fortnight of exquisite weather, during which Wellington and Marmont faced each other across the Douro before opening the beautiful series of evolutions--or, rather, of circ.u.mvolutions--which ended suddenly on the 22nd, and locked the two armies in the prettiest pitched battle I have lived to see.

For the moment neither General desired a battle. Marmont, thrust back from Salamanca, had found a strong position where he could safely wait for reinforcements, and had indeed already collected near upon forty thousand of all arms, when, on the 8th, Bonnet marched into camp from Asturias with another six thousand infantry. He had sent, too, to borrow some divisions from Caffarelli's Army of the North. But these he expected in vain: for Bonnet's withdrawal from Asturias had laid bare the whole line of French communication, and so frightened Caffarelli for the safety of his own districts that he at once recalled the twelve thousand men he was moving down to the Douro, and in the end sent but a handful of cavalry, and that grudgingly.